Four decades of bracing
For four decades, I white-knuckled my way through life. I held everything in a death grip, convinced control could keep me safe.
My history is complex. There was early childhood trauma, situational crises in my teen years, and now, I am the wife of a husband with a failing heart and the mother of two autistic children. The rug had been ripped out from beneath me so many times, I no longer recognized solid ground.
But there was another part of me competing with all that fear. I was an innate seeker, a learner and gatherer of information. I put myself in therapy starting at the age of twenty. Over the years, I'd discovered the origin of my hypervigilance. I knew exactly why my chair always had to face the exit door at any restaurant. I knew all the breathing techniques and grounding strategies.
But there is a chasm-wide difference between intellectualizing information and embodying it.
A few months ago, my most trusted therapist looked at me and tenderly said,
I don't know that there's much left for you here. But what about this?
And that is when she turned me toward Odyssey.
What if?
I had no prior knowledge of mushrooms, which was probably a benefit for a brain like mine because I wasn't able to overthink it. If a medical professional was telling me this could potentially help quiet my catastrophizing thoughts, my antennae were automatically up. I'd look into it.
I remember going to the Odyssey website and immediately feeling reassured by its warmth and professionalism. As a former labor and delivery nurse, it eased me to know the science behind this methodology was strong, the research remarkable. Mushrooms were something that had been proven beneficial across many different cultures and mental health settings. These weren't empty promises. They were the reassurances I needed to begin asking: What if?
That what if—that curiosity—was enough to get me on a plane to Oregon.
What if people are what heal you?
People have historically been very tricky for me. It's been hard to trust them because they've been the source of so much of my pain. When I saw that Odyssey offered both individual sessions and group retreats, I automatically gravitated toward the individual. It seemed like an impossible ask to live in a house with nine strangers when I could barely make eye contact with the cashier at the local grocery store.
On my first intake call with my facilitator, Josh, he said something so profound I felt it in my bones.
People have been the source of so much hurt for you. What if people are what heal you, too?
That juxtaposition between hurt and healing, pain and purpose, rang true. My fellow writers have infused so much wisdom into my life. My children's neurodivergence taught me radical acceptance. I began to get curious again. What if I wasn't done learning from other people? Maybe the antidote to my fear would be belonging.
That possibility was pivotal in my decision to choose the group retreat.
Getting ready
My husband was incredibly supportive. Over the years, he'd watched me try so many different modalities in pursuit of better mental health. Traditional therapy had taught me how to navigate my anxiety and complex PTSD—useful and important!—but I still didn't have the tools to sustain what I most longed for: peace, contentment, play. I wanted wonder and awe. I wanted access to what my autistic children so easily embodied: endless joy. I was going to Oregon to tap back into the parts of me that were taken so early, when trauma entered and I exited.
Once my decision was made, I fully leaned in. We had multiple virtual calls with the group prior to arriving, which helped turn ten strangers into familiar faces. I heard their fears and anxieties alongside my own, and instead of it making me more afraid, it offered invaluable reassurance. We were in this together. A sense of connection and camaraderie was already forming, even through a computer screen.
Lookout Lodge
On day one, we met at the service center to get familiar with one another and with what the next day's journey would hold. Everything felt low-pressure and deeply intentional.
And then we saw the house—though calling it a house feels like a disservice. Lookout Lodge was so much more than a lodge. If you're going to heal anywhere, let it be in the mountains of Oregon, surrounded by sweeping views and purple sunsets.
There were some jitters among us, which is only natural when you're meeting a group of strangers for the first time. But what struck me the most was how little small talk there was. I'd spent much of my life waiting for other people to meet me in the depths of conversation. No one in the carpool line was exactly wanting to talk about why we're here or where we go when we die.
But these were my people, all arriving with different intentions, but the same motivation: to learn more.
We bonded over food, music, and open windows, and somewhere in between the niceties and get-to-know-yous, the nerves began to soften.
Nothing substantial had even taken place yet, but somehow, we were already changing.
The first journey
My entire life has been built around control. I controlled myself and the people around me and called it love—when in actuality, those are two very separate energies.
As we moved through the ceremonial portion of the morning, I realized I was about to surrender the very thing keeping me safe.
In order to heal, I had to let go.
There was a facilitator beside me, Sam, who had the most calming presence. My day one journey was incredibly challenging, but it also had a profound impact on me.
As a writer, I use language to give life meaning. But anything I say from here will inevitably fall short.
I experienced a reality that was just as authentic as the one we are in right now. It was an immersion of the senses, of the spirit. At one point, I remember wondering what I would tell my dearest friend when I came to other side of this. I kept searching for the words big enough, grand enough, to do something so ineffable justice.
Eventually I landed on, Just tell her it's all so beautiful.
Just tell her it's all so beautiful.
And it was.
For a few hours, I was untethered by the limitations of a body. The part of my brain that had become so rigid, so stuck in a continuous loop of fear, judgement, and anxiety, went quiet.
I experienced a lot of reoccurring themes of death and rebirth, which at times felt dark and unnerving. But then, a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor arrived,
New life starts in the dark. Whether it's a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb. New life starts in the dark.
With that, something substantial shifted within me.
Who told us darkness has to be bad? What if it can be beautiful too?
I wasn't just thinking my way toward a different perspective. I was viscerally feeling the power of changing my own mind. And that was a tool I could continually return to for the rest of my life any time uncertainty or fear began to arise.
During the journey, I heard a voice say,
Stephanie, you're not dying. This is your second chance to live.
The meaning was loud and welcomingly clear:
I was going to come out of this and live a life that would've never been possible if I had stayed the same.
You're releasing
Journey one was a cathartic release. When we returned to Lookout Lodge, I began crying—and downloading my experience in as much detail as possible. The meaning could be applied later, but I didn't want to lose a single memory. I knew something profound had just occurred within me.
On the morning of day two, our facilitator, Josh, asked us describe how we were feeling as if it were weather. Nobody said clear blue skies. I reported the feeling of being at the beach when a cloud slides over the sun and you're uncertain when it will move. Should you go inside? Will it get brighter? Will it rain? There was that unknown again.
It's important to acknowledge that sometimes the most necessary work of our lives is not always the easiest.
But journey day two was quite different for me. Josh told us we never step in the same river twice. Always remain open. Walk through whatever doors open.
Before we even finished the opening ceremony, my tears returned. I sat on my mat, my body involuntarily shaking, convulsing, in between sobs. I reached out and grabbed my facilitator's hand—physical touch was so new to me, but now, it was all I wanted.
I asked her what was happening to me—this wasn't even the medicine—and she said,
You're releasing.
Sam reminded me that I am a mammal. In the wild, if a gazelle is lucky enough to escape the attack of a lion, it will shake for several minutes before returning to its family. But we as humans—with our highly-developed, complex brains—don't experience the luxury of easily moving on. We hold onto memories, to our traumas. We spiral into cycles of fear that subconsciously impact every aspect of our lives, in spite of our best intentions—or twenty years of talk therapy.
I had experienced so many repetitive attacks that my body was never able to release.
Now, it was letting go of decades of stored fear.
We were asked to set intentions on our journey days. My first was, 'I can sit still and watch this unfold,' which was my desperate request to relinquish control.
But my second intention was, 'I can find joy here.'
And boy, did I.
Eventually, my tears were replaced by an overwhelming calmness. The feeling of wholeness, as if that infinite void I'd carried with me my entire life was now filled by an infinite source. My mat was under a window, and I remember turning my face toward the sun and thinking, Now I know what I've been chasing. Now I know what all these years of work were for.
We cannot embody what we've never experienced.
On that day, I finally experienced peace.
Thanksgiving
After our journey was complete, our facilitators brought out beautiful platters of food. Two men were sharing a mat, hugging and laughing together. Another was quietly journaling in the corner. One attendee placed a bowl of raspberries in front of me, encouraging me to eat as my body continued to simultaneously release and absorb all that had just happened. It was the reddest berry of my life. The ripest, most organic offering of love.
We rode back to Lookout Lodge with the windows down. The chef had prepared butter chicken and curry soup, and as we ate, the word 'Thanksgiving' kept repeating in my mind. This felt like a holiday. Some of us sat in silence, some danced and sang. It was a comradery, a community, I had never known—one I will spend the rest of my life striving to find.
There is a line from Sufi I kept coming back to as I sat with my fellow seekers, realizing how fortuitous, how fortunate, we all were to be here together.
Long ago, God drew a circle in the sand around this exact moment. You were never not coming here.
I was meant to be here, with these people, in this place. During a time when the world wants to divide us, to create dangerous illusions of us versus them, this experience was a reminder of how interconnected we all are. When the ego is gone, everything softens. And what remains isn't otherness, it's unity.
Josh was right. Humans can heal you, too.
Integration day
The remainder of our time together was spent making meaning of what we experienced and preparing to carry it home. Because eventually, you have to leave the mountains and return to the emails, carpool lines, and circumstances outside of your control. The world doesn't change simply because you have.
So, the question became: How do I bring this version of myself back into the same life I left?
We did a variety of activities, both individually and as a group. We drew mind maps while folk music played. We hiked down to the river and wrote ourselves notes to be delivered back to us at some unknown time. There was so much room for reflection, to be outdoors. Set and setting matter, and there could not have been a better one.
The journey does not end when you leave. In many ways, that's where it begins. Insights can be temporary if not integrated. We were learning how to grow lasting roots.
The ripple effect
Once you return home, integration continues through group calls. We had ample opportunities to return to one another—to remind ourselves that what we experienced was real. I often find it difficult to explain what happened in Oregon to people who weren't there, but not everyone needs to fully understand.
I now have nine family members who do.
There is a window of neuroplasticity after a psychedelic journey where your brain is more open to change. As I felt life rushing back at me, I became diligent in ridding myself of old, toxic practices and introducing new ones: a simple morning meditation, breathwork, not reaching for my phone first thing in the morning. Small steps are big leaps in the betterment game.
Every day, my goal became to seek the feeling I'd so vividly experienced. Where is the peace, the contentment, the play? If something is not moving me toward that, it is not of use anymore.
The day after I arrived home, I was cleaning out our pantry. Normally, I would spend any household task (or waking hour) with my AirPods in, listening to a book or podcast.
I spent three hours in that pantry with nothing but silence and stale bags of potato chips. At one point, my husband noticed and was completely gobsmacked. He was used to wife who escaped, even in socially acceptable ways like audio books. With AirPods in, I was always detached from my senses, from the world. My kids weren't able to talk to me; my husband was unable to reach me.
Now, I was present. I was engaging with this old world in a new way.
We built a pool last summer and I'd never once gone underwater. It was always hair-washing day, always some reason as to why I stayed on the sidelines. A few days after returning home, I looked at that water and dove in. I started dancing while I washed the dishes. I built a meditation room for my kids under the stairs. It was not just music that returned to our home, it was a woman who was fully alive. I wanted to be in my body now.
There is a ripple effect to every decision you make, and with this one, the people around you benefit as much as you do.
I cannot even tell you what kind of mother my children get to have because I did this.
Who I am now
I feel infantile, in the best possible way. I am learning how to engage with the world instead of protecting myself from it.
I notice the ripeness of a peach. I turn on music in the car, a space that almost always required silence because sound overstimulated me. I'm holding my husband's hand. I'm learning how to be a human.
It feels like I'm living a life of alignment, intentionality, and curiosity. The words always leaving my lips are, What's next?
If I could talk to myself from a year ago, I would tell her that all the work was worth it. You were never not coming here. I needed those twenty years of therapy. Every tool you gather, every hardship you face. None of it is wasted, even the parts you think you don't want.
This journey taught me that joy is everywhere. All the wisdom you need is already within. What a countercultural message! How often are we told that we need something outside of us—a diet, a pill, a European cruise—to achieve the contentment and peace we long for?
But maybe we just need to return to our bodies. To leave the judgmental, preconceived, conditioned side of our brains behind long enough to remember what really matters.
It's all so beautiful.
The greatest guides
To the people who made my journey possible—my facilitators, Josh, Sabrina, Frank, and Sam:
Thank you for holding me in the most tender, intentional way, and introducing me to curiosity and awe. What incredible guides you have been. I could feel your spirit encouraging me, both then and now.
There is perhaps no greater gift than freedom, and you have given me just that.
Stephanie
In her own words, from her conversation with Odyssey · @tinklesherpants
