Life Coaching Translated for People Who Were Adopted — Part Six—Thought Work and Drugs, I Mean Medicine

I got derailed by taking the Wayfinder life coach training. It was like I had lost my tastebuds for life outside my front door, and I spent much of my time in my new place in Santa Cruz horizontal on the couch, watching videos from the coach training program or rewatching episodes of Great British Baking Show or Chef’s Table or any show with David Chang in it. So many of the things that used to bring me pleasure: food, dating, friends, clothes, exercise, writing, reading felt grey to me, flat. They felt like one big why bother.

I was living the life of my dreams in a beautiful little house full of beautiful things. My daughter was a handful of miles away, but my father had died, and I felt lost to myself. Who was I, an adopted person, when I no longer had parents? I could no longer define myself by saying I was or was not them. Who was I as the parent of an adult person who no longer needed a mother in the immediate, cyclonic way a child needs her mother? To have had a lifetime of purpose defined by my role in other people’s lives flake away until there was only me standing there, and this was not as fun as freedom and independence and time for yourself sounds. I felt empty inside. Erased. It was actually not a bad feeling. In many ways it was a feeling of being relaxed, of surrending, but when you have been in fight or flight your whole life, any leaning towards safety can feel bad.

Drugs became a possible problem. Another word for drugs that people use is medicine. Psychedelics have become a popular tool in the therapeutic community (again) for helping people deal with past traumatic events stored in the body and mind. The idea is that you have a trained practitioner who serves as a guide with you on these journeys. I, however, am a big believer in the idea that no one can really understand or help me, so I, against all popular recommendations, believed I could take care of myself. Me and the medicine could unlock the stuck parts in me and set me free.

I had access to Ketamine and MDMA, and when you aren’t feeling full of life and you can take a pill or snort a substance that will make you feel like a rock star or like liquid energy, the pull towards tripping is strong. Or at least it was for me. As someone who does not think to take aspirin or drink alcohol or smoke weed, I was suprised to see myself justifying how it was a good idea to take MDMA two nights in a row and top it off with Ketamine. I wanted the drugs, the medicine, to tip me over into a daily life where I felt a part of everything, one with the trees and the surfers and my own self.

I wanted to meet and live with God. Okay, let’s be honest. I wanted to realize I was God. Maybe I would need caffeine less then. Maybe I would stop worrying about every little thing so much. Maybe I would tour with Taylor Swift.

One thing I loved about both MDMA and Ketamine is that I could present a problem, some tangled thought or belief, and in the journey, the medicine tended to be very efficient, picking at the tangle like an intentional needle, pulling things apart for me, showing me where my thinking was flawed. I could give you specific examples here, but they feel private and I want to keep them to myself. Sometimes writing suffers for your own damn dignity or sense of self.

The thing is, I was becoming dependent on a substance to help me unravel my thoughts instead of trusting I could do this without risking brain and body health.

Here’s what I was avoiding: in Wayfinder training we learned a bit about thought work in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and The Work by Byron Katie. These things I dove into headfirst, studying, watching videos, doing worksheets, listening to podcasts. Thought work means understanding we are not our thoughts. Thought work means understanding the facts of our lives, the circumstances, are often out of our control, but what we think about these things is the key to the quality of life we will lead. None of this is new, and yet it hit me as if it were. My thoughts aren’t real? I can question all of them to see if they are true or not? Martha Beck also pointed out that she found it’s not about a thought being true as much as whether it is helpful to her.

The thing about MDMA and Ketamine is that you are basically numb on many levels as you are facing possibility life-changing or difficult or challenging realizations. When you do thought work in your home on a Tuesday afternoon, you feel it all. Thought work means I drag my own ass to the realization instead of being led to it by a substance I injested. I can do thought work any day and also be safe to drive heavy machinery. Ketamine, especially, also told me some dumb things like, Go buy a BMW and Go get a computer with a bigger screen.

Did I go to the Apple store a little high and make a purchase? Yes.

Did I go to BMW? Even I, apparently, can find some common sense when high.

I wrote to my medicine person and asked that they never send me anything again, and then I lost their contact information. I was using psychedelics to avoid sitting in the space of I don’t know what to do with myself, and so I wanted to stop and learn to sit with not knowing and see what happened.

I needed to find myself sober. It wasn’t that I was addicted to these drugs, but they tempted me, they called my name, and that was not a path I wanted to walk.

I drove across the country because my body compass told me to go. It didn’t feel like a choice—it felt like I was swimming with the current as I gave my landlord my notice, as I decided what to pack, what to give away. I headed across the country to first to stay with someone I knew had built a beautiful life from her commitment to thought work in her own mind because I’d helped her write a book about it. I had questions for myself and the long drive from California to Massachusetts gave me space to think about change. What if I do have the tools to find and be myself? What if I do have the tools to live a life of peace and abundance and love and the ability to feel all the feelings available to my body without fear? Here’s why I had to take the drive: I have been in many ways fighting against a culture that has asked me to do some form of “thought work” on my relinquishment and adoption. My culture has asked me to challenge my thinking that I was affected by adoption and has asked me to settle down, move on, and have a nice life. I refuse to fall into step with my cultures’s wishes because I know in my cells my culture is wrong and that their beliefs are hurting people like me. And. I am hurting myself with the thoughts I carry about my past. These thoughts I continue to have about how I must have suffered when I lost my birth mother and how distracted I am in present life because of past traumas I harbor in my body negatively affect my quality of life.

How can I do both? How can I continue to rail against amended birth certificates and child trafficking and names being changed and histories being erased and also be at peace in my soul?

I believe the answer is in questioning my thoughts, but I have to do this slowly, gently. I have fought hard for these thoughts. I love these thoughts. They have created my sense of who I am.

My mother did not love me.

I was not wanted.

I am in trouble.

There is something wrong with me.

Can I know 100% that these things are true? How do I react when I believe these thoughts? How do I treat others when I believe these thoughts? Who would I be without these thoughts? Are the opposites of these thoughts as true or truer then the orignial? Can I think of any examples that support these flipped thoughts? For example, if I say I was wanted, it is true my adoptive parents wanted me. It is true the universe wanted me. And I don’t know, for sure, that my first mother didn’t want me because I do not have access to her brain.

My mother loved me.

I was wanted.

I am safe.

There is nothing wrong with me.

Here’s my dream. I do this work and I get strong in mind and body. I get relationally strong. I get financially strong. I show other adopted people how to do the same if that sounds good to them. Then, with our strong selves, selves grounded in Self, we find the adopted kids and people who need our support, and we support them in ways that feel right. We face off with those who continue to support lies and corruption in adoption, and we fight from a place of peace and love. Watch out, yo, we’re coming, and we’re so very strong. We can be a community of leaders, of people who know what they want and have the support and love and courage to go get it.