Playing open mics has even led to paid gig as a solo act—an experience I’d never imagined before starting The Artist’s Way. Two years ago, opportunities like these weren’t even on my horizon.

In the time since I first picked up The Artist’s Way in early 2023, my world has expanded. It’s brought me into creative communities. It’s got me in touch with local scenes that I didn’t know existed—the types of communities I would love to read about but wasn’t really in touch with. It has also deepened what was probably my first love from a young age: music, and put me back into touch with that in a really beautiful way.

Whatever this has been for me over the last two years—process, journey, or something else—it’s not only reconnected me with music in a special way but also deepened my understanding of how creativity, creative endeavors, and communities can truly change lives. They can open up worlds, change our experience of life, and make them more enriching, fulfilling, and connected.

Which brings me to why I’m writing this blog post today—because today we are opening doors to Inspiration Alchemy, an offering that is like a guided community tour through The Artist’s Way. 

Inspiration Alchemy builds on the course’s powerful framework, bringing it into a psychedelic-friendly atmosphere with two core collaborators who are deeply involved in the worlds of creativity and psychedelics—two creative badasses: Daniel Shankin of Tam Integration, someone who I’ve admired for a number of years now, for his work and how he shows up. And Jake Kobrin, a visionary artist and educator who I’ve aware of since we both worked on different Truffles Therapy psychedelic retreats in the Netherlands in 2018, and who’s work I’ve become more acquainted with and impressed by recently.

It feels like a special moment to now be making this offering to help others embark on their own creative journeys and see their own worlds expand.

But I digress. Rather than give you all the details about Inspo Alch, I want this to be a personal blog post to give you an understanding of my own journey.

So I’m going back five years, an unassuming but pivotal moment in my story.

A Jam Session That Changed Things

Sometime in 2019, when I was still residing in Berlin, A few of the guys I played Ultimate Frisbee with every Saturday at Treptower Park invited me to bring my guitar to and play a few songs with them at the Noisey rehearsal rooms. I wasn’t expecting much, just a bit of fun. 

As we played through a few covers—some guilty pleasures like Blink-182 and other pop rock songs—I realized I hadn’t been in a room with a full band for what must have been about 10 years.

As we started playing, something inside of me just came alive. It felt like something expanding, something opening up, something reawakening.

After we left the rooms to roam down the grimy Warschauer Straße, I realized just how much I’d missed simply playing music in a room with other humans.

Between the ages of 13 and 21, through high school and university, I was pretty much always in one band or another. When I left the UK and started country-hopping for the next 8 or so years, though I played a lot of music, I never settled long enough to find those bandmates.

Through that time, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it and how much that experience brought to me. Not only the playing itself, but the experience of being in the moment of a dynamic and loud creative act.

That day at Noisey Rooms brought something back to life that had been dormant.

I never actually played again with those frisbee guys. But the deed had been done, I had been reminded of something.

At the time, I still considered myself a creative person. I was writing regularly and had been through some creative processes. I’d gotten into a good writing habit, and I was able to publish and share regularly from a heart centred and intellectual kind of place.

I’d started a blog, which, after some years, developed into Maps of the Mind, where you read this today. It was a hobby slash side hustle which had grown into something which brought professional opportunities. It was through putting my thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences into form and sharing them with the outside world: that alchemical process of creativity.

But this was a whole different thing. Music touches something else, something special, something that transcends language. That experience in Berlin got me thinking about how I could bring it back into my life more fully. It planted a seed.

Finding Healing and Growth Through Creativity

When COVID hit, personal and professional challenges pushed thoughts of playing or connecting creatively with others to the back seat. But I did start recording in my bedroom. I made my first bedroom demo in years, a sloppy GG Allin cover. More bedroom recordings followed. In 2022, during another wave of COVID, another Ultimate Frisbee musician friend introduced me to Weekly Beats, a 52-week project where people post a new original recording online every week for a year. I published maybe 30 tracks that year.

By late 2022, I’d left Berlin in search of a new direction and returned to England. It felt like the perfect time to start a new course, so I asked my brother to gift me The Artist’s Way for Christmas.

The Artist’s Way is a 12-week creativity course that combines reflective exercises with two core practices: morning pages and artist dates. Morning pages are three daily pages of stream-of-consciousness writing to clear mental clutter, while artist dates are weekly solo excursions to nurture your creative spark. The program’s structure and exercises encourage participants to reconnect with their creative selves and overcome blocks like self-doubt and fear of judgment.

It felt like a good time to dive into a course, and I asked my brother for a copy of The Artist’s Way for Christmas.

The Artist’s Way was a book I’d heard mentioned a few times by people I followed. One of them was Steve Pavlina, a personal blogger whose creativity course I’d done before which had helped me make strides with my writing, blogging, and developing my first online course, The Conscious Psychedelic Explorer.

I was excited to dive in and I started on January 1st 2023.

Week by week, I began making meaningful strides in this area of my life.

Amongst dozens of exercises which are assigned on a weekly basis, there is one where you make an action plan based on your creative dreams, no matter how silly or unrealistic they may seem. 5-year plan, 1-year plan, 6 months, one month, one week, today. And you have to commit to going through with it.

Inevitably, stuff started happening for me, and in something like week 8 I was putting my name down at an open mic and nervously working my way through a Ty Segall cover and an original from lockdown. I was back the next week, and the week after, and when back in Berlin, played there. Now I just see whats going on everywhere I go.

And so, the world of music communities around the world opened up to me, something that’s been such a big part of my life in the time since. I love being in the environment of being around other musicians, playing and watching, with people who I can have great conversations with about music. I love that I can show up to a place in a t-shirt and people sometimes actually know the band on the t-shirt that I’m wearing. It’s so nice to then be able to have that conversation.

Beyond The Music

It wasn’t only music. The book and its exercises helped me confront doubt, self-criticism, and negative self-talk. The inner child work also gave me insight into where those doubting voices came from—early critics in my life, well-meaning or not, whose words had lingered. I realized how those voices of doubt and judgment had been subtly holding me back. They weren’t conscious; they were just part of my being.

It was like meeting with myself again. It helped me see creativity in a new light.

One of the things I noticed was how closely creativity is linked to healing. It’s no surprise to me that The Artist’s Way is used by therapists or why art therapy exists. Creativity isn’t just about making art or writing poems. It’s about understanding ourselves, expressing what words sometimes can’t, processing emotions, and making meaning of experiences. In some ways, it feels like a core human need—maybe even a purpose, like connection or movement.

That’s one of the reasons why I think The Artist’s Way is such a powerful framework. It provides tools not only to reconnect with creativity but to heal parts of ourselves we might not even realize needed tending.

It’s also given me concrete practices that are now part of my life and supportive on a personal well-being level, which, in turn, helps with creativity.

The Practices and Tools That Have Changed Things

The Morning Pages

One of the core practices is the morning pages: three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. This has become part of my life.

I don’t do it every day and I don’t always do it in the morning, but I won’t go a week without doing it at least once. It doesn’t go far from me. It’s just too useful. 

Writing three pages helps me clear my mental clutter and bring clarity. In many ways, it’s like a psychedelic practice—it helps me connect with what’s important to me, tap into deeper levels of mind, and bring focus and clarity in moments of uncertainty.

Walking

Another simple but big practice that has been integrated more into my life has been walking.

Even something as simple as walking more has been transformative. One week, the course asks you to take a brisk 20-minute walk and observe how it shifts your consciousness. That simple exercise stuck with me. Since then, walking has become a regular part of my routine. In fact, I’m dictating this now while strolling through a park in Hanoi. Walking has been shown to foster well-being and even enhance thinking, as many studies and books highlight.

and that simple exercise stuck with me to the point that I’ve incorporated more walking into my life since. A simple habit that has changed my daily experience of the world in a positive way.

This is one example of these small deliberate acts that can open doors, and give small shifts that add up to larger shifts.

With these small but cumulative insights, the process has overall deepened my understanding of creativity as a force for transformation. It’s connected to well-being, connection, and fulfilment. It’s changed how I approach my days.

The Artist’s Date

Alongside the morning pages, The Artist’s Date is the other core practice; a solo weekly excursion to do something fun that inspires and nurtures our creative consciousness.

This is about allowing ourselves to do fun and enjoyable things for ourselves. No duty or workaholism. They are about having experiences that bring inspiration, awe, and wonder into life. Moments that fuel creativity.

One of my favourite artist dates was going to see Titus Andronicus, a New Jersey rock band on MDMA where I shook a personal hero’s hand. Another was a psychedelic trip where I took time to read through and muse upon The Basic Principles in and expanded and altered state. These experiences are treasures to me. The practice of the Artist’s Date has helped me carve out space for meaningful and exciting moments in my life instead of letting weeks or even months go by without doing anything interesting or creatively inspiring. 

Collaboration and the Birth of Inspiration Alchemy

In the year and a half since I finished The Artist’s Way, I’ve reflected on the changes I’ve experienced so far. Rather than hitting some end point, I’ve realised this is just an ongoing process, much like the process of personal growth and healing. It’s not some endpoint I’m heading for; it’s something that just continues expanding and unfolding. Which to me is much more exciting and interesting. 

Because I’ve experienced what is possible here, the idea of sharing this process, bringing it to the people in the psychedelic communities and supporting them through it, has kept coming up. When I was going through the course, I shared something about it with a psychedelic Signal Group I’m in, and Daniel from Tam, who had done the course himself some years before, dropped a comment like, “Don’t do it without me.”

As someone whose work I admired for years—that sounded like an invitation that I’d be a fool not to try and answer. I reached out to him about it, and he connected the dots with Jake, an incredibly talented who has not only experienced his own transformation through the course firsthand but is an experienced educator who has been guiding groups through The Artist’s Way for years. 

With Daniel’s grounding influence, Jake’s artistic expertise, and the renowned artists on board, I think we’re creating a space where transformation honestly feels inevitable for those who show up.

So I think what we’ve got here is something special that has the potential to be deeply transformative for all who get involved, and in its ripples, the world.

That for me, is the definition of a meaningful project.

As we open registration today, I’m feeling a mix of emotions; excited, optimistic, and hopeful, and grateful to be in a place to invite other people into this journey.

Reconnect with Your Creative Spark Through Inspiration Alchemy

Inspiration Alchemy is your chance to experience the transformative framework of The Artist’s Way in a whole new way. Over 12 weeks, you’ll be guided step by step through the course, enriched by live sessions with guest artists and creators, a vibrant and supportive community, and tools to help you overcome creative blocks and ignite your passion.

This course isn’t just for professional artists or creatives—it’s for anyone looking to bring more inspiration and flexibility into their life. Creativity permeates everything we do, from taking a new route home to cooking up something fresh in the kitchen. If you’re looking to make space for creativity in your life, this course is designed to support you.

The course starts February 10th 2025  and runs for 12 weeks with live sessions every Monday at 8pm EST.

Why Join Now?

Registration opens today, and we’re offering an exclusive Black Friday discount: $400 off through Thanksgiving weekend, plus an extra 10% off with the code MAPS. This is an incredible value for a course packed with inspiration, tools, and community.

Ready to take the leap?
Explore Inspiration Alchemy now

The post From Berlin to Hanoi: How The Artist’s Way Has Changed My Life appeared first on Maps of the Mind.

Today we have a post from fellow psychedelic blogger and comrade Cody Johnson. I first reached out to Cody whilst I was based in Mexico and setting up the first version of Maps of the Mind back in 2016. He gave me great support and advice as I started out on my blogging journey and I’m grateful to still be in touch with him to this day. I’m pleased to be sharing one of my favourite posts of his here, and notably, one that introduced me to The Secret Chief Revealed, an important book in my story. I hope you enjoy.

Tripping as a Tool for Self-Realization

Psychedelics are the chameleons of the drug world — amenable to a variety of uses, dependent on the user’s attitude. The importance of set and setting cannot be overstated. If you use them as intoxicants, you will become intoxicated. If you want to see pretty shapes and colors and “trip out” to music, then they will act as sensory enhancers. If you just want a new mode of consciousness that leads you to experience life in a novel way, they will satisfy that urge.

There’s nothing wrong with these approaches. “Getting fucked up” can be a completely legitimate reason to trip (though not the safest or most productive one). There’s no need for self-described “serious” psychonauts to condescend to recreational users. (See Sacredness is in the eye of the beholder for my thoughts on that issue.) Everyone enjoys sovereignty over his or her own consciousness — this is the meaning of cognitive liberty.

But the fact remains: these psychedelics can go much deeper than recreation. Those who never choose to explore psychedelics more seriously than as intoxicants or sense-enhancers will miss out on their greatest potential. Why stop at pretty sounds and colors when these medicines can catalyze deep epiphanies and lasting change?

And psychedelics are very much agents of change. They can show you your shadow self, dragging your insecurities and internal conflicts into the light for examination. They mediate a conversation, even a partnership, with the subconscious, unseating your deepest assumptions and leading you to question the most rigid habits and biases. Psychedelics are molecular battering rams, crumbling the castle called Ego, often raising from the rubble a profound feeling of pure love and unity.

They can introduce you to God, bridging for a time the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the human and divine spheres of existence. Perhaps more importantly, they can help you get to know yourself. Your real self, defenses down, moat drained, drawbridge lowered. Because they encourage such ruthless honesty, these molecules are ideal mirrors for the art of self-reflection.

Much of this potential is likely to pass the recreational user by. You often get what you ask for, and if your attitude does not predispose you to a therapeutic or spiritual trip, you are less likely to experience one. Of course, a casual user will sometimes stumble upon personal revelations quite by accident. Even the most stubborn eyes and minds can be opened, allowing some insights to filter in. Such is the power of these chemicals, and the human mind.

Leo Zeff, the underground psychedelic therapist profiled in The Secret Chief Revealed, believed that a trip’s value is in catalyzing personal growth.

But those who approach the psychedelic experience with respect and intention will learn much more from their trips, and will be better prepared to integrate those lessons into their daily lives. As Leo Zeff, a pioneer of the underground psychedelic therapy movement, used to say, the quality of a trip is measured not by your experience that day, but how you grow in the subsequent months as a result. If we commit ourselves to being accountable to the insights received, then every trip can become a transformative event, a tool for self-realization. The best kind of trip is one you grow from.

Casual trippers often overlook two important stages of tripping: preparation and integration. Without attending to these steps the user is unable to reach the pinnacle of a truly therapeutic trip and maximize the learning process. Many people don’t realize that psychedelics are a school — and like any school, you need to do your homework. I’ll elaborate on preparation and integration in future posts; they are terrific methods for making the most of the dose.

Myron Stolaroff, a researcher and advocate of psychedelic psychotherapy, describes how recreational use tends to taper off:

The use of psychedelics is self-regulating in most cases. Their true purpose is to enhance growth and interior development. Used only for pleasure, or abused, the Inner Self is thwarted, which leads to unpleasant experiences and depression. Though everyone who pursues the use of psychedelics for personal growth must be prepared for the “dark night of the soul” experiences, those who seek only entertainment will lose interest in these substances.

Tripping for entertainment may lose its charm, but tripping for personal growth can lead the intrepid psychonaut to ever greater heights over years of directed use. Rewards increase as self-understanding deepens.

Transformation is the highest purpose we can set for ourselves when exploring consciousness. “Psyche-delic” means mind-revealing, and indeed, seeing oneself more completely may be the most psychedelic activity there is. I take Leo Zeff’s advice, measuring a trip’s true value by how much I grow from it afterwards. Heck, that’s a great way to rate any experience, psychedelic or not: how has it changed your life?

While I honor every individual’s right to choose how to explore consciousness, I encourage those of you who have never had the pleasure to try out the self-discovery approach. If you trip, trip with intent. Bring questions to explore. Treat it with gravity and respect, like a therapeutic session. That’s what the psychedelic experience can be: a deep and honest interview with yourself. Plan to dig deep, committing yourself to confronting all conflicts and negative feelings as they arise.

Best of all, “tripping with intent” not an alternative method so much as a complementary one. People use psychedelics for all sorts of reasons — to improve sex, deepen their connection with nature, channel the divine, explore their internal emotional landscape, and so on. A focus on self-discovery, with proper preparation, method, and post-trip integration, will help bring more meaning to all of these activities.

Besides, an LSD trip can last twelve hours, and shrooms is at least six. That’s plenty of time for a variety of activities and settings. If you’re accustomed to recreational tripping, especially in a social setting, try setting aside some alone time on each trip for quiet introspection. Then ask yourself, what’s holding me back in life? How does my behavior compare to my goals and self-beliefs? What would I like to change about my life? Don’t just think through the questions; feel them. Focus on your deepest emotions before, during, and after the trip, and you will wind up with extraordinary lessons from the other side of the psychedelic frontier.

If you’re looking for more specific guidance about tripping for self-discovery, stay tuned! That’s the main goal of this blog — to awaken people to the highest potential of psychedelics; to help you make the most of the dose. In the meantime, you can read up on psychedelic psychotherapy and trip guides. Researchers like James Fadiman, Myron Stolaroff, Leo Zeff and others have shed some light on the best techniques for therapeutic tripping. You don’t need a psychology degree to gain insight from psychedelics; you just need to pay attention.

If you’ve experienced positive results from tripping with intent, share your experience with others! Give your “recreational” friends the opportunity to take tripping more seriously. Some people will resist, but others will be ecstatic that you opened their eyes to the higher potential of these chemicals. You never know, it just might change someone’s life.

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About Cody
Cody Johnson is an intrepid psychonaut and humanist who writes about mind-expanding plants and compounds at PsychedelicFrontier.com. His book, Magic Medicine, is an armchair adventurer’s guide to all things psychedelic: their history, emerging scientific research, therapeutic and spiritual applications, and legality.

The post Tripping as a Tool for Self-Realization appeared first on Maps of the Mind.