HIGHER LOVE

Friedman recounts a journey of discovery, drugs, and travel in this debut memoir.

The author thought she had finally found the perfect fiance—kind, considerate, wealthy, a good cook—only to have him end their engagement with little explanation. The breakup coincided with Friedman’s disillusionment with her doctoral program and new worries about her ability to find a job. She was acutely aware that she had no firm direction in life: “My mom’s calling was in reproductive justice and Indigenous rights,” writes the author. “My sister’s was in anti-slavery and corporate responsibility. My calling was…shopping for pretty dresses? Getting good grades on tests that don’t measure anything meaningful? Falling for men who claim to love me then don’t?” With her life in a spiral, she impulsively flew to Costa Rica for a yoga teacher training retreat, thinking that a new environment and a ton of yoga might turn things around. Her laptop was stolen almost immediately upon landing, and the yoga turned out to be harder than any she had ever done, but she had a spiritual experience one night while sitting alone at the edge of the property: a voice, telling her, “You were born.” The moment unlocked something in Friedman. She would later consider it her first psychedelic experience, even though she had not taken any substances. When the retreat ended, the author returned to Chicago with her mind newly opened. It was only the beginning of what would turn out to be a six-year journey of self-discovery, one revolving around travel and experimenting with psychedelic drugs (ironic, since one of the goals of her yoga retreat was to quit smoking weed). This memoir is an account of that journey: eating magic mushrooms with her dad in Amsterdam, dropping acid on the Big Island in Hawaii, and celebrating her 30th birthday with an ayahuasca ceremony. From San Francisco to Barcelona to Marrakesh, she pushed the boundaries of reality to discover the sources of her shame and open herself up to the love she had always desired.

Friedman writes in an engagingly chatty style that blends well with her descriptions of her chemical adventures. Here she describes the realization, during a trip on psychedelic truffles, that she needed to cut off her hair: “[M]y hair hung heavy and limp, pulled down by gravity, leaching me of energy. It was history and story—baggage, inherited, in HAIR it is! I thought about all that had happened in the past decade that I didn’t want to hold onto, and thought about it being stored in my hair.” The author, who comes from a wealthy family, frequently expresses the guilt she feels for being “born into privilege,” an anxiety that exacerbated her early paralysis. These reminders do not necessarily endear her to the reader, though they do explain her ability to travel so frequently. The book is not quite Eat, Pray, Love on psychedelics, as its premise might suggest—it isn’t as glamorous, it sometimes borders on repetitiveness, and the quest terminates in a surprisingly down-to-earth place. Even so, many seekers will find a bit of themselves on Friedman’s trips.

A probing, often surprising memoir about the search for the self.