Searching for My True Self in Greenwich Village

By Howard Steinberg

For most of my life, stillness eluded me. I struggled to be present in any moment, to experience joy or comfort, let alone peace. My mind was a relentless scanning machine, forever searching for what was wrong or what came next. It took me a virtual lifetime to understand that this exterior version of me, with its incessant mental chatter and negative bias, could no longer control me. I reached a breaking point. Divorced after a lifetime partnership, played out of my most recent start-up, kids all grown up — alone without my former identities and meaningful purpose — the hard inner journey began.

We are all a complex alchemy of genetics, neuroscience, and our individual childhood experiences that form a persona to navigate life. Rarely do we pause to examine what lies behind our busy identities. I needed to know who was buried within.

I was introduced to a “spiritual therapist.” Ann was a wise and loving 86-year-old mentor/yogic teacher on the Upper West Side. This was during Covid and we never met in person, just virtually. Initially, I’d show up for our 90-minute sessions like I did in the past with any “shrink” — all caught up in myself, stuck in that psychodynamic loop, staying in my mind and seeking solutions and relief from the problems of the day. I’d often come with an agenda to make sure I got to everything.

Ann tried to redirect me to a place of deeper feeling, but I had not yet learned how to disconnect from my thoughts or even how to feel into my heart. I approached therapy as any other experience: How do we optimize the time together for the ultimate outcome?

She gently started to move me inward and suggested two books that changed the direction of my life. Both shared an underlying theme of being present and embracing nonduality, meaning that we are connected to something bigger and singular. At the end of the day, the simplest way to convey these concepts is thinking less and feeling more. One book, Be Here Now, was written by Ram Dass, who so eloquently conveyed, “Quieting my mind just a little bit, bit by bit.”

These thinkers gave me a conceptual framework for awakening consciousness that involved a profound shift in awareness from the egoic mind to a deeper, more present state of being ─ transcending the ego’s illusions by connecting with our true self, which is grounded in love and compassion. According to Dass, the true self was there all along, even when we were babies, but could get buried by so much defense in the struggle to survive.

I had read Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now many years earlier, but Ann suggested reading his follow-up bestseller, The New Earth. The first six chapters rocked my world. I listened on a bike ride on the Hudson and actually pulled over to lie on the grass and fully process. I guess when you’re ready to listen, the message comes through and doesn’t sound like just another guru’s gobbledygook. This got me so far as my ego was one stubborn rascal and resistant to change. It was doing its job for so long, keeping me safe, that I needed to relax the parts of me that were most aggressively running the show ─ the controller and the protector, as I thought of them.

Then I read one more book, Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. His words helped usher in the renaissance of psychedelics as a path to consciousness and transcendence. I realized that I had to try something more aggressive to open up neural pathways in my brain to a new way of processing life.

I don’t want to convey that psychedelics are the only way to catalyze the kind of evolution I experienced. Many other paths can lead there: God, religion, therapy, meditation, hypnosis, yoga, nature, wise teachers, art, etc. There are many ways to get more intimate with ourselves and something bigger than ourselves. I just needed something more aggressive.

I went in search of a guide, shaman, facilitator … pick your term. Someone I could trust to serve me psychedelic medicine in New York City. While I read about aboveground clinical trials of MDMA and psilocybin getting amazing outcomes, they were not so easily accessible. However, the underground psychedelic world is loaded with practitioners of all varieties and competencies. But buyer beware! I encourage anyone curious to exercise appropriate caution and find highly respected a professional doing this work.

Beginning with my maiden psilocybin (mushroom) journey and some intense Ayahuasca ceremonies, I had a growing ability (and neuro plasticity) to apply the teachings of Dass and Tolle, and find a more tender heart. I started processing life differently. I started to see the wounds of childhood with clarity that was not possible through my conscious mind. Layer by layer, more and more dots connected.

There, with the benefit of the magical and mysterious plant medicine, I eventually met the tender, wounded boy of my youth. Buried beneath so much trauma. Less alone were the boy and me, as they now had each other. This represented the embodiment that the path home and the higher power are within me. Not some mythical figure in heaven. Simply treating myself with kindness and love. Holding the innocent fearful boy is how I heal and how I can find presence in this world without grasping for relief through relationships or my problem-craving mind.

Ultimately, the work that remained was in between, in walking the earth with less thinking and more presence. I’m still the same complex alchemy and still have plenty of issues, but I can now separate myself from the story and thus not default to that constant problem-seeking mind state. My heart will guide me home.

The Village View is sharing one person’s experience. We recommend that you work with your licensed health care provider to choose the best path for you.

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Howard Steinberg is a West Village resident and author of the recently published memoir Confessions of a Problem Seeker – My Lifelong Journey from Busy Brain to Loving Heart.