Why It’s Okay to Change (I Did After Doing Psychedelics)
I went from a right-wing political commentator to a Krishna-loving vegetarian and I never saw it coming.
The Road to Right Wing
All my life I’ve been so sure about who I wanted to be. ‘I want to be known for something’, I’d say. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I knew it from a young age.
At one point I wanted to be a singer. It’s a talent I’ve always had and seldom used, due to my lack of self-confidence. There were times I’d used it, like that one time I sang ‘Bleeding Love’ by Leona Lewis for my school talent contest, and I won the bloody thing.
Another time I auditioned for the X-Factor in high school. I passed the first round but didn’t pass the second one because my singing voice was too quiet. That again was because I was terrified and didn’t fully believe I could do it.
After that, I posted the odd singing video on Instagram, but most of the time I didn’t want to post anything because I was obsessing over how my face looked in the videos.
A while later I gave up on the idea of singing. But I still wanted to be known for something, hence why I was voted ‘Most Likely to Be Famous’ at the school prom, which is actually hilarious.
I told myself anyone could be a singer, and it was a job that didn’t really mean anything.
I still liked to do other things, such as drawing and writing (I wrote and self-published a vampire novel at 12), but I eventually turned my attention to more academic pursuits.
In college, I decided to study politics. It got me thinking: ‘Ghee, politics is something that everyone should know about, right?’ And so I made it my mission.
I didn’t know anything about politics at first. I had pretty generic opinions, but by the end of college after studying political philosophy, I decided that I was a philosophical conservative and supported Brexit. That then continued when I got to university and my beliefs became more entrenched.
But what I never saw coming was my whole online identity being associated with right-wing politics by the age of 24 and having hundreds of thousands of followers.
A Traitor to My Race
I believed very strongly in what I was saying and was good at debating. What made it better was that my mum was proud of me, and it felt good to get attention and recognition for my opinions, even if they were controversial and divisive to some.
I would talk about Brexit and racial politics from a right-wing perspective, arguing that the left used black people as a political monolith and that it was actually racist for them to do so. Admittedly, US conservative commentator Candace Owens was a massive inspiration to me at the time, so it was no coincidence that people started comparing me to her.
In all honesty, though I didn’t like the fact that most black people disagreed with me and saw me as a traitor to my race, I wasn’t entirely phased by it.
For starters, I genuinely believed (and still do), that how we perceive the world will ultimately become our reality. And so, if you believe the system is against you, it ultimately will be. Most black people didn’t get that, or at least didn’t understand it because of the way I was wording it and the demographic of people who agreed with me (they were mostly old and white).
Yes, it was frustrating and a bit embarrassing. But ultimately, I didn’t care enough to stop.
Another reason for that was because I was used to being misunderstood. I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere anyway, so being misunderstood when it came to my character or opinions didn’t bother me as much as it would any other person.
What’s funny is, I never really felt like I fit in the right-wing political space, either. I often felt looked down upon, underestimated and not taken seriously by those who were supposed to be my political peers.
I was either looked upon with reverence for the fact I didn’t look like I was a conservative but was an increasingly popular one anyway, or with suspicion and actual distaste because of the fact I wasn’t the ‘right’ representative of conservative politics.
I was either a grifter (an online term usually levelled at young women or ethnic minorities accused of laundering false opinions for money), too radical or not radical enough.
And so the theme in my life of never really fitting in and being underestimated continued. Of always feeling like I had something to prove.
The Covid Effect
Then Covid happened.
I saw injustices against those who didn’t want to get the vaccine. I was horrified by the draconian lockdown measures and started speaking out about them. That was controversial too, but I didn’t care. I was speaking from my heart, in a way that I had never done before when talking about Conservative vs. Labour, or racial politics.
I felt like I was doing something that meant more.
And with that, I noticed that I was getting followers from a range of different backgrounds. Black and white. Young and old. Left and right. And to be honest, it felt good. It was a unity that I’d never galvanised before.
It also made me look at the media and party politics in a completely different way. Gradually, I began to see myself as a cog in a rather sinister machine, designed to keep people in a perpetual state of either shock, anger or fear, packaged carefully as ‘news’.
Even with Brexit, I began to realise it was being used as a buzzword to stir up outrage and to blackmail people into continuing to vote either Labour or Conservative.
And then I realised it was my job to keep that all going as a ‘commentator’. I didn’t like it. I kept asking myself, ‘Is this it?’.
I thought it was just my depression talking. I’d been battling with it ever since I was a teenager and it was something I was embarrassed by. My coping mechanisms were a) isolating myself inside for days on end, or b) eating junk food to try and distract myself from feeling empty.
What really frustrated me was that to the people around me, I had everything I could ever want. I had followers, a nice apartment, and a well-paying career in telly. I often felt ashamed for still not being happy, especially when I would be told I was simply ungrateful and needed to take more antidepressants.
If I was still living at home, I probably would have listened. But at that point, I had moved to London. So I was by myself, having to deal with these feelings.
I eventually decided to stop taking the anti-depressants altogether and also take out my contraceptive implant, which I felt was messing with my hormones even further.
Meeting Myself in the Netherlands
But the massive shift in my life started in the Netherlands for an online Channel 4 series called Higher Ground.
The way this opportunity came about was really eerie, actually. I was contemplating the meaning of life one evening a few weeks before, and so I decided to use my newfound financial privilege to book a solo trip to Amsterdam.
I had never had any desire to go to Amsterdam, but for some reason, it felt right to go.
During my time there, I remember walking around and coming across a shop that advertised magic mushroom truffles. I’d never taken psychedelics before and was actually pretty scared of doing them, especially alone in a foreign country, so I carried on walking.
Fast forward to the end of the trip, I came across this opportunity to be part of a show whilst scrolling through my Twitter feed on the Eurostar back to London. It ended up being a psychedelic plant medicine retreat in the Netherlands (where I was on my way back from), just a few weeks later.
It felt like a calling.
My depressive episodes always confronted me with a feeling of deep self-loathing. It was irrational, I knew that, but it was always there. It was a deep-rooted idea that I didn’t deserve happiness or the good things that happened to me, but also a feeling of persistent loneliness and dissatisfaction with my life.
The retreat involved meditation, journalling, and night-time ceremonies with ancient medicinal practices like Hapé and cacao. We also ate a full plant-based diet while there.
Before taking the plant medicine, I asked for one thing: to love myself. What I wasn’t prepared for was for all of the reasons why I didn’t love myself to come flooding into my awareness all at once like a ton of bricks.
It was a life-altering experience. All sorts of painful memories and feelings hit me smack bang in the face: abandonment from my Dad taking his own life and my not feeling safe to express how abandoned and rejected I felt; anger, resentment, sadness, grief. Generational trauma. All at once.
I cried and I screamed in front of people I barely knew till my face was swollen. That in itself was an experience that stripped me of all ego and my need to appear invulnerable or aesthetically perfect as a defence mechanism.
I came out the other side a completely different person. I remember touching my skin and staring at it as if it was brand new. I felt like I had met myself for the first time, and it was mind-blowing.
Going Back to Normal (And Failing)
Going back to my old life was difficult for me. I had so many questions. I knew I wanted to change my life, but I felt anchored to my online persona.
For a few months, I was able to carry on as I did before, even going viral online for my controversial opinions once again. But behind the scenes, I was having intense spiritual realisations about the world and about who I was on a soul level.
I was interested in the Krishna Consciousness Movement and I found peace in the Hare Krishna (Maha Mantra) to the point of crying tears of joy. I was so overwhelmed by it, that I felt as though my heart was going to burst with sheer love. It was that intense.
And so I pursued that feeling. I fell in love with God and with healing myself in a way I never thought possible. I eventually stopped eating meat, and I’m now a vegetarian (something I said I’d never do).
The most painful part about this was accepting that I no longer wanted to do my job. I had dreams about being a TV presenter, but I then realised the idea of regurgitating the next ‘news’ story designed to push self-serving agendas was the exact opposite of what I wanted for my life.
I started questioning everything I’d ever said or done.
Even with the ‘freedom’ movement that emerged from the Covid lockdowns, I realised I was grappling with the need to prove myself — again! — against accusations I was ‘controlled opposition’ because I got regular TV appearances and wasn’t against lockdowns from the very beginning (I was 21 and in my second year of university at the time). It all felt very familiar, and I didn’t like it.
And it wasn’t that I no longer had the same views. It was that I was becoming disillusioned with the idea that repeatedly stoking fear and negativity for people to consume online was creating any sort of positive impact.
I started noticing bias and inconsistencies in ways that I actually hadn’t paid attention to before from people that I was grouped together with as being on the same ‘side’, and it made me uncomfortable.
I started becoming more aware of racial arguments like ‘generational trauma’ that I’d usually scoff at as being ‘left-wing’ and began to realise there was some truth to it.
It eventually became more painful to continue than it was to just push my doubts to the side. All of these experiences were extremely difficult and gut-wrenching for me. I was contemplating leaving an identity I tied so much of my self-worth to behind.
I’ve had to do this as someone who was the first in their small and dysfunctional family to go to university and graduate, and the first to actually do something with their lives that involved having a public platform.
The Death of the Old Me
I eventually left London. Although I genuinely enjoyed it at some points, I had to return to familiarity to figure out what I wanted and away from people I felt were superficial and didn’t have my best interests at heart.
I moved back to Manchester, ignored media appearance requests and didn’t really care that my GBNews appearances were drying up after I decided I no longer wanted to do Dan Wootton’s 9 p.m. show.
I did things I had always enjoyed yet rarely did, like painting.
I also felt scared to vocalise these changes. I’d shared things here and there, but the online reaction was mixed and I didn’t feel strong enough to deal with criticism.
I have never gone into detail like this, but I’ve come to realise that this was always meant to happen.
Even if nobody reads this, I know that it is important for me to write this not only for me, but for anyone else that might need to hear this.
It is finally time for the old me, who operated from a place of survival instead of love, to figuratively die.
Her death began that night in the Netherlands. I had subconsciously decided that she no longer served the person that I wanted to be.
The opportunities and lessons the media realm has given me have been positive and negative, but invaluable all the same, and I am grateful for them.
But I no longer identify with ‘Dominique Samuels, the right-wing political commentator’.
It was never me on a deeper level. It was the exterior that shielded me from being vulnerable. It opened doors for me but came at the cost of my creative expression and made me feel very lonely.
Going forward, I know that my soul’s mission is to lead with love and compassion in order for people to connect with the divine version of themselves that lies dormant beneath generations of societal and familial programming, to serve agendas that are intentionally harmful to humanity.
But I’m not special. This mission is the same for each and every one of us. We just need to be brave enough to allow ourselves to see it.
For me, it was going to the Netherlands and taking plant medicine. But it doesn’t have to be like that for you. The point is that when there comes a time for you to change, take the opportunity with both hands, even if you don’t know what the result will be.
The Point?
The point of this personal story is that we can change.
And that change can be so powerful that you don’t have much of a choice but to give in. It becomes a choice of continuing to be dissatisfied and go through periods of intense personal crisis, or pursue a path that is not certain, but one that brings you immense personal fulfilment.
Even when people expect things of us, even when we’re under immense amounts of pressure; even when so much of our self-worth is rooted in places and people that aren’t supposed to remain on our journey.
We go through life expected to be so sure of ourselves. And when we suddenly aren’t, it can cause an existential crisis like no other. I didn’t expect a simple Channel 4 series to have had such a profound impact on my life.
And honestly, it’s been so hard. I’ve had to do a lot of journalling, doubting, meditating, healing, crying and reflecting in order to accept this reality. I’ve had to do a lot of circling back to check if this change is really what I want because growth isn’t linear.
But as Krishna says to Arjun in Chapter 3, Verse 35 of the Bhagavad Gita:
BG 3.35: It is far better to perform one’s natural prescribed duty, though tinged with faults, than to perform another’s prescribed duty, though perfectly. In fact, it is preferable to die in the discharge of one’s duty, than to follow the path of another, which is fraught with danger.
And this may disappoint, but I’m not going to apologise for things I’ve said in the past. They were (and some of them still are), honestly held beliefs.
A lot of people may continue to have this perception of me as someone without compassion, as ‘right-wing’ (a label just as ridiculous and one-dimensional as left-wing), and that’s okay.
But what I will do is show up as my true self as best I can without being scared of judgement and allow myself to be held to account based upon that.
Ultimately, that’s how we should live our lives going forward: brave, authentic and willing to shed layers in pursuit of our destiny, whilst being honest about our mistakes.
I regularly think I’ll never be able to do or be anything else due to other people’s perceptions of me. But I’ve decided I can no longer be bound by what might be.
So if you are reading this, no matter where you are in life, if you are terrified of taking the next big leap in your life, take it from me:
It’s far more painful to stay the same and delay the inevitable than it is to finally allow yourself to be free.
