Exploring ‘become mycelium’ as a different kind of medicine
To "become mycelium" in a healing context is the ultimate act of Decentering the Self.
In the dominant culture (and traditional psychology), we are taught to be Trees: standing tall, individual, visible, competing for sunlight, and trying to grow as high as possible (Ascension).
To become Mycelium is to go underground. It is to accept that you are not a standalone unit, but a thread in a vast, invisible web of relations. Healing stops being about "fixing me" and starts being about "repairing the connections."
Here is what that shift looks like in practice.
1. You Stop Hoarding "Wellness" (Nutrient Exchange)
Biologically, mycelium is famous for the "Wood Wide Web"—it moves carbon and sugar from trees that have excess to trees that are struggling, even across different species.
The Healing Shift: You stop viewing your energy, money, or stability as private property.
What it looks like:
Mutual Aid as Therapy: You realize that your anxiety might not be a chemical imbalance, but a reaction to your neighbor's starvation. You engage in mutual aid not as "charity," but because you understand that if the network is sick, you cannot be well.
Asking for Help: You drop the "Hyper-Independence" trauma response. You allow nutrients (care, money, food, listening) to flow into you when you are depleted, without shame.
2. You Eat the Dead (Composting Grief)
Mycelium’s primary job is to break down dead matter. It turns the "endings" (fallen logs, leaves) into the soil for new life. It does not fear death; it feasts on it.
The Healing Shift: You stop trying to "get over" grief or "move on" from loss. You move into it.
What it looks like:
Metabolizing Trauma: Instead of packaging trauma away (repression), you sit with the "rot"—the sadness, the anger, the breakdown of old identities. You trust that by digesting this heavy emotion, you are creating fertile soil for whatever comes next.
Art Therapy Application: Making art with materials that rot (leaves, mud), or creating works specifically to destroy them, honoring the cycle of decay.
3. You Expand Horizontally, Not Vertically (Lateral Growth)
Trees grow up (hierarchy). Mycelium grows out (entanglement). It covers ground. It seeks new connections in the dark.
The Healing Shift: You abandon the "Ladder of Success" or the "Ladder of Healing" (getting to a "higher" vibration).
What it looks like:
Widening Safety: Instead of trying to reach a peak state of happiness, you try to widen your base of support. You connect with more people, more places, more non-human kin (rivers, pets).
Resilience: If one line is cut, the network survives because it has a million other pathways. You build a life where your well-being isn't tied to just one job, one partner, or one outcome.
4. You Embrace "The Dark" (Subterranean Wisdom)
Mycelium dies if exposed to too much direct light. It thrives in the dark, damp earth.
The Healing Shift: You reject the "Love and Light" spiritual bypassing that demands constant positivity.
What it looks like:
Shadow Work: You become comfortable in the "underground" of the psyche—the depression, the uncertainty, the quiet. You treat these states not as failures, but as incubation periods.
Invisibility: You stop needing to be "seen" or "validated" by the public eye (social media, applause) to feel real. You find power in being invisible, doing the quiet, unglamorous work of care that holds the forest together.
5. You Communicate Through Tremors (Somatic Listening)
Fungal networks signal danger or health through chemical pulses across miles. They feel the footfall of a bear or the toxin in the soil instantly.
The Healing Shift: You reframe "Hypersensitivity" as "Network Intelligence."
What it looks like:
Validating the Vibe: If you walk into a room and feel unsafe, you don't gaslight yourself with logic ("But everyone is smiling!"). You trust your mycelial gut. You acknowledge that your body is picking up on the invisible "toxins" (tension, aggression) in the web.
Empathic Boundaries: You learn that because you are connected, you feel the world's pain. The goal isn't to cut the connection (numbness), but to learn how to let it pass through you like an electric current, without burning you out.
Summary: The Mycelial Affirmation
"I am not a lone tree trying to touch the sun. I am the web underneath that holds the earth together. I feed what is hungry, I eat what is dead, and I grow in the dark."