NFL’s Aaron Rodgers Credits MVP Performances to Psychedelic Experience

During a podcast appearance on August 3, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a four-time National Football League Most Valuable Player, credited ayahuasca, a hallucinogen, for “the best season” of his career. Rodgers said his ayahuasca experience preceded his back-to-back MVP seasons.

During the interview with Aubrey Marcus, Rodgers said the experience helped him “see how to unconditionally love” himself.

“It’s only in that unconditional self love, that then I’m able to truly be able to unconditionally love others. And what better way to work on my mental health than to have an experience like that? … The greatest gift I can give my teammates, in my opinion, is to be able to show up and to be someone who can model unconditional love to them. I mean obviously it’s important I play well, and show up and lead and all that stuff. They won’t care about what you say until they know how much you care.” — Rodgers, “Aaron Rodgers Shares The Vulnerable Truth,” AMP #373, via Insider 

He added that he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he had his best season following his experience with the ancient psychedelic.  

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I really don’t. I don’t really believe in coincidences at this point. It’s the universe bringing things to happen when they’re supposed to happen,” he said. “There’s signs and synchronicities all around us at all times if we’re awake enough to see them and to take them in and to listen to our intuition when it’s speaking to us or pounding us in the head saying, ‘Hey dummy, this is what you’re supposed to be doing.'” 

During the interview, Rodgers also tried to dispel rumors about the psychedelic. 

“The fear around it is, you’re going to shit yourself, it’s just a big throw-up fest,” he said, “but the negative framework of it is that is the experience, not the deep and meaningful and crazy mind-expanding possibilities, and also deep self-love and healing that can happen on the other side.” 

He added that, following the experience, he knew he “was never gonna be the same.”