I'm a microdosing coach. Here's how I try to help people change their lives with psychedelics.

• Paul Austin, 33, started experimenting with psychedelics while he was in college.
• He later began microdosing them, taking small amounts to garner certain benefits.
• He now coaches people on how to develop self-awareness and self-regulation through microdosing.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a transcribed conversation with Paul Austin, a microdosing coach and the founder and CEO of the psychedelics- and microdosing-education platform Third Wave. The following has been edited for length and clarity. There is "no definitive evidence yet that microdosing with psychedelics is either effective or safe," according to Dr Peter Grinspoon, is a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Further, eating the wrong type of mushroom can result in serious problems including death.

I've always had a bit of a rebellious streak. At 19, while I was in college, a friend introduced me to psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms.

Five months after that, I had my first experience with LSD. I took a dose of about 250 micrograms with a couple of friends. I felt a lot of love and connection to nature, and it was a life-changing experience.

Over the next few years, I did LSD about 10 times and psilocybin mushrooms 25 times.

It helped me to heal a lot of the guilt and shame that I felt came from growing up in a religious and somewhat sheltered environment, and it allowed me to release a lot of those shackles.

That led me to commit myself to living my life unconventionally — at least during my 20s — and just explore and not care about money.

Starting a microdosing-education platform

When I was 25, some friends and I came up with the idea of starting an education platform to inform people about the pros and cons of psychedelics. That's how Third Wave was created in 2015.

At first, I focused a lot of the content on microdosing, which I had done with LSD while living in Thailand.

It helped me cut down on drinking alcohol, deal with social anxiety, and increase my productivity and creativity.

Some people may believe that psychedelics are bad, but some research has found that they're generally not addictive.

In my opinion, a misconception is that psychedelics don't work to aid mental health. I think that may be true for some folks because they're using them incorrectly by either taking too much or not enough — and without the right support or guidance.

Helping people develop self-awareness

Most of my work is in a group setting and online, and it can last for weeks or months, depending on clients' needs.

I don't work with people interested in trying psychedelics to heal post-traumatic stress disorder or depression because I'm not a clinician.

I help people develop self-awareness and self-regulation. If someone is coming to you as a coach to work with psychedelics, they may, for example, be struggling with relationships. In that case, we would focus on interpersonal aspects.

A highlight of my job is seeing the impact microdosing has on people after helping them to heal, transform, and process their emotions.

I'm passionate about how psychedelics can help people, and some research has found efficacy. But I think they work only if used responsibly and with intention and guidance.

The greatest challenge in this line of work is my role as a CEO and an entrepreneur trying to build a business in a space that's largely illegal.

The challenge isn't necessarily that I'm worried about being arrested but more about the limitations on what I can do. For example, I can't sell microdoses online.

There are also a lot of companies in the market that focus on the clinical, therapeutic, and biotech aspects of psychedelic-drug use — while I'm focused on its cultural integration.

This presents a problem around pioneering a field with very little capital. It's challenging — but a lot of fun.