This is a personal essay written by Howard Steinberg, the author of the memoir, "Confessions of a Problem Seeker: My Lifetime Journey From Busy Brain To Loving Heart." The following has been edited for length and clarity, reflects only Steinberg's views, and should not be taken as medical advice. Steinberg is not a medical professional.
Psilocybin is illegal under federal law and in most US states. Research into psilocybin-assisted therapy is ongoing, and while early clinical trials have shown promise for some mental health conditions, psilocybin has not been approved by the FDA for general medical use. There is no medical consensus that it provides the broad benefits described here, and it carries risks.
For most of my life, it looked like I had achieved the American dream. I enjoyed an over-40-year partnership with my wife, had three lovely daughters, a successful entrepreneurial career, nice homes, shiny objects, and the kind of suburban stability that signals to the world you're doing fine.
I started my first business, Source Marketing, at 28. I built a successful company, earned a seven-figure income in my 30s, and sold the business to a public company before I turned 40.
I could see around corners. I was dependable, competent, the one scanning the horizon for problems, and then diving in to fix them, whether at work or at home. I thought this persona was indeed me.
In my 50s, the whispers from within grew louder, questioning: Is this who I really am, or just the identities I clung to? Father, husband, entrepreneur.
I began to recognize that what looked like ambition and success was, in fact, fear. I questioned why, despite these achievements, stillness eluded me. I struggled to be truly present in any moment, to experience joy or comfort, let alone peace. Ever since I can remember, my mind has been a relentless scanning machine, forever searching for what was wrong or what would come next.
Then, it all unraveled
I lost control of my second startup, dLife (LifeMed Media), a health content and media business focused on people with diabetes. I believe venture investors, frustrated by the company's growth and limited near-term exit options, pushed me to step aside. The business was sold the following year, a result I viewed as a fire sale. I was devastated.
Next, my lifelong marriage finally and sadly ended in divorce, and my kids grew up. The system I carefully and doggedly built to give me purpose and keep my angsty soul calm was gone.
I left our big waterfront home in Connecticut and found myself and the family mutt, Benny, in a New York City apartment during the pandemic, without a partner, a busy family home, or a business to occupy my hyper-thinking brain.
A book changed everything for me
After about a year in my uncomfortable new existence, I read "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass. I was ready to change, and Dass gave me a conceptual framework for awakening consciousness that involved a profound shift in awareness from the egoic mind to a deeper, more present state of being. He emphasized the importance of living in the present moment and transcending the ego's illusions by connecting with our true self, which is grounded in love and compassion.
Ram Dass (then Richard Alpert) participated in early psychedelic research with Timothy Leary at Harvard. He learned that, for some people, psychedelics can act as a powerful disruption to habitual patterns of thinking before deeper spiritual work begins. I came to believe I needed a stronger modality to interrupt my endless loop of mental chatter.
That is what led me to seek out the underground world of psychedelics in New York. I understood the risks, but for me, the prospect of staying trapped in the tight emotional numbness of my mind was far more unsettling.
A series of loose connections led me to James
James was 10 years older than me and said he had trained with Indigenous ceremonial practitioners in Arizona. Over coffee, he gave me an idea of what to expect during my first session but underscored that everyone's experience is different. He would be there with me the entire time.
I was terrified but not enough to turn back. I made my way up the steps to his studio on the Upper East Side, filled with tribal art, skin drums, and beaded curtains. I lay down on the soft mat, drank a bitter-tasting elixir of magic mushrooms and a capsule of MDMA, and was face-to-face with someone I'd avoided for most of my life: myself.
I spent time with the son of traumatized parents who had survived the Holocaust, the frightened boy diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and the kid who learned hypervigilance to manage his "failing" in secret, crafting a life to survive, but not live, as a problem seeker and solver, a man who would never ask for help.
I had, for most of my life, tried to outthink, outperform, and outrun that boy
With psychedelics, I could see him as the scared child that he was, and I felt nothing but compassion. I had spent decades building a self that looked strong from the outside, but whose emotional numbness blunted fear, unresolved grief, and tenderness. I could finally breathe, soften, and let go of the grip that pain and shame had had on my life for more than 50 years.
That first session lasted about five hours. I was wiped as I walked outside, trying to make sense of what I had experienced. In the next few days, I noticed an opening in me — a sense of optimism that I might be on the right path to finally find some stillness. It was a start.
As I progressed in my healing journey, I sat with other 'medicines'
I experienced ayahuasca and also explored meditation, breathwork, and somatic therapy. As my ego and defense systems relaxed, these journeys allowed me to see, and, more importantly, feel, the wounds of my childhood. As more layers peeled back, I connected more deeply with my authentic heart and inner self.
Most of the same emotions and issues continued to rise up in me, but I became more capable of routinely noticing and intervening in what felt like a lifelong pattern of worry and anxiety.
I realized how my system took refuge in a survival state — an external place where I went to avoid feeling things too scary to feel. Hyper-thinking and vigilance became a method of avoidance. It only made me feel more alone. Now, I have more agency over how I react to the world and more compassion for myself.
I started processing life differently. I became less reactive. Slower. More loving and patient with others, as well as myself. As if in my old life, I lived like I was peering straight ahead through the windshield of a speeding car, urgently rushing to the next destination, and now, I was on a meandering bike ride, taking in the sights.
Not a magic fix, but a new beginning
Psychedelics didn't magically fix my life or undo my history, but they did help me drop the armor to see the truth. For me, truly unifying with my wounded self allowed me to begin loving myself.
I still have a busy brain. I'm still naturally prone to overthinking and over-managing, but I no longer confuse these parts of me with my true self. Rather, I see them as part of a primal survival strategy, needed to get through life safely, but that exacted a high emotional toll.
I'm not suggesting that emptiness can only be filled with supervised psychedelics. There are many ways to get there. Meditation, religion, yoga, and versions of talk therapy can help, but for some of us, we need to get past our well-worn defense systems for the work to be truly productive and sustainable.
I wonder how many of us are so deep in our busyness that we believe there's no room for discovering what's within and true? I believe fear is often at the root, as we subconsciously avoid the things we never wanted to feel.
Now in my 60s, after all the striving, all the success, and all the years on the defensive, the breakthrough was not becoming tougher or more in control. It was the opposite. It was surrendering to my loving heart. That's where my truth lies.
