Green Bay Packers icon Aaron Rodgers believes that winning back-to-back MVPs in his late 30s came from having an “experience” with psychedelics and learning to love himself and his teammates in a way he never had before.
Rodgers is a true one-of-a-kind athlete. There is no doubt about his place as one of the best quarterbacks to have ever played in the NFL. His success and swagger have earned him a legion of supporters, but what he did over the last two seasons, at an age when most players have a steep performance decline, ended up making him the richest player in the sport’s history.
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Winning back-to-back MVP awards at 37 and 38 years old is an abnormal act. Many just assume that Rodgers is a special talent akin to Tom Brady, and the pair are just blessed with the ability to defy father time. However, the nine-time Pro Bowler claimed on a Wednesday edition of the “Aubrey Marcus Podcast” that there is a very specific reason for his success. And that is having a psychedelic experience from dabbling in Ayahuasca.
Green Bay Packers legend lauds the benefits of Ayahuasca
The substance found in South America contains the hallucinogen DMT and Rodgers says tripping out on it helped his mental health and to learn to love himself.
“To me, one of the core tenets of mental health is self-love. And that’s what Ayahuasca did for me, was to see how to unconditionally love myself. … What better way to work on my mental health than to have an experience like that?”
Aaron rodgers on benefits of Ayahuasca
Host Aubrey Marcus transitioned the conversation to how the stigma around psychedelics often leads to professional athletes not partaking in them. But in his mind, they actually bring a unique mental clarity and the evidence was the fact that Rodgers won an MVP award after his first “experience” with the drug. It was a point Rodgers firmly agreed with.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I really don’t. I don’t believe in coincidences at this point. The universe brings you things when it’s supposed to happen and there’s signs and synchronicities all around us at all times if we’re wake enough to see them and take them in. … Pounding us in the head saying, ‘Hey dummy, wake up.’ Through listening to your podcast, and hearing you talk about psychedelics and my experience on the beach, it opened me up to the possibility of doing it.
“I heard about Ayahuasca and I think there’s so many myths and rumors about it. The fear around it is you’re gonna sh*t yourself, it’s just a big throwup fest. … A dear friend of mine, in 2019 went down to Peru and did an experience. And we were playing golf one day, right after he got back and he told me the whole story. I was deeply moved and I felt like now it’s time. Now it’s time for me to do it.”
aaron Rodgers credits Ayahuasca for recent success
- Aaron Rodgers stats (2021): 4,115 yard, 37 TD, 4 INT, 111.9 rating
Whether you share Rodgers’ beliefs or think he has as much in common with Cheech and Chong as he does with Brady, there is no denying he has defied the norms of what a quarterback is supposed to do at his age over the last two seasons.