Finding My Mother Waiting For Me
By: Austin Mao
Tags: Therapy, Psychedelics, Mother

This is a story of guiding my mother through psychedelic therapy and realizing that she had been waiting for me all along.

I have spent much of 2020 exploring the depths of my mind with the intentional application of psychedelics. In August in Costa Rica, under the spell of Grandmother Ayahuasca, I unraveled my deepest fear that sub-consciously drives so much of my self-destructive behavior: the fear of death. Peering into the great void, I was surprised to find this fear… I thought I had faced death before and found my own peace in it. Surprisingly, I realized that I was not afraid of my death. I was afraid of my mother’s.

I feared my mother passing without peace, self-discovery, and self-love.

And so, from my greatest fear, I also found my greatest calling: to bring the healing that I experienced over the 30 or so psychedelic journeys I have undertaken in 2020 to the woman that gifted me with life. This was at once an exciting endeavor and a terrifying prospect. How would I guide my mother to this door when she was so anti-drugs? How would I repair our strained relationship when we could barely overcome the envelope of stress and frustrating triggers?

As I dived into more and more journeys, and with the help of great healers like Keith Ferrazzi, I realized the path ahead of me: to be an example of change; to guide through leading; to beckon instead of command; and to allow her to find her own way to me through gentle illumination. And so, when I returned to the US in September after six months in Costa Rica, I lived with my mother for a month.

We shared deep conversations nearly every other day filled with tears and revelation. I began reading books on the Chinese Cultural Revolution where more than 30 million died from starvation and suicide. I followed the thread of her suffering back to her parents, where our family was raped of its wealth, where her parents were enslaved to work and unable to manifest any empathy, where my mother was robbed of her childhood, of her adolescence, and even her adulthood at the hands of my father. I followed the thread of my mother’s suffering to me: to the gift of me, to the resilience she embodied to pour every ounce of energy and love into me so I would not live the life she did. I thank her so much for this gift.

My mother told me one morning through a waterfall of tears that she had waited my whole life for a moment for a tunnel to open up from me to her so I could understand her. That moment, I would realize now, was truly the moment where I could hold my mother’s hand through the tunnel towards the door of self-revelation.

Slowly, surely, we plotted a course towards psychedelic therapy. My mother and I watched documentaries on Netflix about psychedelics. She began reading “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan. I went to 1Heart in Mexico, where I was a facilitator in guiding so many other seeking souls towards their own self-reflection. All along the way, I shared with my mother my growth to be the example of change. I was inspired to change for myself and for her, to show her the path of enlightenment by paving the way for her. Meanwhile, we connected on a spiritual level that never existed before.

While I guided her forward, I realized my mother was waiting for me all this time.

Her journey towards Jesus Christ, towards her God, has taken decades but has given her lessons all the same. While I was pondering how to find the door towards self-healing for her, she had already been standing in front of it. Finally, I journeyed far enough to see her there… to truly see her as the magnificent, brilliant, and wise woman that she is.

And so, two days ago on a Saturday in Las Vegas, after much planning and trepidation, I guided my mother through psychedelic for the first time. She used 100mg of MDMA and about 500mg of psilocybin mushrooms. The experience was gentle at first. I asked her who she wanted to forgive and why. Her answer was profound: “I want to forgive myself.” I could have cried then out of the joy of seeing my mother, wise beyond her years, arriving at the answer before the question was even spoken.

The next day, I decided that my mother’s mental state was ripe and ready for more. She was willing to explore deeper. She trusted me implicitly. Thus, on Sunday, my mother took 60 micrograms of LSD — about half a therapeutic dose — and journeyed once more, this time with less dialogue and more deeply within. I asked her to consider her relationships — her sisters, her parents, and me — and the impact they have had on her as well as the impact she has had on them. I asked her to have a conversation with God.

I will not share the details of the journey for its private between us. What I will share is the impact it has had on me. Suffice you to say, I am so proud of my mother for taking the leap. A friend asked me, “did the experience deliver on my expectations?” I would say, much beyond my expectations because I could not fathom that my mother had the depth innately that took me so much effort to discover for myself. Thank God, her God, that she had the gift of God for so long, to guide her to the window of her soul, to peer through it and see the path that has led her here.

My mother shared with me one of the most meaningful statements I have ever heard in my life through tears of joy:

I am so happy that you have returned to me.

She told me that ten years ago, she thought to herself that if she were to die, she would have been filled with sorrow believing no one loved her. Now, she told me that she could die this day, listening to the beautiful music pulsing through her ears to her soul, with gratitude and love in her heart.

And so, my fear of my mother’s death before her self-discovery may not be conquered, by I have faced it. I am looking forward to journeying with her, together to discover each other and embrace each other with completeness and self-love. I am full of gratitude and love and everlasting joy that I could meet my mother there.