Taking My Medicine

The speaker discusses their experience with using cannabis as medicine. They feel a stigma attached to it but believe it helps them feel better and at peace. They have found a way to make their own supply and ensure its safety. They no longer feel the need for therapy and have ended it on a positive note. They continue to make recordings but no longer feel pressure for others to listen. They emphasize living in the present moment and being true to oneself. The speaker believes in making others feel good and shares their experiences to bring happiness. They feel comforted by the simplicity and freedom of living authentically in each moment. When you don't feel well and you go to the doctor and they give you something that helps and you feel better, people don't come up to you and say, ah yes, but if you hadn't have taken that medicine you'd still feel bad, so you have no right to feel better. They're happy that you feel better. You took medicine because you didn't feel good and now you feel better. Well that's what it's like for me when I take cannabis and there have been times when I'm a little bit embarrassed, a little bit embarrassed to feel better because somehow there's this stigma, oh, getting high, it's not good. It's giving me a false sense of myself, of how things are, of what I do, but without it, well life is not like that. It's harder in some ways, but because I am finding a way to make it easier, that somehow that's not right. I shouldn't. It shouldn't take a substance because it makes me feel good or feel better because other people have determined that I'm not allowed to. They might not like it. It might not have any purpose in their life. I have experience using it in an area that is legal. I don't have to think about it. I don't think about it here, but it is actually considered legal. Not entirely strange experience of locally legal rather than state-wide federally legal, but still, that's America for you. It didn't make any difference. So I know that I am beyond requiring approval or permission to take something that I find works for me, that is useful, and I call medicine. I have what I need, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be easily available for me and perhaps it actually is, but I have what I need and that was the point. The point for me, if I'm to use my medicine, to have medicine, that I can't get going to the doctor and asking for a prescription, nor can I go into a retail shop and buy it, however much it might be. I don't have that choice where I live. So I had to ensure that I made it when I had the opportunity, I made enough, and then looked after it for a few years, using a little bit of course, but made sure it was safe, made sure it was looked after in the right situation as best I could, knew that there would come a time in the future when it would be exactly what I needed, and enough of it to ensure that there was no anxiety about having to acquire more. And that's sort of where I'm at, that I have what I need so that there's no anxiety about having to acquire more, and that goes for money as well. And yet I do still acquire a little more, and I get so many things for free that it's almost like I am constantly acquiring more. But the point is that there is no anxiety and I can just be in this moment in the way that seems best for me. And because I spend so much time alone inside my little van, what's best for me is, affects nobody else, interferes with nobody else, and that's important for me too. I can't benefit at the expense of someone else. They must be able to do their thing, but not be affected by me detrimentally just because I'm choosing to do mine. There's no anxiety about any of it. Or as little as possible when one is parked in a van on a public road and has basically been in the same spot for five months. Now does cannabis, does my medicine help me to be here and do this? Yes. Could I be here and do this without it? Yes. But it wouldn't be the same. And the whole thing is part of this experience, this life, this reality. It's all is relevant, each component in the place it's supposed to be in order to make the experience exactly what it is. A single note, a single thing would change things if it were missing. Yes, a single note in a piece of music, if it were missing, it would make it sound different, it would be different. So it's not that I am anxious about keeping things as they are, because I know that things do change, it's just the way it is. But a lot has changed and this is how it is. This is what it's become as a result of all those changes. So I don't have to be concerned about changes, I can just decide that changes are only indicative of something that is good, even if I don't always understand why it's changed. Even if I'm affected by the change itself and I'm uncomfortable in that. So much, so many times that's happened and yet here I am in this moment saying these words, feeling like this, feeling at peace and content in this moment. And what more could I ask for? There is only this moment, nothing else exists but this moment. If I'm not thinking about the future and remembering the past, if I'm not noticing what's going on in my present that is sort of not part of it exactly, it doesn't exist, just this moment. And if I recognise it as I am, well that must be good. Does it mean anything? I don't know. But it's good to recognise it, it's good to notice it, I feel like I am, I benefit from it. That I am where I am and who I am, how I am supposed to be. I couldn't be anybody, anywhere, I couldn't do it any other way. This moment indicates exactly what's going on. And I'm in it and I'm with it, aware in it, awake in it, recognising this moment this way. My medicine helps, definitely helps. I don't take it all the time, I don't need to, like many medicines, it doesn't have to be taken continuously. But it is fairly regularly and in a sense as needed but I often take it without really knowing that I do. I only recognise that I did. I can't see from the altered state it puts me into before I'm in the altered state and seeing it from there. So I can't imagine what changes will occur until I experience them. And I don't need to, which is helpful because imagining what changes can occur creates anxiety. Being happy and content has to be free of anxiety, stands to reason. The less anxiety the freer and more content. Does that mean I'm free of anxiety? No, because sometimes things happen when I am affected by them. I'm not as conscious, I'm not as aware, I'm not ready for how I am feeling. But I am experiencing that and that's the recognition, the start of coming out of it, going beyond it, rising above it, understanding it. I'm still learning, it's still a process. It never stops, it's never done and that's the wonder of life in a way. That idea of just doing time, just repetitive, habitual, in a sense just waiting to die. I'm going to die eventually, we all die of something but if one believes, feels that that's not all there is, then ultimately it doesn't really matter. But also there's no rush. That even though this is an extremely simple experience that doesn't mean that there can't be more. There has already been more than I ever expected to find, coming here, coming back again. It feels like now, now it feels like I've never left. The past before this life is almost not visible. I don't have any reason or need to think about it so it's as if it's almost gone, faded away like any dream will. Don't give it attention, don't need to look at it anymore. I've done lots of that and at some point I don't need to do it anymore. I gave up my therapy last week. It was coming to the end anyway, we both knew that but I had to be the one to let go. It was lovely really. There was no, there was, I felt some pressure but gentle pressure telling me that I could end this, it was time. It was moved to once every fortnight rather than once a week and it could easily have gone to once a month if I had felt the need to hold on to it. But I realised no, it's time and even when she said are you sure we could spread it over a few weeks, you wean yourself off it, you know the air, I said no, it just stops, it just stops and we talked about that and then it stopped and I knew it was the right thing to do. I had experienced attachment to it, it had been important to me, especially in the beginning and I felt like I had used it well and appreciated it and made the best of it and I've had exactly the right therapist for that and I told her so. It was a good ending, a good ending. I can, I'm not even sure I can point to another good ending in my life. Endings for me have always been messy and difficult. I've often avoided them, I've certainly struggled with them and they have given me much to think about but this ending was perfect. Absolutely perfect but I had taken control. There's nothing more to say. Sure I could have gone on talking but there was nothing more to say. I had benefited, healing had taken place and I didn't need her anymore. I suppose I hadn't needed her for a while but she had been useful and I told her so. How important it was for me to be able to talk like this to somebody listening in real time, not a recording where somebody might listen in the future but actually listening to me speak like this now. Not interrupt but definitely say some things from time to time and I would attempt to answer those questions, explore them. Often the hour would go by so quickly and sometimes I would continue my session via my recordings and I would go out or just carry on talking because I needed more to say. I didn't know, I no longer needed anyone to listen. So I suppose that was a big step. She helped me transition from before to now and she had asked me if I would give permission for her to submit our case, names hidden, to the university for, to be used as part of the training which I of course agreed to immediately. I even asked if I might see that but it wasn't to be. Yeah so there were times when I used my medicine during therapy. I would take it early enough, an hour, an hour and a half before so that by the time I started to get into it I was affected by it. It only occurred to me to do that after a while. Most of my therapy was straight but I realised that there was a real benefit in being able to use the expanded consciousness to talk live to somebody who was just there to listen to me, not a friend, a professional person whose time was mine. It was a very, it's a very lovely thing to someone who doesn't talk to people very often and even if they do they're not really listening. People don't give me much time to speak. They are always looking to talk and mostly I'm happy for them to do so and I might respond but I know that I don't feel like myself because I don't get much chance to speak. Either I have to be extremely concise with my thoughts which I'm not always or I am sort of cut off quite quickly and it just takes its own natural route especially if I'm in a small group. Usually I'm listening. And so I told her that I will be continuing to make these recordings even if nobody actually listens because when I actually speak like this in the moment, in the present, talking to you, talking to God, that this moment contains all of that is. Yes. When I stop talking there is no thought. So the talking is coming from a place before thought. It must be thought. Activating the mouth voice structure directly. When I stop talking I don't know what's waiting to be said next yet clearly something is. Now I have shared these with you or I have made these available so that you may listen. It used to be important that you did. It isn't anymore and that's important that it isn't. That doesn't mean I'm not happy for you to listen. I just don't need you to. Don't even want you to particularly. So therefore sending a link becomes superfluous almost. Now I might add to my collection of recordings which are available to anybody who goes to that particular site with my name, they'll have access to it which is indirect. There are some people who could go and look and see what new recordings were there if they wanted to but they'd have to want to. It would have to occur to them. They'd have to fancy the idea, feel something rather than be nudged with a link which creates a pressure. Oh I have to, oh I haven't heard it, I ought to, I need to, it's not, it's, you know, there's pressure. There isn't but I suppose there is because if I send a link I'm implying I'd like you to listen and I'd like a reply and that's what normally happens and you've done so many times before. Perhaps. But there's pressure. There's less pressure if you go look but you're less likely to because of what may have been pressured, what may have felt like pressure before. I understand that now. I needed something and so it puts pressure even though it's not meant to or it's not intentionally meant to, it does. Too much, too much pressure. And so when there's a big gap it could either be one of two things. Relief, you get used to not having that there and actually you like that. You realise you know what I don't need any more. I certainly don't need to reach out to him because if I do I'm likely to get more. You're free to go look if you think about it but you'll probably not think about it so you've let me go, we've let each other go and it's okay. I suppose in some sense you're never gone but that's how it will feel. Or you miss it. You miss me. You'd be happy to hear from me and if you do and then you listen and you hear me talk about that then that might be very nice, like making the whole thing circular, it's reached its natural conclusion. Perhaps this recording is not an individual one but forms part of a trio. I think I've made two before it or at least one but whatever I've made today, I think it's two, can go part one, part two, part three and then bye bye. Then I'll leave it to you. But it... because otherwise it would have given pressure again because if you were the former where I have listened because I haven't heard from you for a while and you can be interesting and I didn't say this, you would maybe start to feel under pressure to say something. What do you say? Do you... I'm not... I don't want it complicated. I don't want to complicate your life. I can't be talking about not complicating mine but okay to complicate yours. So this frees you to be like that, to continue on. You might not have listened to it. You might have even not got here. All of those possibilities, didn't listen, started listening to the first one, didn't finish, started listening, listened to the second, ah I've had enough. You might not get here because it will indicate where you are. So if you are here, there's a good chance that you've enjoyed it, that it's been nice to hear me talk about it like this. And if it has been nice, then you'll feel good. You'll know that nothing has changed, you're always there, I'm always here, we can communicate, you can respond to this and you know that I'll probably be happy to receive it. It is still about making... I still feel it's about making people feel good, doing things that make people feel nice, happy, sharing that. I can't share what it is I do exactly, although I guess I do do that, but I can share how it makes me feel by making you feel some of it. And in the process I get to share the things that make you happy, where your life is good, because I will have no idea what that might be. I've made the mistake before of finding people I can be connected to and then sort of attaching myself to them and thinking that by doing so we'll always be together, but that's not true. And so this is me in the present without being attached to what is in it, what comes from it, what comes next. I mean I'm still I suppose guiding it, open to this and less open to that. I suppose I always will be in some ways, but nothing has to happen. And even if nothing does, which it sometimes does, nothing happens. Nothing new. Even if that is the case, right, then it's okay, because it just means that this moment is simpler, it doesn't need that in it. This isn't the moment for it. It doesn't actually confirm anything about what might come. It only answers a thought, and if that thought hadn't been there at the beginning then it wouldn't have needed an answer, and I could have just gone forward acting spontaneously from what takes place in this moment, bringing myself, my authentic self, as honest as I can be in this moment, and that's all I need to do. If I'm doing that then it all takes care of itself. It absolutely has nothing I need to do in it other than that. And that is very comforting, it's very liberating, and it isn't that I'm saying something you don't know. If I was saying something you don't know it wouldn't have any meaning to you. It wouldn't make sense. It's not that I'm saying something you don't know, but I'm saying something that you were not expecting to hear, and if it's reminding you of something you already know you must have needed reminding, perhaps, just in this moment to put it into perspective in the way that you feel right now must be important. And that makes me happy.