Olympics, Retirement and the Next Beautiful Thing: Athletes and Psilocybin Therapy
Just like half the world, I’ve spent the last few weeks watching the winter olympics on tv, and I ain’t too cool to admit I’ve been moved, inspired and entertained by the bread and circus. Sure there’s something fishy about the Rockwellian, golden-boy stories about that scrappy kid from Kalamazoo. There’s something unsettling as we robotically herald tunnel vision and marvel at hazardous levels of determination. And yeah, an Italian rapper closing the ceremony at the coliseum in Verona was both dreary and glib.
Despite the one-dimensional messaging, contrived pageantry and the just-a-tad too effusive patriotism, there’s always a story that rises above the generic chatter and reverberates with the light of humanity and affirmation. Yeah, I’m a sucker for sport and the community of dreamers it creates. I’m a sucker for witnessing those virtuosic moments, those in-between times where triumph reigns and nothing dies. Given the opportunity, I will bask in the glow of human potential and wave my pom-poms at the bold athletes who dare to challenge arbitrary limits.
And I know by heart the hard road of walking home alone—the unwelcome news from the body that it’s time to hang up the skates, the long empty hours of what the heck is next. And as painful as it is to say out loud, a lot of these Olympic athletes will leave these games under this dark cloud of uncertainty and though it may seem like an abrupt and forced transition (it is!) psychedelic therapy might just be tonic enough to peel back the years of competition, reconcile neglected pain, and re-establish a few core values as we embrace another opportunity to defy the odds and shock the world.
Reset & Repair in Psilocybin Therapy
How might ingesting a magical mushroom help an athlete as she transitions from gladiator to spectator? First and foremost, psilocybin therapy is often a comprehensive reset. With proper preparation, it shepherds us past all the noise and brings us to a safe place where we can actually look inward without the paparazzi of coaches, friends and family demanding a seat at the table.
Not just a cathartic reboot of our current operating software, mushrooms often return us to our core values, ones that get obfuscated in the relentless pursuit of perfection. They take the tunnel vision we’ve cultivated for decades and open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being. Once we identify these paths back to ourselves, we can embellish the woods around it.
Just as mushrooms provide a platform for rest and rejuvenation, they can accelerate healing too. A lot of competitive athletes often don’t have time for pain, and all those half-healed ankle sprains and torn ligaments reemerge once the body reaches its injury quota. This same kind of thing happens with emotional pain. Some folks think that schisms and ruptures from childhood—pain we never allowed ourselves to feel—still reside within us. Indeed, most hyper-competitive athletes would credit a multitude of robotic habits for their success. That ruthless efficiency suppresses the messy parts of our stories, but it doesn’t exile them. Psychedelic therapy grants us the opportunity to salvage those morals and get to know ourselves again.
Self-Confidence and Mushroom Journeys
Profound inspection aside, psilocybin therapy can also provide a jolt of confidence and a canvas of inspiration. Many athletes secretly view themselves as one-dimensional humans primarily defined by their physical ability in context with their chosen sport. This is one of the reasons retirement hits so hard. We look around the room and see all these dynamic, talented individuals and see ourselves as the pudgy wreckage of a once Olympain mind and body. Mushrooms can help us retrieve a more primal aura of self confidence, a pride untethered to athletic exploits or the expectations of others. With that newfound respect for ourselves, it’s much easier to shake off the husk of our former identities and embrace the unknown.
It’s here we encounter real inspiration. Sure, we can attend seminars, read books and talk to peers who’ve walked similar paths, but the fabric of our medicine journeys are often the stuff of gratitude and profundity. When we earn the answers ourselves, new chapters and new habits present themselves with an organic shimmer. We soon find out that the archetype of the athlete/warrior is just one of many complexities that reside within us, and nurturing another piece of yourself is not a desperate slog, but a sacred chore worth relishing.
It’s Not All Gold Medals & Glory
Of course, I’m making this seem easier than it actually is. The aforementioned tunnel vision, the invincibility complex, all the things that make athletes elite, actively prevent comprehensive transformation. Folks must really want to look inward—old warts and all—and apply the same rigor that made them exceptional on the ice to the process of preparation. They need to exile doubt and approach the process with curiosity and humility.
When we’re trained to see things as black and white, when we’ve spent our careers using pills and creams to solve problems, it’s exceptionally difficult to accept the mystery of a medicine journey and surrender ourselves to the experience. But once we do, the aftermath is a beautiful thing. Yeah, maybe we’ve hung up the skates or stashed our favorite skis, but if you look closely, you’ll still see the Olympic glimmer in our eyes as we skip confidently through an otherwise dreary Monday afternoon.
P.S. One last little admission here. While I’m talking specifically about athletes because of the olympics, this little breakdown can apply to almost any career hustle. The details and adjectives change. The metamorphosis does not.