I Wrote an Entire Book on Standing Out. Ketamine Showed Me I’m Still Trying to Fit In.

It’s several months after my last high-dose ketamine experience. I’m on a Zoom session with Sadaf, my integration therapist. We are talking about my people-pleasing and my desire to fit in. On the screen, in the background of my little video square, I see a copy of my own book on a bookshelf.

Ohhhh no…

In case you’re just joining, this is the third and final instalment detailing my first ever psychedelic experiences as part of a legal ketamine-assisted therapy program at Qi Integrated Health in Vancouver. Part 1 explained how and why I ended up doing high-dose ketamine, and Part 2 is my best attempt to describe what it was like and what happened during each of my three sessions.

I also want to note that this is my personal experience and not meant to reflect anything other than that. I am not advocating for the use of ketamine or trying to convince anyone to do it.

Apart from “what was it like?,” the most common question I get from other people has been “what did you take away from the whole experience of doing psychedelics?”

Short answer: a LOT. More than I expected… but not in the ways that I expected.

I don’t know why, but when I have heard people talk about receiving insights during psychedelic experiences, my intuition about how these insights arrived was totally wrong. I had assumed there would be some God-like, booming voice that spoke commandments to me.

“STEVE! I hereby give you permission to RELAX!”

“STEVE! I hereby proclaim that you are now a watercolour painter!”

That is not at all what I experienced. It felt more like reading literature or watching a great movie or visiting an art exhibit. It’s a multi-layered experience that becomes richer the more you look beneath the surface. The surface level is what’s happening. For me, that was a rollercoaster ride down through a sea of colours and patterns, an infinite void, spinning wheels of organic matter, and a series of mining and tunnelling images.

There is meaning buried in layers below the surface, though. I feel like I’ve returned to my English degree, searching for symbolism, metaphors, and themes, finding meaning in the patterns, and interpreting all of it into a cohesive narrative.

My third ketamine experience was literally about descending below the surface, passing through layers of rock and shale, and ending up in a cavern of white light. My post-experience insights arrived by metaphorically digging down through layers of accumulated cruft to find a cave filled with deeper meaning and significance.

So I’m going to share my insights as they arrived, layer by layer.

On my first trip, I descended downwards until I ended up in an infinite, eternal void and briefly thought I was dead. (FUN!) My life on Earth as a physical human being could not have felt farther away. And yet, here I was. Conscious. Without a body or an active thinking voice in my head. It felt like I was experiencing existence at its purest state.

It made me question whether there is consciousness outside the physical body, whether there is existence beyond death, and whether the entire concept of time is irrelevant or misunderstood. Was THIS eternal void the actual nature of existence and was my life just a dream or simulation?

So, you know, just minor stuff.

In the second session, there was a boatload of death and decay imagery, but there was also rebirth. It felt very much like a grim, dark version of The Circle of Life from The Lion King.

And my final experience involved this digging down through the layers of rock until I found myself in a warm, inviting cavern of light. My first read was that there was a permanent “cave” of pure existence buried under layers of reality.

There was a literal loss of control on every journey. I have sadly prized control as a superpower for most of my life and I was terrified to give it up. And yet, when it was stripped away, I felt calm, peaceful, and lighter. It was wonderful. Message received!

I now also more deeply understand what successful meditation might feel like. There was no sense of time. No future. No past. Just pure presence.

I’ve tried many times to do a meditation exercise from Sam Harris where you try to glimpse that you don’t actually have a head—specifically that your consciousness is not located behind your eyes, which is what it has always felt like for me. These ketamine experiences gave the feeling of consciousness outside of my head, and indeed, outside my entire body. And I’ve found that I can now return to that more easily because I’ve now experienced it.

Let’s go deeper…

Next, I wondered if all three trips were symbolic of my midlife journey.

Was the visitation to the infinite void me feeling lost after leaving the company I co-founded, turning 50, and having my youngest kids go to university? Was the feeling of being dead a metaphor for the death of my previous stage of life?

Was the second trip a reminder that we all constantly go through little deaths and rebirths of our identities, and that when one stage of life ends, another begins growing soon afterward? The shattering of the field of glass felt like the destruction and disintegration of my LEGO Business Man front, the destruction of my Type A/Achiever/Striver character, and so much more. Those traits may have served me well in past stages of my life, but it now feels like they’ve past their “Best Before” date. The spinning dirt thimble spitting out an endless supply of greenery represented the birthing of new things, the beginnings of the new me, a new identity, and a new phase of my life.

The descent through the layers of rock, tunnelling deep until I found the magical Cave of Love, symbolized that this new ‘rebirth’ phase should be a return to my core self.

Tunnelling down to experience this self-acceptance felt like a message to return to creative, self-expressive work, instead of… Zoom-based marketing consulting.

I have repeatedly wondered what advice my 18-year-old self would give his 54-year-old self about whether to be a writer/creative type or a Zoom-based marketing consultant. My 18-year-old self would assume he was being trolled because the answer is so obvious. Is there any young person in the history of time who has grown up wanting to be a Zoom-based marketing consultant?

One of my little mantras heading into the experience was “Release. Relax. Reconnect. Return.”

• Release: It seems that the release was the release of my previous ‘inauthentic’ identity elements.

• Relax: It was indeed very relaxing and almost a relief to do this.

• Reconnect: I felt like the Cave of Love was indeed a reconnection with myself.

• Return: After some mild panic about being dead in my first experience, I did return to my body, as evidenced by this newsletter. 😜

Are you ready to go really deep?

A big part of the post-experience process included semi-regular integration therapy sessions with my counsellor, Sadaf. I met with Sadaf every month or two and dug deeper into what the experiences meant at the very core.

During my intake assessment with Sadaf, before any of the ketamine experiences, I shared why I wanted to do it.

• I’ve felt lifelong pressure to succeed, strive, and fit in.

• When I left media, became an entrepreneur, and then a consultant (!), I lost touch with my creativity and have had enormous difficulty giving myself permission to be a creative person or artist.

• I find it really challenging to give myself permission to RELAX because I feel like I gain self-worth or success from doing more and more and more.

Continuing with the mining metaphor, after the ketamine experiences, we dug deeper and deeper into where my Type A, achiever, striver personality came from. We explored my lifelong aversion to conflict and tendency to be a people-pleaser, peacekeeper, and mediator.

Sadaf identified that I fit the role of a “Fixer,” a person who is constantly trying to control everything so there are never any problems or conflict. Talk about Sisyphus trying to push that rock up the hill…

We went deeper and deeper, into my past, into my childhood, and into distant memories. We excavated layers of societal conditioning, cultural narratives about what “success” means, school systems based on compliance and achievement, and more.

When I hit on something that felt relevant, Sadaf asked me where I felt it in my body. It was always in my throat. Not my stomach. Not my chest. Always my throat. Like my voice was being choked.

Relatively recently, we reached our own version of the Cave of Love, where I understood where these “Fixer” parts of me have come from.

It’s felt like I’ve been stifling myself for a long time, or trying to be someone in order to please other people. It’s felt like I’ve been burying my authentic voice and self, which might be why I always felt everything in my throat—I wasn’t comfortable being myself. Like my real voice was getting stuck in my throat, afraid to make it out into the world.

Here’s my theory of my career as it relates to creativity. There are two different types of creative work. There’s creativity for yourself, making the art you want to make. And there’s creativity for hire, where you get paid to put your creativity to use for someone else’s business outcomes. I have been very fortunate to have a career rooted in “creativity for hire” and I’ve enjoyed most of it immensely.

I’ve always wanted to do more personal creative work, but I have kept returning to creativity in service of the goals of others. What I’ve realized is that I’ve used business as an armour or shield to protect my creative self. I’ve been using my creativity, but it’s most often been doing a job for someone else. There is a thick layer of insulation between my authentic self and the creative work I’ve made professionally, and I don’t think that’s an accident. If people don’t like the show I produced or the episode I directed, it doesn’t feel great. Ultimately, though, it’s not about me. It’s about the project I was hired to create.

When I put out work that is a true expression of myself, though, there’s nowhere to hide. I’m fully exposed. And if people don’t like the personal work I put out, I’ve believed deep down that it would mean they don’t like ME. If I put my heart on my sleeve and people hated it, it would mean that they hate ME. That I’m not good enough. And that’s seriously scary for someone who avoids conflict, people-pleases, and attempts to build self-confidence through never-ending achievement.

My very first piece on this Substack was about Shadow Careers. It was about hiding behind creativity for hire. Again, intellectually I KNEW what I had to do, but I couldn’t embody it.

Now, after all this work and excavation, I feel like I can.

A weird aside… who knew ketamine and growing a beard could provide similar insights? My beard experiment also ended with the symbolic death of LEGO Business Man Steve, letting go of what people think of me, and more comfort with letting go of control. This is officially a running Midlife Field Guide theme.

It’s now time to return to my video call with Sadaf. We are discussing this idea of my authentic self being buried, my lifelong desire to ‘fit in’ and my fear of being judged or rejected for being different.

I look up at the screen and see myself in one of the little video boxes below Sadaf. Over my shoulder, strategically placed for all my video calls, is a copy of my book, Earn It. I have a flash of insight. My heart instantly sinks. My throat tightens up. (The throat!) I can’t believe the irony!

I wrote an ENTIRE book about the incredible power and value of standing out from everyone else, doing things differently, and embracing your authentic self. For years, I have championed being unusual and weird. I have spoken at conferences about how doing the opposite of everyone else is a better strategy than copying what’s successful. I have implored others to embrace “Creative Bravery” and make the boldest creative choices possible.

I co-founded a company called “The Department of Differentiation,” whose sole purpose was to help companies celebrate what makes them authentically unique from everyone else.

I am a genuine EXPERT in standing out, being different, being authentic, being weird, and being creative.

And when I look in the mirror, I’m the cobbler with no shoes. I haven’t given myself full permission to do what I’ve helped many, many others do: be my authentic, weird, different self.

Ironic? Funny? Sad?

Yep.

As Sadaf and I sift through all the crap we excavated over many sessions, I feel clarity, I feel my energy returning, and I feel excited to do some creative work, both personal and ‘for hire’ with clarity about the distinction between the two.

I ask Sadaf what to do next. Should we keep digging? Keep exploring? Keep analyzing?

Sadaf pauses. She looks right into the camera at me and then very calmly says, “You don’t need to do anything. There’s nothing for you to fix anymore. You’re done.”

What?

I’m done?

I realize almost instantly that she is releasing The Fixer from active duty.

What a relief! A HUGE relief.

(I also realize that during all these sessions with Sadaf, I am STILL trying to “fix” or “succeed” in figuring out every single aspect of my life and identity.)

Since this session, I’ve already noticed significant changes:

• I’ve started reading fiction again, after a LONG time of exclusively focusing on non-fiction

• I’ve generated loads of ideas for personal creative projects

• I’m less anxious, less rushed, and less obsessed with optimizing everything

• I’ve got clarity about the type of work I want to do, and the work I don’t want to do anymore. Almost like the universe has been listening, more creative work has started showing up on my doorstep.

• Overall, I am letting go of control more often and seeing a bigger perspective? “Does this really matter much in the grand scheme of things? (aka eternity ☠️)”

• I can still feel “The Fixer” itching to get in the game sometimes, but I recognize it and have mostly been successful in keeping it at bay

What a gift that I don’t need to analyze my life forever. I don’t need to excavate forever. I don’t need to figure absolutely everything out. I can just live my life and enjoy it instead of trying to ‘win’ it.

With the words, “You’re done,” Sadaf helps me achieve the one thing I’ve never been able to do: RELAX.

There’s nothing I need to fix. I can RELAX.

I’m done.

A huge thank you to Sadaf Naji for guiding me through all this, Mark Haden for advising me and connecting me with Kiem and Meredith at Qi Integrated Health, and to Gabor Maté for being so open to talking about this with me and connecting me with Mark.

Do you have any questions about undertaking this sort of psychedelic experience? Anything you’d like to know that I haven’t shared in this, or the previous parts of this experiment?

And what’s your version of seeing Earn It over your shoulder? Are you an expert in something that you have trouble doing yourself?

Let me know!

Thanks for reading,

Steve