Effortless Thursdays #24: Psychedelics and why it's ok to be weird at work

How set and setting can help you get out of your own way

He walks into a coffee shop, places his order and while he's waiting patiently for his latte, watching the other customers chattering to their coffee-run colleagues or busying their brains in their mobile phones, he thinks about how he wants to show up at work today.

It's a reminder for him of how he wants to lead.

This is one of my clients – a high-flying professional – who's hauled himself back from severe burnout and rediscovered the joy in his work.

When I'm coaching creative entrepreneurs who want to bring their bold vision to life, or professionals who want to avoid being flung unceremoniously on the bonfire of burnout, one of the most common obstacles to their success is themselves.

They get in their own way.

Before we dive into psychedelics, being weird and work (I bet you never expected that combination trio!), here’s what you might have missed yesterday. 

As you get older, do you hear yourself - or others - say "I'm so forgetful" or "Yes, Alzheimer's runs in the family"?

It’s an insidious refrain that limits us from what is possible instead. In yesterday’s essay, I shared how you can be successful now without the cost to your health span and lifespan later. 

Now back to psychedelics, being weird and work!

What do they think of me?

I am naturally a shy, introvert.

When I'm with my fellow coaches when we get together for our weekly "WELL Mastermind" sessions, I'm gregarious, cheeky, and talkative.

And yet, when I was having lunch with some old work colleagues the other day, I noticed I was much more shy and quiet.

When I thought about it a bit more, I realised that fear had a part to play.

•      I feared being boring.

•      I feared not having enough to talk about that was interesting .

Do you notice when you walk into your office that you behave differently to when you're at home?

Or when you hang out with your family, there's a difference in the presence you bring compared to when you're with your friends?

Our behaviour can be boxed in by what we think others think of us.

That lunch setting influenced my behaviour.

Set and setting and psychedelics

In the re-emerging world of psychedelics in therapeutic settings, we're seeing promising research into how psychoactive drugs, like psilocybin, can really help people with treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It's also been used to help cancer patients overcome their depression¹.

In the recreational world, early adopters swear by taking very small doses – micro-dosing – not only to relieve anxiety, stress and low-level depression, but also to boost their energy and vitality. The theory is that by taking 5 - 10 percent of a full dose, you get the benefits without the hallucinogenic high.

Someone I know in the US takes clients into the forest for psychedelic retreats, freeing their minds from the box of "what ifs" and "what do they think of mes".

In all of these psychedelic experiences, set and setting are important.

Set is our mindset. It's our beliefs, assumptions and attitudes towards someone or something. It's the mental state we bring to a psychedelic experience.

Setting is the physical and social environment we find ourselves in.

Set and setting are important because when we embark on a psychedelic experience, what we're thinking at the time can alter the course of that experience: working with a clinician - or an experienced forest guide - can help us avoid the unpleasant.

But even if we're not nibbling on these mushrooms or being treated with a full dose, pausing to consider our set and our setting in our daily lives can impact how we show up in the non-psychedelic world.

It's ok to be weird

So if you're feeling boxed in by what you think others might think about you, what can you do?

Here are my four suggestions.

1. Adjust your setting

What about your physical or social environment can you change?

You could change the venue or location. Whenever you've been back to your childhood home to be with your parents or siblings, do you notice that part of you reverts to being a child again? Perhaps you fall into the same patterns of telling each other what to do? Meeting in a different setting, like outdoors in a park, or in a restaurant can help shift away from that repetitive dynamic.

When meeting up with my old work colleagues next time, I could, for example, see them in a smaller group or one-on-one.

Perhaps the most intriguing change you can bring about in your environment is calming your nervous system. I learned a “voo-hum” technique from Jonny Miller in his Nervous System Mastery course that I recently joined.

I've written before about making adjustments to the environment around us and how they can support our mood, bring a baseline calmness to our nervous system and help us achieve success without the burnout.

But for those moments when my irritation levels have skyrocketed, voo-hum has provided instantaneous results within two breath cycles. This is powerful stuff.

How to “voo-hum”: Inhale through your nose and as you breathe out, say "voo" for the first half of the exhale, and turn it into a hum the second half. You should feel your chest cavity vibrating. Repeat.

2. Adjust your (mind)set

While adjusting your setting can help you avoid feeling boxed in, it's not necessarily shifting your thought patterns about what you think others think of you.

So how can you adjust your mindset?

Try what my client does when he orders a coffee: speak into the world how you want to show up.

Focusing your attention on what you want, rather than what we don't want can free yourself from turning your boxed-in thinking into reality. 

And don’t forget, being different is a disadvantage until it’s your superpower.

3. Do what's weird

One of the delights I had this week was reading this week's edition of Charlie Becker's newsletter, "Do the weirdest thing that feels right". It actually inspired the content for this week's Effortless Thursdays.

So you could take Charlie's advice and choose to do the weirdest thing because it will be the most authentic to you.

He wrote:

“I realized that when I think that something is ‘weird,’ it is not really about what I think at all. What I am actually doing is modeling what I think other people will think about it. For example, if I was going to order a lunch delivery, and I thought to myself, “well, I wouldn’t mind a ham sandwich, or a pepperoni pizza, or two dozen raw oysters,” I would probably think to myself, “Oysters? Weird.” But I don’t think oysters are weird, I think that other people will think it’s weird.

“Weirdness is a construct that is a stand-in for other people’s expectations.

“So if I have a bunch of equally viable options, I should pick the weirdest one, because it means that is the one that is truest to me.”

4. Do nothing (mindfully)

I’m not suggesting that you literally do nothing! But instead of getting caught up in the whirlwind of what others actually think of us, or what we think others think of us, the mindful solution is to notice these thoughts for what they are: part of your stream of consciousness and nothing more than that.

We can choose to observe these thoughts without judgement or story.

You could try naming these thoughts either silently to yourself or out loud.

"Thinking. Thinking. Thinking."

or

"Worry. Worry. Worry."

Doing this calms your amygdala, and helps bring you back from a high-alert state of fight-flight-freeze.

Naming your thoughts is one of the three steps I've included in one of my most popular articles about how to deal with colleagues that stress you out.

Over to you!

What can you change in your (mind)set or your setting to help you get out of being boxed in by your thinking?

That’s it for this week!

As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays. 

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To your health and success!

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/