Curiosity Is Enough: Lena’s Story of Beginning a Psilocybin Journey Without Certainty

The client’s name and certain identifying details in this story have been changed to protect their privacy. This story is shared with consent.

The First Preparation Session

The first time I met Lena, she sat on the edge of her couch with her hands wrapped around a mug like it was a small anchor. She’d read books like How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen and The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman. She even underlined the parts that, in her mind, promised transformation if she could just do it right. She wasn’t meeting with me for spectacle. She wanted to feel her life again, but she was tired of trying to wrestle it into place.

“I’m afraid of wasting it,” she admitted. “What if I do mushrooms and nothing happens? Or what if everything happens and I can’t handle it?”

I told her something that I often discuss with my clients while we’re still getting to know each other. I told her the truth. I’ve had those same questions. I used to grip certainty like a lifeline. I came from a devout religious lifestyle where answers were armor and doubt felt like betrayal. Then my life changed drastically when I deconverted from my religious beliefs and I had to rebuild my entire worldview from scratch. I could no longer carry the old certainties, but I also didn’t know how to set them down. Curiosity became the only door I could still open. It felt small and honest. When I embraced the power of curiosity for life’s biggest struggles, I didn’t have to become someone else before I began.

Lena nodded. She knew the weight of overthinking. She knew the tight ball of anxiety in her chest that keeps you at arm’s length from your own body. She was done pretending, but she didn’t know how to stop.

We started with the smallest thing. “What’s true for you right now?” I asked.

She looked at the mug. “I’m tired of managing everything. I want to feel held by something that isn’t my own effort.”

I wrote a single word in my notebook: Surrender. Not as a destination to reach, but as an intention to carry.

For Lena, preparation wasn’t glamorous. It looked like Lena choosing music that loosened her shoulders. It looked like a short walk at dusk and a page or two of honest journaling. It looked like telling a trusted friend, “I’m trying something tender, will you check on me tomorrow?”

On the day of her psilocybin session, Lena met me at a psilocybin service center in Portland. The room was simple. A soft, weighted blanket. Low light. The same mug she had brought from home, now filled with mushroom tea. We spoke her intention out loud. Not a demand, just an invitation that she had crafted for weeks leading up to this moment. “I’m willing to be with what’s here, teach me how to rest from controlling it all.

There’s a quiet moment after the psilocybin dose is consumed when the mind still thinks it’s in charge. That’s when the old strategies get loud. Lena did her best to settle in to the experience, shifting her weight back and forth every few minutes. It seemed like she was trying to get comfortable, but there was a certain kind of energy to her movements that I’ve seen before. I could tell she was having trouble surrendering to the experience. After about 30 minutes, she sat up. “Am I doing this right? What if this is a mistake?”, she said.

I’ve heard those thoughts in my own head too. So we did some deep breathing together and I reassured her that this is all part of the process. The music began to gather the edges of the room, and Lena’s clenched hands finally relaxed.

After the Journey: When Integration Begins

After a five hour, deeply immersive and powerful psilocybin journey, she told me it felt like being walked to the shoreline of herself. The waves weren’t always gentle. Some memories knocked at the door. Some grief stretched its arms. But curiosity stayed with her. When a tightness rose in her chest, she whispered, “What’s happening now?” When a sudden image surprised her, she asked, “Can I soften around this?” Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes it was not yet. Either way, she kept noticing. She started embracing the power of curiosity and learning just how powerful of a guide it can be.

Like most journeys, there wasn’t a single grand revelation that solved all of her life’s problems. Instead there were small moments. The sound of a cello where she felt held. A memory of her grandmother humming in the kitchen. The feeling of her own breath moving through her ribs like a rising of the tide. She cried without apologizing. She laughed for a good five minutes and said, “It’s all so ordinary and it’s so much.”

Afterward we didn’t rush to interpret everything. We let the whole experience simply sit in the room. I asked her what wanted to be honored. She said, “I want to stop forcing outcomes. I understand now how often I get caught in my own head, trying to predict everything. I’m starting to understand what people mean when they say that control is an illusion. I’m ready to let go of control.”

So we came up with three gentle practices. Drink water before coffee. Step outside each morning and let the light touch her face. When panic shows up, place a hand on her heart and say, “You don’t have to fix this. You can be with it.”

A week later she wrote to me. “I didn’t become a new person,” she said. “But something unclenched. I’m less interested in performing my life and more interested in living it. And I’m still curious.”

I keep thinking about that. The curious mind isn’t naive. It knows disappointment. It knows the ache of trying to think your way to peace. It knows how exhausting it is to hold the map and the compass and the clock all at the same the time.

If that’s you, I want to say this clearly. You don’t have to arrive with certainty to sit with psilocybin. You don’t have to promise to yourself or anyone else that you’ll transform by next Tuesday. You only have to bring your honest questions and the willingness to meet yourself as you are.

Start small. Name one word that feels peaceful. Set the room with intention and a little beauty. Ask for support when you need it. Let the music do some of the carrying. And when the old urge to manage everything shows up, ask softly, “What’s here now? Can I soften around it?”