In this article, I want to share 5 essential touchstones that I’ve learned from psychedelics, and how these touchstones apply not only on a mushroom trip, but how they serve you in navigating the trip of life.
I like to think of every day as a psychedelic trip. How you navigate your day, how you handle your emotions, how you perceive the events that happen to you (or for you)… it’s very trippy.
And in the same way that you would prepare for a hardcore Ayahuasca ceremony or a deep profound mushroom trip, let’s prepare for the trip of life. Let’s find out what are some touchstones that can help us surf the waves of your daily trip on Planet Earth.
Intention
The first touchstone I want to share with you is Intention.
When you go into a psychedelic trip, Intention is paramount. If you do a trip unintentionally, you’re inviting all sorts of chaos. If you go in with a very clear intention — why am I doing this trip, why now, what do I want to learn, what do I want to get out of it… it sets up an energetic container that allows your trip to flow in the direction of your intention.
Life is very similar. If you begin each day with very clear intentions, the days just flow so well. If you begin your month with very clear intentions, knowing exactly what you want to get out of July 2024, you’re setting yourself up for success.
If you begin your year knowing exactly where you’re going and what you intend to achieve, no matter the ups and downs you go through, you have your North Star, you have your guiding light, your vision.
So always always be intentional. You can never be intentional enough. Before you do anything, before you agree to anything, before you go to a meeting, before you begin a new project, before you start a new business — what are my intentions? Why am I doing this? What do I truly intend to create here?
When you lack intention, when there’s not a strong enough reason for why you’re doing something, that’s when you know it’s not the right thing for you. The foundation is not there. The integrity is not there.
So Intentionality cannot be overlooked — it is the key that unlocks all other keys.
Curiosity
The second touchstone is Curiosity.
So in a psychedelic journey, when you encounter a difficult moment, or you’re having a scary experience, something dark comes up… you can panic and be afraid, or you can get curious about it.
Get curious about the darkness. Get curious about what’s showing up. Why is this uncomfortable? What are you not wanting to see about yourself in the darkness?
Curiosity dissolves fear. You cannot be curious and afraid at the same time. Curiosity was one of Steve Job’s most important values, and I can see why… it’s an incredible tool for understanding yourself, understanding life, and arriving at new unexplored solutions.
So we understand the power of curiosity in a psychedelic trip… what about the trip of life?
When you encounter a trigger in your life, when you encounter a so-called negative event, when you encounter an interaction with someone that leaves you out of sorts… before you put up your walls and resist, before you get angry, before you get defensive… get curious.
Ahhh… why do I feel this way about this person? What button did they push here? Let’s get curious.
When you feel like someone crossed your boundaries, what boundary specifically do you feel has been crossed? Let’s get curious. Let’s find out.
When you feel like your intuition is saying no about something, but your logical mind is saying yes… get curious. What’s going on here? Let’s dig deeper.
When you feel resentment around someone, instead of blaming or feeling frustrated, get curious? Ahhh… this is a curious mix of emotions I’m feeling there. What is the actual root cause of this? Let’s get curious.
Being curious dissolves blocks, it dissolves resistance, it untangles the web, and it allows you to see very clearly what needs to be seen.
Curiosity allows you to see your own blind spots. It allows you to see truth and to see through people, but most especially, to see through yourself.
Trust
The third touchstone is Trust.
Trust is absolutely crucial.
Now, on a psychedelic trip, you need to have trust in the plant medicine. You need to trust the mushrooms. You need to trust the Ayahuasca. You need to trust the plant medicine so that you can let go and let it take you where it wants to take you.
If you don’t trust, if you’re afraid… it’s going to create unnecessary resistance in your trip. It’s going to create fear, paranoia, panic… the experience will not be pleasant for you.
And I think life is exactly the same way. The more you trust Life, the more you’re able to fully let go of the need to control and the need to dictate what Life should bring you — the more you trust, the more blessings, the more love, the more abundance, and the more support you can receive from the Universe.
Have you ever a person and you can just tell that they don’t really trust you. There’s just something about the layers that they’re putting in front of themselves that don’t allow you access into their true self. And because they don’t trust you, you don’t trust them. You can’t open up your heart to them because their stance, their mental posture, is one of mistrust.
We mirror each other. To the extent that you are able to go deep with me, to that same extent I can deep with you.
I invite you to consider that life is the same way. When you mistrust life, when you doubt that the Universe has your back, when you don’t have faith in the Creator, you are mentally and vibrationally telling the simulation that you’re not ready for more abundance. You’re not ready for the blessings. If you don’t trust the Giver of the blessings, how can you receive them?
Abundance and fear don’t go together. There is no abundance without trust.
So cultivating trust in life, cultivating trust in yourself, cultivating trust in your friends, it unlocks the gates of prosperity.
Someone who is truly abundant in every sense of the word, in their personal life and their professional life, they have deep trust in themselves, they have deep trust in Life, and they have deep trust in the people they surround themselves with.
So that’s the third touchstone. Cultivate more trust in Life itself.
Surrender
The fourth touchstone is surrender.
In a psychedelic trip, the more you’re able to surrender to the flow of the trip, surrender to where the shrooms are taking you, surrender to the lessons that are coming up, surrender to the discomfort, surrender to the love and the beauty… the more you surrender, the more you are able to receive.
In the trip of life, we equally have to learn to surrender. When we try to control every little thing, we are blocking our own blessings. When we resist what’s happening in the trip of our life, we block ourselves from the gift in the situation.
So the next time something goes ‘wrong’, surrender to it. Ask yourself: what is the lesson for me here? What is the gift for me? Might this be a blessing in disguise?
That’s where curiosity helps as well. Get curious about what you think has gone wrong.
Surrender goes hand in hand with trust. You cannot surrender to Life if you don’t trust Life. So the first key is to develop and nurture the trust with Life itself. It’s your most permanent relationship, is your relationship with Life.
Then, work on surrender.
Surrender doesn’t mean giving up, it also doesn’t mean sitting back and doing nothing.
It means you are energetically tuning into and understanding the seasons of your life and the waves of life and where the waves are taking you, and with Intention (our first touchstone), you are able to surf the waves in such a way that you intend where you want to go, but you yield ultimate control to Life itself.
You surrender to Life, you surrender to the Universe, knowing that it has your back, and you balance your own personal intentions with the Universe’s intentions for you.
And when you find that balance between Intending and Surrendering, oh it’s a sweet sweet balance. You know when you’re in it.
Surrender is the key to transmuting seemingly negative situations.
Whenever you find yourself resisting life, stop, get still, breathe in, breathe out, and surrender. Surrender to what is. Surrender to what’s coming up.
Surrender to the chaos. Surrender to the heartbreak. Surrender to the grief. Surrender to the betrayal. Surrender to the joy. Surrender to the love. Surrender to the blessings.
Surrender to whatever emotions come up, they’re there to serve you, they’re there to teach you, they’re valuable gifts on your journey through the video game of life.
No Expectations
The fifth and final touchstone:
No expectations.
In a mushroom trip, you want to let go of any expectations for how the trip will go, that way, whatever happens, the trip will delight you in ways you cannot predict.
In the trip of Life … Let go of any expectations of Life, let go of any expectations of other people, let go of any expectations of how things should be, and you’ll start finding the delight in the moment by moment, present state of your life.
This is it. This present moment, this is it. It doesn’t get better than this until YOU get better.
Until you appreciate this moment for all its glory, you’re just going to be chasing.
But if you can appreciate where you are, be fully present right here right now, and whatever’s coming up next for you in life, you go into it with Intention but No Expectations, now you’re in that sweet spot.
You’re in that balance of creating, but without being attached to the results. There’s this healthy level of detachment. Things are going well, beautiful, appreciate it. Things are going not so well, let go of expectation and detach.
See yourself as a character in a movie. The reason we’re able to go to a really intense movies and enjoy the highs and the lows is because you have a healthy level of detachment. You know it’s just a movie. So you don’t get so attached to the drama that’s happening on the screen.
Now, the same is true of life. Don’t get so attached to the drama happening on the screen of your life.
3 Levels to the Simulation
There are 3 levels to the simulation:
Level 1: You are the character. A little oblivious to what’s going on around you. Just kinda playing your character. You’re fully immersed in your 3D avatar.
Level 2: You are the player. You recognize that there’s a deeper level of awareness that perceives the character, and you take a step back, and as the player, you start tweaking the character, you start seeing reality more as a game for your consciousness, than something to be taken so seriously.
Level 3: You are the programmer.
You are no longer just the player playing the character, you are the programmer designing and coding the levels in the video game of life. You’re in the control room, you’re looking at the whole maze and adjusting the layers.
The work I do and what I am so passionate about teaching now is exactly this. How to become the programmer of your life. This is what I teach in my YouTube videos and this what I teach in my 30-day program, Unlock God Mode.
How do we unlock the God Mode of the video game of life?
What are the practical tools that you can implement in your life today that can unlock greater levels of flow, abundance, love, and freedom?
Begin with the five touchstones: Intention, Curiosity, Trust, Surrender, and finally, No Expectations.
Practice these principles and watch how Life starts to flow beautifully, how you’re able to align yourself to every situation, and how you’re able to surf the waves of Life.
I hope to connect with all of you personally in the Unlock God Mode community, thank you for reading, I hope you learned something, and may you find your alignment in life.
