How Psychedelics and Meditation Help in Midlife - Feature on Midlife Remix Podcast

Midlife often brings new challenges. The life you built still functions, but it no longer feels aligned. Work, identity, and family roles start to pull apart, and the strategies that once worked stop providing clarity.

In this conversation, Steven Miyao speaks with contemplative psychotherapist David Redish about how psychedelics and meditation help in midlife, particularly when identity begins to strain under change. They explore fatherhood as an early catalyst, burnout as a signal rather than a failure, and why holding too tightly to a fixed sense of self creates unnecessary suffering.

They discuss psychedelics as tools that can temporarily soften rigid identity structures and create perspective, and meditation as the ongoing practice that trains awareness day by day. The conversation also covers legality, safety, preparation, and integration, with a clear emphasis that insight alone is not enough without sustained work. This episode is for people who are not looking for shortcuts, but for ways to navigate midlife transitions with more honesty, stability, and alignment.

Chapters:
00:00 Wanting a whole different life
01:49 Fatherhood as the first identity rupture
03:21 When the identity you built stops working
06:50 Midlife, aging out, and changing rules
07:33 How psychedelics loosen fixed identity
11:34 Safety, legality, and responsible use
15:47 Set, setting, and integration
20:10 Psychedelics and meditation, different roles
23:15 Why daily meditation matters
27:24 Advice across a lifetime