Microdosing Psilocybin Taught Me How to Love Myself

Microdosing isn’t magic. It just gives you a little more awareness. Accepting whatever arises is how you love yourself.

Matt Gangloff
5 min readNov 14, 2022

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Photo by Shane on Unsplash

I was sitting on the couch in the lobby of my meditation center, watching people walk by, to practice loving them. Yes, I was high.

A mom walked by, carrying a baby on one side and guiding a toddler on the other. And I thought, “She’s such a good mom. So patient. She really loves those kids.” One after another, people passed by and I found reasons to love them. I found it was easy.

But then, a really fat guy walked by. Then, a drunk, homeless guy. A woman with french tipped nails, caked in makeup, clutching an expensive purse. My chest tightened and my face hardened. These people weren’t so easy to love. I tried. But I couldn’t.

Why can’t I love them, I wondered. That’s when it hit me…

Because they reminded me of parts of myself that I can’t accept.

What Is Microdosing?

At the time this story takes place, I was a few weeks into an experiment with microdosing psilocybin.

Microdosing is taking a fraction of a regular dose, not enough to produce the hallucinogenic effect but supposedly enough to produce mental health benefits.

It’s all the rage these days.

Why People Microdose

People try microdosing for a variety of reasons. See the table below from microdose.me, a platform where people submit self-reports of their microdosing experiments.

When asked why they tried microdosing, here’s what people said:

Screenshot from microdose.me

How to Microdose with The Stamets Protocol

The most popular protocol for microdosing is the Statmets Protocol, named after Paul Stamets, an American Mycologist and Author, who rose to prominence after his appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind.

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Matt Gangloff

I teach the how-to’s of Post-Traumatic Growth: How to heal and grow, find a new mission, become your best self and build a meaningful life. www.mattgangloff.com