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Did Psilocybin Change My Relationship With Chronic Pain?
During a psilocybin retreat in Europe, I experienced a significant change in my perception of my chronic pain. In the days that followed — something shifted, and the pain was no longer dominating my attention.
For the past eight years I have lived with severe chronic pain in my right leg.
When it first began, it was incredibly confusing and isolating. I spent years in and out of emergency rooms and doctors surgeries trying to find an answer.
Dismissed repeatedly by doctors telling me it was in my head, it was about five years before I finally got a diagnosis regarding my pain.
Since the diagnosis, I’ve implemented a number of measures to get it under control. This has gone a long way to helping to manage the pain, but it still plays a role in my daily life.
For me, this health journey has not just been physical, there has been a large psychological and emotional component to it: filled with grief and fear — from not being believed, for what my body was before, for what it might become.
When I attended a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands earlier this year, the last thing I expected was for my pain to take centre stage during one of my journeys.
The Psilocybin Journey
As a journalist covering psychedelics, I wanted to find out for myself what it’s like inside a psilocybin retreat. I wanted to deepen my knowledge, both professionally and personally.
So, I took part in a 12-week programme with Beckley Retreats. This consisted of four weeks of preparation sessions before the retreat, two-ceremonies during, and integrating our insights after.
As part of this preparation we set intentions. Mine was: to be shown what I needed to see, and to let go of what no longer served me.
With this in mind, I had no idea what would come of my first journey. The effects of the psilocybin truffles* were immediate. I moved to get comfy, lying down on the bed and pulling down my eye mask.
As the music began to build a stunning architecture in my mind’s eye, I could feel its vibration seeping into my cells. Surrounding my head, every strand of hair, spreading through my limbs. Like my body was pressed against a big, vibrating speaker.
The music — so beautiful — filled my eyes with tears and my heart with a soft, tender joy. The music of humanity, all of us as different notes in an exquisite melody.
Vessels of water were poured by giant hands behind me, tribes sung to me as I seemed to join the song of life with every living creature — all of those that had been before and all who are yet to come.
As I marvelled at the sublime artistry of what was unfolding before me, the ceremony guide began to sing, calling upon the “medicine of the snake”.
There was something about this specific song that reached into the depths of my soul, and suddenly, a vast dam of emotions burst open within me.
They seemed to be connected to my pain. My leg and ankle, which I hadn’t had a second thought about so far, began to throb and ache. I began to massage it and hold it and crack it.
For the first time, I realised just how exhausted I felt from it. Carrying this pain — day in, day out. Never really feeling seen or believed in it.
As the song continued, two snakes appeared on my leg. Slowly wrapping their bodies around it and moving upwards. The vibrations of the music joined them, penetrating my leg and — what felt like — pushing an “energy” up it, or through it.
At this moment, a facilitator came and sat with me, putting their hand on my shoulder. I lifted my tear-soaked eye mask to see a gentle smile, just looking at me, so kindly.
And something huge inside me shifted. I felt, for the first time, I was truly being witnessed and held in my pain.
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No attempts to fix or solve. No questions or tests or pills or scans. Just being. And witnessing. And holding space, for my pain and all the emotions that came with it.
I sobbed and sobbed until I settled. It felt so cathartic — so relieving.
My head filled with thoughts of all the pain and suffering in the world, all the innocent sufferers and their pain. All the pain of the animals, the pain of the Earth.
I thought about my own experience, and how much I felt isolated by my pain, how much I felt alone in it. Was all of this even my pain? Or was it the pain of the entire world?
I cannot understate the importance of the facilitator in that moment. The loving presence completely transformed this thought. It helped me realise, to feel deeply, at a level beyond intellectualising, that we do not suffer alone. We all know what it is to suffer and to feel pain.
Your pain is my pain, my pain is your pain — it is all our pain.
I thought about events and things in my life that had caused me emotional pain — severe bullying, grief, loss, the long, confusing, isolating health journey. The heartache I carried for war, for austerity, for practices that harm the Earth and her creatures. Had I been suppressing this? Metaphorically pushing it down?
I had not realised until this point how completely burnt out and exhausted I was from carrying pain, both physical and emotional.
But in that experience, it felt like I finally stopped pushing my emotions down. I didn’t have to be strong about it. I allowed my emotions to rise up, allowed myself to really feel them, and I acknowledged them, I let them out. I let them go.
A Change In My Perception?
When I woke up the morning following this experience, my pain was not the first thing dominating my attention.
Typically, every morning when I wake, my mind is first presented with the pain I am feeling. But that morning, it didn’t happen.
The pain had not disappeared, but for the first time in years, it felt like it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind. I wasn’t fighting against it.
I felt relaxed, loose, like a tension had dissipated from both my mind and body. The pain was not all-consuming. Emotionally, I felt free from it. It was no longer weighing me down.
So, what changed? The pain was still there, but it felt like my relationship to it had transformed.
Our subjective experience is known to be tied to our perception of pain: it is not just a physical experience but a perceptual experience that can be shaped by the brain, by the feelings and beliefs an individual has about pain.
Pain and emotions are intricately linked, with research showing that emotions such as fear and anger are linked to a higher burden of pain, emotions that dominated a lot of my health journey.
Research also shows that the cognitive element involved in the perception of chronic pain can make it difficult to “forget” the memory of established pain patterns.
Adding to this, lifestyle factors can have a big impact on chronic pain such as poor sleep, and research shows that practices such as meditation and good sleep can contribute to improving symptoms of pain.
Surrounding the psilocybin journey were a number of wellbeing activities: meditation, breath work, journaling, sauna, massage, nutritious food. Importantly, I had refreshing sleep following this experience, something I normally struggle to get because of the pain.
I cannot say for certain what element contributed to this change in my perception; but what I can say is that this personal experience has fundamentally changed my experience of my chronic pain.
