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Phil Stille What we bring to cannabis shapes our relationship with it. https://clearheadedhighs.xyz/about

10/15/2026

You can have a relationship with cannabis that doesn’t leave you foggy, drained, or depleted at the end of your day.

The relationship you have with cannabis is influenced by more than how often you use it or how much you consume. The activities you pair it with, the habits you develop around it, and how you feel about your life more broadly can all play a role in the experience you have.

If you’ve been back and forth with this at all, one shift that could be helpful is to begin paying attention to whether the activities you pair with cannabis tend to bring you into greater connection with yourself and your surroundings, or whether they become a way to check out. Becoming more aware of these patterns can give you a better understanding of what works for you and where a few adjustments might lead to a different experience.

In addition to how often cannabis is used as a connecting activity versus a disconnecting activity, another area that can contribute to feeling foggy, drained, or depleted is your level of fulfillment in areas like work, your sense of direction, and your relationships. Many people reach a point where all the usual measures of stability are taken care of, yet they still feel unfulfilled or uncertain about what their future looks like.

Seeing positive change in these areas usually isn’t about one big overhaul. More often, it comes down to consistency and a few intentional changes over time, both in how you relate to cannabis and in the rest of your life. Sometimes that means adjusting how you use it, and sometimes it means taking steps in new directions where more fulfillment or alignment can be found. If you’re in a place where you’re wanting to make some changes in these areas, there’s a link on my page where you can find some key areas to start with. No email or signup required.

10/11/2026

There is almost always another reason to stay in a steady job a little longer: another bonus, more equity about to vest, or one more financial milestone. Those incentives can provide real security, but they can also keep people in a position that drains them or no longer feels fulfilling.

This clip is from my recent conversation with Ashleigh Straub about her transition from corporate work to earning an income through UGC, or user-generated content. It is one possible route for people who feel burned out by their current work but are uncertain about what comes next.

Ashleigh talks about drawing a line in the sand for yourself rather than waiting until there are no reasons left to stay.

For some, UGC could be a bridge out of their current work while they explore something else. For others, as it has for Ashleigh, it can become a fulfilling career of its own.

I have worked with a lot of people looking to transition out of their current careers, which is one reason I wanted to have this conversation. UGC is one option I bring up with some of the people I work with if it feels like something they might be interested in.

Like anything else, beginning a new direction, whether through UGC or another path, generally takes intentionality, persistence, and a willingness to learn new things.

To learn more about Ashleigh, check out her profile here or listen to our full conversation through the link in mine.

10/08/2026

Your closest relationships influence the effects you get from cannabis and the role it plays in your life. The people you spend the most time with, and the conversations you find yourself in most frequently, leave something behind, whether positive, neutral, or negative. When those relationships consistently leave you angry, tense, drained, or depleted, those thoughts and emotions become part of what you bring to the plant.

This is one reason the familiar idea that we become the sum of the five people we spend the most time with takes on additional meaning when cannabis is involved. You may finish a draining conversation, use cannabis shortly afterward, and then find yourself ruminating, feeling foggy, becoming irritable, or wanting to disconnect. It can be easy to blame that entire experience on w**d without considering what entered the experience before you used it.

When someone begins to recognize that certain relationships are consistently draining, bringing more intentionality to the conversations they are in, what they bring into those conversations, and the boundaries that may be needed can begin to change the larger pattern. As those relationship dynamics become clearer and some of that pressure is addressed, there is less being carried into the experience with cannabis. This creates more room for a clear-headed relationship with the plant and a better understanding of what was shaping the experience before.

10/03/2026

Being caught in a back-and-forth relationship with cannabis for more than a decade can leave someone feeling frustrated and unsure what to do next. You may have taken breaks, experienced more clarity, and then found yourself returning to the same pattern. Eventually, removing cannabis for another stretch can begin to feel like an incomplete answer.

I’ve personally witnessed many people in this position find their rhythm and develop a clear-headed relationship with the plant that no longer feels negatively cyclical. When you have spent years thinking cannabis is the issue, looking at other areas of your life can seem counterintuitive. But there are a few areas where intentional changes and boundaries consistently help people make headway.

Two of the biggest areas worth examining are fulfillment in your closest relationships and fulfillment in your work. When either of those areas feels stagnant, it is easy to interpret the resulting lack of motivation as proof that w**d is holding you back. Cannabis can contribute to the cycle, but lasting headway may also require setting boundaries, stepping away from certain relationships or work dynamics, or moving in a direction that feels more meaningful.

Creating a clearer relationship with cannabis can require real changes and, for some people, real sacrifices. If those changes are not something you are willing to make, letting go of cannabis may be the better decision. But if part of you still believes a healthier relationship with the plant is possible, Maslow’s hierarchy is a useful reference for reflecting on what is being paired with the cannabis. The more alignment someone creates across those areas of life, the clearer and more intentional their relationship with cannabis can become.

If you have been in this cycle or know someone who is looking to make changes, there is a free resource through the link in my bio that goes over the six key areas I’ve found most impactful in creating a clearer relationship with cannabis. No signup is required.

09/12/2026

One of the most positive sides of cannabis is the way it brings people together. Sharing cannabis with others is often accompanied by great conversation and uplifting social interaction, and it can create common ground between people who come from very different backgrounds or otherwise may have had little reason to cross paths.

In a recent conversation I had with Chris Martin Convicted Creations , he shared what it was like to be a quarterback while also living in a boys’ home. Being an athlete came with the expectation that he should not smoke w**d or spend time with people who did, but his circumstances placed him around two different groups of people who may not have connected otherwise. Cannabis became the common ground that brought those worlds together.

Thirty years later, many of those friendships are still part of his life. On his birthday, they can pass a joint and laugh about the random kid who walked into school without knowing where he fit and somehow became a lifelong friend.

If you would like to hear the full conversation, you can find it through the link on my profile.

Failure is the most information-rich data stream that exists.Most of us have been conditioned to resist the idea of fail...
09/12/2026

Failure is the most information-rich data stream that exists.

Most of us have been conditioned to resist the idea of failure in some way, and it’s usually deeply rooted in the nervous system. We don’t want to become a failure. There’s fear in the body of, “What will they think?” Whoever “they” are doesn’t really matter.

Most successful people will pat someone on the back who is failing on their way to finding their unique path.

The cosmic comedy here is that one increases their chances of becoming “a failure” the more they resist fails.

Stepping outside of the historical box we come to find ourselves in means trying something new that doesn’t have a guarantee attached to it.

Iterate, reiterate, refine, repeat, and be open to pivoting completely when one venture has clearly run its course. Keep doing that in the areas you feel called toward, curious about, or have some genuine passion for.

09/04/2026

Talking to yourself has historically been viewed by society as a sign that something is wrong with you. Many of us learned to react to it with resistance or judgment, even though conscious, intentional self-talk is one of the best practices we can have with ourselves.

Traditional journaling never felt natural to me because I did not enjoy sitting down and writing everything out. Recording voice notes gave me another way in. I could speak freely, listen to what was actually going through my mind, and begin working through thoughts and beliefs that were difficult to recognize when they remained internal. I would also record video journal entries and rotate back and forth between the two practices, and it helped me tremendously.

One of the reasons I think recording is useful is that clicking the record button creates a different level of intention. There is something about knowing the thought is being captured that tends to help us speak more clearly, get more out, and process things further than we might when there is no paper in front of us or no recording device capturing it.

That does not mean this practice will be perfect for everyone. But for me, and pretty much everyone I have worked with who has started doing some version of it, recording intentional self-talk has been incredibly helpful.

08/30/2026

When cannabis feels like it is holding you back or weighing you down, much of the advice you hear will tell you to toughen up and quit. But for many people, the more useful move is to reflect honestly on what is behind the habit itself. Taking a walk and considering how you feel in your life more broadly is a useful place to start. Do your closest relationships lift you up or drain you? Do you feel fulfilled in your work, your sense of purpose, and your sense of self?

If there is disalignment in one or more of those areas, cannabis is going to amplify that sense of being weighed down. Taking time away from it can be helpful, and many people find real benefit in doing so. But we are all different, and it is possible to make headway in these areas without kicking the plant out of your life.

If there is an underlying sense of “meh” in any area of your life, where you spend the week looking forward to the weekend only for it to fly by and leave you feeling deflated going into the next week, cannabis is often going to accentuate that in how you feel during and after using it.

Before deciding that cannabis itself is the problem, take an honest look at what the plant is amplifying. As you begin making changes in the areas that feel stagnant, draining, or disconnected, your experience with cannabis can change too. You may still decide that taking a break or letting it go is right for you, but having a healthy and clear-headed relationship with the plant is also possible.

08/20/2026

In this clip from a recent hangout with my friend and brother Nate Nathan Gould, he shares how he overcame a fear of needles that had followed him for years.

For a long time, giving blood would send his nervous system into what felt like a full-blown panic. He would sweat through his shirt, get dizzy, and sometimes have multiple nurses around him trying to keep him upright. Consciously, he knew he was safe, which almost made the reaction more frustrating because he could never understand why his body responded so intensely.

Eventually, Nate started wondering whether he could approach that fear the same way he had approached other limiting beliefs and patterns in his life. He sat down in meditation and traced the reaction back to the earliest experience he could remember involving a needle in his arm. What came up was a surgery he had as a child, where he remembered being told to count backward from ten and then suddenly blacking out around four. Looking at the memory as an adult, he could recognize how scared and uncertain he had likely felt in that moment.

From there, he spent time working with the emotional charge around that experience, exploring how it may have served him and looking at the memory from perspectives he had never considered as a kid. Then, when he recently went in for his annual blood work, he warned the nurse about everything that normally happened. They were sitting there talking when he heard her cap the vial and realized she was already finished. No sweating through his shirt. No dizziness. No panic.

After years of having such an intense reaction, this recent experience helped remind Nate just how powerful the unconscious mind can be and how much can be operating outside of our normal day-to-day awareness.

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