How Psychedelics Helped Me Remember Who I Am

I didn’t go looking for psychedelics because I thought I needed healing. I went searching for something deeper, like answers to the existential questions that had always tugged at the edges of my soul: Why are we here? What is this all for? I wanted meaning, clarity, direction. What I found was something far more profound: myself.

Psychedelics didn’t hand me quick answers or shiny revelations. Instead, they held up a mirror. Gently, and sometimes not so gently, they peeled away the layers of performance, conditioning, and protection I had built up over the years. They illuminated the parts of me I had learned to hide (wounds I had long forgotten or assumed were just part of being human). And somehow, in that unraveling, I discovered something unexpected: I didn’t need to become anyone else to be whole. I already was.

This kind of healing wasn’t something I knew I wanted, let alone needed. I had grown so accustomed to carrying pain, shame, and self-doubt that they felt like parts of my identity. But the deeper I went, the more I realized: wholeness isn’t something we chase... it's something we remember.

In one particularly pivotal moment, I was overcome with the clarity that each of us is a gift. Not in a performative, self-help kind of way, but in a truth that rooted itself deep into my body. I saw that I didn’t have to change to have value. I didn’t have to prove my worth. The most powerful thing any of us can do is to be our authentic selves (fully, courageously, and with love).

Authenticity isn’t always easy. In fact, it can feel incredibly vulnerable, especially when we’ve been taught that our uniqueness is something to hide. But I’ve come to believe that it is precisely in those broken, tender, and unique parts of us that our greatest healing (and greatest contributions) are born.

Each of us carries something special. Our differences, the very things we’ve often tried to smooth over or hide, are where our superpowers live. When we dare to show up as we are (messy, honest, and whole) we give others permission to do the same. And that, I believe, is how we change the world. Not through perfection, but through presence. Not by fixing ourselves, but by loving ourselves into visibility.

That’s why I chose this path. That’s why I do the work I do. Psychedelics didn’t save me. They reminded me. They opened a doorway back to myself, and now I help others walk through that doorway, too.

We don’t need to become anything other than who we already are. We just need to remember. And in remembering, we heal...not just ourselves, but each other.