On a personal level, I'd like to take a moment to share my story and how I found my path. I experienced a paradigm-shifting experience on LSD in December 2000 (I was 19 years old) that completely transformed my life and sense of self.  To contextualize the experience, it is necessary to provide some relevant personal history.  I had experienced emotional turbulence early in life that resulted in struggles with depression and adjustment disorder.  This disruption persisted throughout my adolescent years and interfered with my mood, functioning, and quality of life.  In retrospect, after reading the work of James Hillman (2013), I realize that my “mental illness” may very well have been a natural reaction to unfortunate circumstances for which I had no other coping mechanisms at the time.  Whatever the case, I was on a self-destructive path.  On this one particular LSD trip, I felt as though I was looking at my life from above and I saw the trajectory of my life if I were to have stayed on the deleterious path I was on.  Additionally, I saw my life as it might have been should I have had better circumstances in my youth.  At that moment, I realized the potential that existed within myself that I was not living up to.  I knew in that moment that I had to go back to college, get a job, quit abusing various substances, quit smoking cigarettes, and eat healthier.  The very next day, I began to address those realizations and followed through on each one.  Now, over 20 years later, I've far surpassed anything I could have ever imagined back then, which feels like a lifetime ago! 

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