Anxiety and me

 More retreat pondering.  Just when you thought it was safe to peer back in my posts, there’s another one! I was really interested in working out exactly what happened to my brain during the trip. I had what is called a “heroic” dose of psilocybin (pronounced sill-o-sy-ben) which for everyone else “you took HOW MUCH?”  and it should have worked really quickly, and then 36 hours later I got my revelations. Did I experience an “ego death” or not? Why didn’t I get any visuals? So obviously I had to go looking. Apparently from everything I’ve read to wait for 5 hours for an effect is highly unusual. So this is what I think happened. My default mode network (DMN) which is the bit of the brain that holds the ego, feelings of self etc, first of all pushed the feelings of grief way down. It also knew they were there, and it was protecting itself from them. At the same time the DMN knew at some point I’d probably experience those feelings.  So in a sense, it was a little bit ...

 A week on. It was a week ago that I first rocked up at the retreat, and a few days ago that I was finally able to get some closure on Jill’s death. We were told that things might continue to occur when we got back home. And they certainly did, as I’ve previously described when walking around the woods. I thought that was pretty much it, but it’s continued to happen. It’s really weird, because a thought just strikes out of the blue and instantly gives you a totally different perspective on things.  Happened again today. I’ve had what can best be described as a difficult relationship with my mother. I had demonised her I think, and I had a lot of anger towards her. And I could still be angry, but there’s no point in that. I can’t actually talk to her about it because she’s been dead almost 19 years to the day. I did have a therapist for a while before I sacked her, and she suggested writing her a letter. That has always annoyed me as a concept because she’s never going to read ...

  I’m exhausted. It’s been a long few days now, and my head is still whirling with new thoughts and ideas. But I know I did the right thing. I believed in myself, and trusted my intuition and my brain came through and worked hand in hand with psilocybin to give me what I needed. I wanted to be able to say goodbye to the past. But I’ll admit it’s still scary; so many of us prefer to live in a familiar hell rather than explore an unfamiliar heaven. Not that it IS a heaven of course, but you know what I mean.  I’ve decided that this year I’m going to take a flight in a Spitfire. I’ve wanted to do so for years, but never have, for no good reason other than to punish myself by not doing it. Those days are, I hope a thing of the past, but for the next few weeks and months I have to be really cautious not to regress to different ways, old ways which are more familiar, so I’m going to continue to see my therapist.  I’m going to start wearing more colour as well. I’ll go through m...

  This is going to be long, but I promised you that I’d tell you everything, so that’s what you get. Fix a tea before we start… ready? Arrived in Amsterdam and two train journeys and two hours later I arrived at the station. We had arranged for 4 of us to then drive to the retreat which was in the countryside, really nice and peaceful. The retreat was in a converted Dutch barn. Downstairs was a long table and kitchen, with bedrooms off to the sides, stairs going upon the right with bedrooms etc to the right of that, a bridge across the dining area into the session area, which was quite large, and dark.  There were 9 of us from Ireland, the UK, Netherlands, South Africa, and Poland. I was just the oldest, youngest late 20s maybe? There were two facilitators from the Netherlands. We started by handing in phones and watches. That was a difficult thing to do, and if god himself asked for my phone he wouldn’t get it, but I was here for the experience so I gave the facilitator phone...

  Thinking back to who I was in my mid twenties to mid thirties I loved who I was. As I’ve described in the past, we were wild, carefree and happy. We had good jobs, a great social life and we were always going out to clubs and parties. I’d stand on pub tables and sing to our group of friends and they’d all join in. I loved it. I loved the attention, I loved having the confidence to do all of the things, and we were so happy. Of course there were clouds, but they just made the sky look even more blue. I enjoyed smoking weed and getting high. Oh, I do wish we had had MDMA in those days, I would have loved to take it with Jill keeping me company and keeping me safe. Those days, in hindsight, were the happiest we ever had, and of course we didn’t know it. The irony is the chosen never know they are the chosen.  But over the course of time other things took precedence and we got involved more in jobs, careers, earning money, thinking about moving to a house and doing all the adult...

  I was talking to a friend about the potential death of her husband, and was giving her advice on what it’s like, so I’m sharing my experiences here.  The very first feeling was horrified wonderment. Jill was alive one moment, and gone the next. Alive, dead. On, off. It’s that brutal and shocking. You can’t think. Everything stops, and you end up stunned as a barrage of negative emotions hits you one after another; horror, fear, terror, confusion, disbelief, overwhelming grief. I couldn’t feel my body at all; I was sitting by the fire, terribly cold from shock and I didn’t notice that my jeans had started smouldering. That mental numbness lasts for weeks. It’s not it’s all terribly sad, because it is, it’s just so hard. Everything has to be thought through; I remember I once stood in front of a door because I couldn’t work out how to open it.  But at the same time, you have to be on your mental A game. You have to sign official things, deal with the paperwork, talk to fu...

I’m way out of my comfort zone with this entry. But I’m writing it mainly for future me to comment on, post retreat. I’ve done a Q&A to serve this purpose as well. I have never felt “good enough” ever since I was a kid, but my childhood is a totally different post! I seldom find satisfaction in what I’ve achieved, and my general opinion is that if I can do something then it can’t be hard to do. So I’m going to list achievements that I’ve had, and put them all into one place. This is cringe making in the extreme for me, and I’ve never actually done it before. It feels like I’m boasting - another childhood throwback. But I’m reminding myself that I’m writing it for me, no one else, but come along for the ride if you want to. So in no particular order: All the things I do now, teaching, training, public speaking, writing, computer work, all of it. I’ve never ever had any training in how to do those things. Lots of people have said very kind things about my writing but it honestly come...

  If things aren’t weird enough here as they are, I thought it would be interesting to do a Q&A of me now, and how the future Phil responds. So I got ChatGPT involved to see what it could come up with:  Questions for You Now (Pre-Retreat): 1. What does your anxiety feel like to you right now, both physically and emotionally? My anxiety is constant over something or another, and usually over more than one thing. It feels like a tingling or pricking all over my skin, a hot flush, twisted insides, desire to run. Emotionally it’s exhausting in every way possible.  2. What specific moment or memory would you like to explore or understand better during the retreat? Of course, I’d love to spend time with Jill, but I’m less interested in either a moment or memory, more a changed way of thinking about myself. If it was memories though, I’d look back into my childhood in order to find the origins of why I am who I am.  3. If you could let go of one specific fea...