A pivotal moment in her life – Mica’s experience with psychedelics

Mica shares a pivotal moment in her life. After spending 15 years in London, she was preparing to leave everything behind, return to Australia, start a family, and step into a new chapter of her life.

Caught between excitement, fear of change, a loss of identity, and a search for meaning, she decides to take part in a psychedelic retreat with Tangerine Retreat.

Far more than a simple story about psychedelics, this interview explores transition, identity, fear, love, letting go, and inner renewal.

It is a conversation that can resonate even with people who are not especially interested in this kind of experience, but who are going through a period of change or questioning in their own lives.

Hi Mica, can you introduce yourself?

I’m an Australian who grew up here in Perth. I first went to Europe when I was 17, backpacking, and fell in love with being in Europe. I moved back to Australia when I was 19 and was in London for the last 15 years of my life. I had a whole life there; I met my husband, we got married, and I had a whole group of friends. I have only very recently moved back to live in Perth.

My childhood was a very happy one. I’m very close with my parents; I have a brother. But I kind of grew up away from them really. If you think about who you were at 17 and who you were in your mid 30s, it’s completely different. So, even though I saw a lot of them and spent a lot of time with my parents, my identity was very much based in London.

It was obviously an adjustment to get prepared to come back home and live with them again.

What led you to a psychedelic retreat?

I guess there’s the intellectual side of it. I have a psychology degree, undergraduate degree, which I started in my 30s. I left my corporate career and went back to university because psychology was always what I was very interested in. It was my passion. In my final year, I started looking into some more experimental stuff, such as psilocybin and psychedelics in general, to treat not just mental illness, but as a form of therapy. I found it so fascinating: I did a lot of research in it and read about it.

I just thought that the idea of unlocking that part of your brain in a therapeutic environment was so interesting – and it really is obviously in the very early stages of being used therapeutically. I really just wanted to explore that a bit more, I guess. Professionally and intellectually, I was very interested in psychedelics and what it can unlock.

Some of the papers I was reading were about terminally ill patients and how it really helped them come to terms with death and their lives. I thought that was so fascinating.

On the emotional side of it, I was getting ready to leave London. We’d applied for my husband’s Australian visa. We’d sold our house. We were getting ready, and in the lead-up to that, I just was really struggling with the transition. I guess there were a lot of feelings that were coming up: we came to Australia to start the next stage of our lives, to buy a house. I’m actually 5 months pregnant at the moment.

There was fear, there was excitement, but there were a lot of feelings of leaving my old identity behind to find my new identity, and also coming to terms with being around my family. You know, I love my parents. We have a close relationship, but there’s some stuff there that I wanted to work through and some feelings that were coming up for me. So when I started researching if there was a way that I could engage with a psilocybin retreat, that’s when I found you guys and it just seemed like perfect timing. The dates lined up perfectly.

I think I only had a few weeks left in Europe when I found you guys. You had some availability and it just kind of seemed like the universe was coming together.

Did you have any worries or fears when you decided to take part in a psychedelic retreat?

I had taken hallucinogenics before, so I did know what to expect a little bit, but there was always the fear of the high dose and what it was going to bring up in me. There was a little part of me that was worried: what if I have some really strong feelings about my move to Australia? Do I want to have children? What if it brings up some sort of difficult stuff for me? It would be a little late to go to my husband and tell him, “Sorry, I don’t actually want to do this.” So, there were some of those feelings: what if I open a can of worms or what if I open a Pandora’s box that I can’t close?

There were also some quite basic insane fears that went with it. I’m going to a group of people that I’d never met before. You know, engaging in a way that was quite deep and emotional with strangers in a foreign country where I wasn’t always going to speak the predominant language.

I’m obviously a world traveler. I’ve traveled by myself a lot, but this felt a bit different. There was a vulnerability that came with this that isn’t involved in other types of travel.

How would you describe the atmosphere within the group?

I felt it was a group of like-minded people. At first, there’s always icebreaking and the feeling of trying to get to know people. But very quickly it became very comfortable. I think there was a real sense of everybody being on a journey together and everybody came for their own reasons. It was absolutely fascinating to listen to some of those reasons.

Obviously, people could go into how much depth they wanted to. No one was forced to talk if they didn’t want to. It was really fascinating to learn that some people were just curious. Some people wanted an emotional connection.

There was someone who was just there because he was supporting his partner and he ended up having his own journey. It felt like we were all there together. For many people, it was their first time as well, which was really reassuring. But a lot of people had also done it many times before, which was equally reassuring. It was a real combination of experiences, which I think was great. It really added to the atmosphere.

What was your first breathwork experience like?

It’s very interesting for me when I reflect back on it because I would never call myself a spiritual person. I think I’ve always been adjacent to spirituality and spent time with people who are very spiritual, but I’ve never been someone who’s really into that. When we were doing the meditation, the breathwork, we were all up in that loft room together.

When I think about it, it was quite a bizarre thing because I really felt the beginnings of something during the breathwork. And I remember saying afterwards to one of the facilitators who was there: I felt like I was going somewhere in that breathwork, you know? I felt like I was beginning to feel a connection to something in a way I never had before. I really think it opened me up to the experience. It opened me up to the mindset I needed to have the experience and it’s definitely something I’ve continued doing. I’ve done breathwork a handful of times since because I thought the experience itself was so grounding, right before something that was so transformative.

I kept a journal while I was there and I was rereading it before this interview. On the morning of the ceremony, I wrote: I think something magical is about to happen. I felt it so strongly that this was just about to be a really magical experience.

How did your psychedelic experience unfold?

At the beginning, you’re in a large room. You all lie down together, but you’re very individual. You’re in your individual bed, you’ve got your blanket, you’ve got your mask, and you feel very cozy, you know? It’s just such a lovely environment to begin with.

Then we sat down; there was this like a buzz of excitement in the air. We took our dose. The other thing that was amazing about it was the soundtrack that played throughout. I think I’ve still got the soundtrack on my phone. I listen to it whenever I’m meditating because the soundtrack was like something out of Interstellar. It really brought me into the experience and guided my whole experience.

When I first laid down, I took my dose. I had my mask on, my blackout mask, and I laid down. At first, I was just listening to the music and getting myself into it. I remember thinking to myself:

I’m ready for whatever you bring me. I’m opening myself up to you.

The intention I’d set and I had written down on a piece of paper was: I am enough. I wanted to go into this and come out of it knowing that I am enough to get through the next stage of my life. I’m happy where I am. This is a transitional time that I’m sort of prepared for.

It was probably 20–25 minutes of just lying there feeling very comfortable, listening to the music, sort of feeling very excited. And then I started to see some shimmering lights. Obviously, this is with the mask on. And then as I tried to look through the lights to go deeper into it. The more I tried to look the more the lights would pull away. It was a very strange thing. I was almost playing a kind of game with it.

I ended up thinking to myself: right, I’m ready. Whenever you’re ready to take me, I’m ready to go with you. And then, suddenly, it was like going into the universe. It was like the whole universe opened up in front of my eyes and I was suddenly in this kind of galaxy looking at all these incredible lights and images. The feeling I got almost instantly was that whoever was there was really happy to see me. Like they’d been waiting for me forever. Like they had been waiting and trying to break through to me my whole life. I was there and they were so happy to see me. It was like a big party. Everyone was rejoicing because I was finally there. I was finally letting myself go there. I was finally: I’d made it.

Then there were all the kinds of imagery that you would expect. There’s the image side of it, which went very much with the music, which was color and different visions. There were castles or palaces. But the feeling that came with it was like being guided through a journey by these beings that adored you and loved you.

The feeling I got overwhelmingly from everything was understanding that I was so loved by everyone. And I was so lucky. What it kept saying to me over and over again was, “Oh my god, look how much love you have in your life. Look how lucky you are.”

And I’d gone on the journey with really basic things: I wanted to explore my relationship with my dad more because my dad was a bit distant. And that all melted away because what it told me was all those little idiosyncrasies you have with family and friends, all those little things of attachment or all the things that come up in your life, it’s all interwoven with love. You are so loved by your family, you’re so loved by your friends, you’re so loved by your husband. Everything, even the bad things, even the clashing that you have and the argument is all love. That was kind of what the feeling of the whole experience was for me.

I remember I was crying tears of joy, just absolute joy. And it was lovely because you’re in your own experience; you can obviously hear people around, but you’re very much in your own experience. I remember lying there with the tears going down my face and I just felt a little hand push a tissue into my hand: it was my facilitator. I really felt like there were guardian angels looking out for you, you know. I could feel their presence around me. I could feel that there were people looking after me and I felt so safe the whole time I was on this journey.

And then there were other parts of it that came in and out. I really saw my life as a river, if that makes sense. I saw that people coming into your life make the river stronger, then they go out and that’s okay, because everything that comes in and out is feeding you. For me that was a big thing, obviously: I was feeling a lot of conflict about leaving my friends, leaving my life behind, leaving all these connections. I was scared I would lose track of these people. I really understood that was there’s no such thing: even if I never spoke to these people ever again, they will always mean something to me and contributed to that part of my life. That’s really, really special.

I also had this real intrinsically deep feeling about having children. I saw my family. I saw my husband and I. I saw how we would be this unit together and everything was surrounded by love, like there was always this white shining light over everything.

My husband really wanted kids. I knew I wanted kids eventually, but I’ve never been super maternal and needing it. When I saw that image, I realized that you’re just bringing more love into this world. You’re bringing more of a connection. And I saw the connection between my whole family history. I saw my father and me, and my kids; I really saw the interconnection. It was really interesting because, in the vision I had, it was a girl, a female child… and I’m having a girl now, which is so crazy.

When the doctor told me, I was like: I knew it was a girl. I have to preface it’s not something I would have believed, I guess, if I hadn’t experienced it. I’m not the sort of person who was really into that idea of faith in the universe and stuff like that. But I remember saying to my mom: if you were a very religious person, you would feel like you saw God. That’s what it felt like. It felt like touching the divine. I think that’s what I said when they asked me afterwards: what did it feel like? It felt like touching the divine. It felt like connecting to something so much bigger than myself.

Did you have any difficult moments during the experience?

I mean, 6 hours is crazy because it went so quickly. There was maybe one point where the lights got very bright and the colors got very intense, but I wouldn’t even call it anxiety. There were no negative feelings, really; it just got very intense. I remember just feeling my own hand and rubbing my hand to self-sooth myself and just saying: you know, you’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay. You’re safe.

It was funny because my facilitator was, “Oh, I could see you doing that.” And, obviously, the facilitator would have come up to me if I needed it. At any point, you can take your mask off. You can ask for help. But, for me, actually, self-soothing was really important. I think it was almost like I was there for myself. It was very short-lived.

Then, slowly, I went through that whole experience. I think the way you realize you’re coming out of it is like you can hear things more and you can become more aware of the feeling of the blanket, for example. You sort of become a bit more grounded in your body.

I did take my mask off at one point to go to the bathroom. Because of how intense the visions were, I did not really know what to expect when I took my mask off. Am I even going to be able to walk or see? And then, when I took my mask off, it was normal. There was a little bit of shimmering and things like that, but I spoke to my facilitator, who helped walk me to the bathroom. I remember thinking to myself: wow, it’s crazy that it is all going on in my head, in my mind.

It really showed the effect of hallucinogenics and how they meant to be taken. When you close yourself off to the environment around you, you can really go inside. If we had been able to see and walk around, we would never have had the same experience. Looking at the trees and the lights and the shimmering is all very beautiful, but it’s that going inside that was so important.

What happened as you came out of the experience?

Everybody slowly came out of it, but there was no rush. The music was still playing. It just felt like an environment that was full of love. Everyone was sitting there and everyone was going through their own experience. The facilitators were dealing with people who needed to talk about it.

I stood up for a bit to get some fresh air and just looked out the window. When I looked out the window, there was a whole family of cranes flying into the trees outside the center. I was watching them just breathing in the fresh air. I was watching them as they built a nest. They were taking sticks from one tree and they were moving it to another tree. That was a really grounding moment for me: “Oh my gosh, they’re going and building their home just like I’m going to, they’re flying and they’re building their home.” For me, that really was like a solidifying note from the universe that was like, “This is real. What you just experienced was real. Don’t forget about me, don’t forget that this happened. Don’t say, ‘Oh, that was all just a trip.’”

It was a very real grounding experience.

Then, we were invited to talk about it if we wanted to. Some people did, some people didn’t. There was a time of processing what we have just seen and what we have experienced as well.

What dose did you take during the ceremony?

I took a medium dose, because it was my first time. Then I took the top-up dose as well. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but it was the mid-level dose.

How did you feel after the ceremony and the following day?

The evening after the ceremony, I felt like walking on air a little bit, you know? I just remember feeling really happy, really calm, quiet. There was definitely a time of processing; the whole next day as well. There was a feeling of protection with us because we were all together and we all shared this experience. We had been on different journeys, but we were all like excited kids: what did you see? How did you feel?

There was a real sense of peace for me afterwards, especially when I journaled through it reflecting on why I’d gone into this and what I’d taken out of it. Actually, it hadn’t come to me in the way I thought it would, but it had given me everything I’d asked for.

I left feeling so peaceful, so ready.

What was your impression of the group experience?

The group experience was very much all positive. During the actual experience, you do feel very individual, but you do also feel the energy of the group in the room. And I was saying to one of the facilitators – my group was a mix of English speakers and French speakers – it had this real calming feeling of hearing little French whispers in the background. It was quite magical.

I think what was really great we all talked at the beginning; we disclosed our expectations if we wanted to. In the closing ceremony, we talked about what we got out of it.

You’re going on your own journey. But for me, it closed the circle to hear other people explaining what they saw. A lot of it was very different to me. I assumed that maybe there would be similar experiences – , of course, there were – but there were some people who had had very different experiences to me in the sense they’d seen different things. I think getting those other perspectives was really great because it really helped me to feel the connection with the group.

How did the retreat change your view of psychedelics?

Putting aside the ideas I had about the use of psychedelics for treatment and psychiatry, my thought of psychedelics was just, “Oh, this is so fun. Have it and see these magical things and these shimmering lights.” And it was very much about an experience outside your body and an experience that just heightened your environment, a music festival or something like that. I thought psychedelics were just this fun, frivolous thing that you could do if you wanted to experience the world in a slightly different way.

Post the retreat, there is a real change in the way I now see it. For me, it is now like medicine, I almost see it now as more of a sacred thing that you undertake when you want to self-explore. I see the power of psychedelics in terms of what it can open up for you, what it can bring up for you.

It’s not an outward experience; it’s an inward experience. Of course, it doesn’t always have to be.

But you can’t compare taking psychedelics and going to a music festival and the experience of truly being within yourself and unlocking these parts of yourself that have been closed off.

I said this at the retreat and I still reiterate: I want these experiences to be something I do throughout my life. It certainly won’t be the last time that I do that. I’m pregnant now, and after I have a baby, I think I would really love to come back and explore that experience as well and see what comes up for me. I’d love to bring my mom along to one psilocybin retreat. I think it would be incredible for her as well. I really see the power that it brings and what it can bring out of you, what it can facilitate within you.

Why did you choose Tangerine Retreat?

Like I was saying, the feelings of the questions that were asked, the intake questionnaire, and the interview. When you’re trying to choose something like this, there are obviously a lot of retreats: am I just going somewhere and is it just going to be like, “Here are some mushrooms, lie down or go outside”? How do I know that this isn’t just a money-grabbing thing where you just get given some mushrooms and enjoy your trip?

Because it was such a sensitive time for me, I was highly aware that this has to be the right environment for me. The reason I knew it was right with you guys was the amount of detail you wanted from me. It wasn’t just a case: “You want to do this experience, sure, sign here.”

It was like really making sure that I was the right fit, that you were the right fit. It was just as much about you guys making sure that I was the right person for you, as it was for me making sure that you were the right retreat center for me. It really felt like a relationship coming together in a way.

As soon as I’d done that, I knew I’d made the right decision, to be honest. I was like: this is exactly the environment I need to be doing this in. It meant that I felt safe for the rest of my time.

This content is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It does not in any way constitute encouragement to use illegal substances, nor does it offer medical advice. If you are experiencing psychological or medical issues, please consult a qualified health care professional. Tangerine Retreat does not provide psychedelic therapy or treatment for mental health conditions. Some of the substances mentioned are legal in certain countries and illegal in others. It is the responsibility of each individual to comply with the laws of the country in which they are consumed and to undertake any experience in a safe and appropriate setting.