Every Pill Needs a Skill

Traditional allopathic medicine tends to focus on dealing with problems physically/chemically. If you have a broken bone, cast it. If you have a tumor, cut the cancerous cells out. So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to mental health, main stream western medicine would use the same logic.

We often asked the question how do you feel? But how could you quantify an emotion? If you are a doctor of allopathic medicine you would attempt to quantify through measurable chemicals that physically exist in the body so that you might analyze it empirically. Your feeling must be the result of the balance of neurochemicals in your brain and in your body, because your mental state must be a direct result of what chemicals are being produced in your brain. If you view human emotion from this materialistic perspective, then it would be easy to assume that a chemical imbalance in the brain could be solved by chemical intervention in the body.

We love the idea of “give me a pill to fix ‘x’ problem and I will take it.” Unfortunately, when it comes to the mind, the answer is rarely that simple. Many individuals who struggle with their mental health are given a run of chemical substances in an attempt to “correct” the body’s balance of neurochemicals. (becoming a victim of your bodies neurochemistry as opposed to the arbiter)

What if instead you were offered holistic means to allow your body the opportunity to correct itself. Your body has the innate potential for optimal health encoded in your genome. Oftentimes, our experiences can change the expression of our genes, and as a result we develop strong pathways that reinforce our thoughts, habits, and beliefs. This neural network of established pathways become solidified into a fixed pattern, known as the Default Mode Network. Once the DFN has been established in the brain, it becomes very hard to disrupt the status quo.

Psilocybin is one of the naturally occurring chemicals in our world that research is beginning to reveal has the ability to disrupt and affect change in the default mode network. But what if you introduce a chemical to disrupt your DFN but continue on with the same habits, thoughts, and beliefs that you have always maintained? All you will be doing is resolidifying those same old patterns. If, instead, you use the mode of action of psilocybin as a window of opportunity to create new habits, thought patterns, and, ultimately, beliefs, you will actively be creating a new default mode network for yourself.

In order to experience change, you need to change yourself. Psilocybin can open the door, but you need to contribute a conscious effort, through developing new practices, changing old habits, and adapting to new diets, in order to create lasting change.

Instead of telling yourself “this is just how I feel, this is how it is always going to be” invite yourself to believe that you can create a new mind for yourself, a new Default Mode Network. One that believes it is capable of achieving any goal, one that can experience joy and gratitude even in the most trying circumstances, and one that has an undying hope for the future. You have the power to change your mind and change how you feel.