Well, obviously, we’re not all on mushrooms, but this world-wide panic has some startling similarities.
You don’t have to have done psychedelics to have the common knowledge that the number one symptom of taking them is gaining an understanding that we are all connected, we are all one.
Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic Research has conducted a multitude of studies over the last twenty years showing the remarkable effect that psychedelics (mainly psilocybin or ‘magic mushrooms’) can have on helping people with opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (formerly known as chronic Lyme disease), anorexia nervosa and alcohol use in people with major depression.
The effects of psychedelics allow for increased neuroplasticity, but mainly, it shows you a new reality, a way to view your life differently than before.
That’s what I think is happening here, now, because of COVID-19.
The Coronavirus is showing us a new way to live. It is opening our minds and changing our perspective so that we can never return to the way we were before, ‘normal’.
Our ‘normal’ was sick. It was unsustainable.
I recently checked in on my 2,000 email subscribers to see how they were all doing. Yes, there were some who are facing uncertain times, especially financially.
But do you know what the majority of the answers I got were? ‘I’m doing great!’
People are finally being forced to relax. To untie themselves from the cult of business and busyness. They are spending more time with their families than they ever have, being able to teach their children things they never had time for, strengthening (or breaking if need be) their relationships with their partners and, most importantly, finally understanding what is ‘essential’.
I have seen an outpouring of gratitude for what people have, instead of the insatiable need to consume the next big thing that comes along.
I have seen peoples’ eyes open up. They are re-evaluating their relationships, their jobs, their situations and their lives in general.
This has opened their eyes to changes they want to create.
Here’s the thing though;
Psychedelics don’t do the work for you, they simply show you a different reality.
The Coronavirus is showing us a new and different reality. But, when it dies out, or a vaccine is found and the world starts to go back to ‘normal’, we have choices to make.
What is our new ‘normal’ going to be?
Is it going to be rampant consumerism, not talking to our neighbours again, working 80hr weeks, stress and rapid expansion that endangers the planet?
Or have we seen a new way forward, with more emphasis on the ‘essentials’ of creating family and community, looking after our neighbours, looking after ourselves, buying only what we actually need and working together to make this world a better place?
There will be choices to make. Many will fall back into the same paradigms from which they came, but many, like you, will have the ability to make new choices that will benefit you and everyone around you.