Can psychedelics help you discover your strengths?

[Patrick Lynam]

I am 22 and lost on what career I want to do and I am currently unemployed and living at home in a small town. I have done strength test from Authentic Happiness but each time I've done the test I get different results. I have enough money to travel for a few months and am curious if going to a country where psychedelic medicine is legal and doing a ceremonial trip with ayahuasca or mushroom or even MDMA psychotherapy might help me find a path that I should follow. thanks!

[ivory]

I'd be curious to hear what your interests are. For what it's worth, I found my career simply by going to college. Eventually I found some classes I liked, changed my major, and followed it until I graduated. I didn't do any career assessments, which looking back, would have not worked for me. I'm a software engineer but back in the day I hated computers. Go figure.

[Leo Gura]

Of course, of course.

Psychedelics help you discover yourself. And since the Self is all that exists, through that you can discover anything of importance.

[David Hammond]

@Patrick Lynam Yeah, but psychedelics can also cause PTSD. So watch out, if you're already having issues then think carefully about cowboying it.

[Forestluv]

@Patrick Lynam Psychedelics reveal stuff. What might be revealed is unknown. They may reveal something you weren’t expecting or had any idea existed. As well, each person resonates differently with psychedelics.  

This is just how I would handle it. . . before investing in months of time and thousands of dollars into this travel and seeking, I would take a “trial run” and see how psyches resonate with your mind-body. This might not be readily available, yet I would put effort into tripping three times before investing so much into an elaborate trip. After three trips, I knew my mind-body resonated with psyches and I felt a calling to do an Aya retreat in Peru and live in S. America for months - which was life transforming. However, not all people resonate with psyches at their stage in life. There are a lot of variables at play. 

If you decide to take an extended trip, I would not put all the focus on a psychedelic retreat with an expectation/hope of finding a life path. That seems like the most important thing now, yet something much more important may be revealed. For example, you could get in touch with your inner-most self and become love and whole. That might be 100x more valuable than a message to become an attorney.

Going this route, I would research into the environments of the retreat.  The leaders, community, the ceremonies etc. Ime, the collective consciousness of the community had a major major impact. Your personal consciousness merges with the collective consciousness, so pick a good place, not some shady outfit. 

Also, I would not limit the trip to a retreat. If you have two plus months, you can do some serious cultural immersion. There are opportunities to live in the homes of locals cheap. You can spend time with the family, have meals with them, learn some of their language. This can greatly expand one’s consciousness. I’m more on the introverted side and spent a lot of time just observing. 

Overall, I would not have the expectation and desire of attaining something specific - like finding out what specific career I should pursue. This would limit the potential of the trip. Rather, I would have a humble and genuine intention that this be a life transforming trip. This intention will allow openness and attract life transforming events. Stay within this humble genuine intention and you will be amazed by the people that will appear during the trip. Events, insights, opportunities and experiences will appear - that you can’t even imagine right now. Yet an attitude of  - “I’m a hopeless loser with no direction in life. Maybe something on the trip will help me, even though I don’t deserve it” - is not the type of vibe that will attract the deep life transforming stuff.