Aaron Rodgers went on a deep journey of self-exploration earlier this year.
The controversial New York Jets quarterback is the subject of a new Netflix documentary, ‘Aaron Rodgers: Enigma,’ chronicling the four-time NFL MVP’s use of psychedelics and alternative medicine as he chases an escape from perfectionism and growing up in a ‘very white, dogmatic church’.
While filming the project during the NFL’s 2024 offseason, the 41-year-old travels to Costa Rica, where he attends an ayahuasca retreat with Miami Dolphins’ Jordan Poyer, the Chicago Bears’ Adrian Colbert, and the Buffalo Bills’ Von Miller.
For those who don’t know, ayahuasca is a powerful plant-based psychoactive beverage, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in the Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies.
It is frequently taken by wealthy westerners, who travel to the deep recesses of South America to have their minds opened, their egos shattered, and their past traumas healed.
In the doc, Rodgers revealed that he has done ayahuasca nine times across four different trips, helping him through marital strife and alcoholism.
Episode three of the three-part feature follows Rodgers’ travels in Costa Rica, where he seeks out ayahuasca to help him mentally get over the season-ending Achilles injury he suffered four snaps into his Jets debut in 2023.
“It’s the hardest medicine possible that I’ve tried,” Rodgers explains. “It’s a deeply intense spiritual journey.
“You have to go to some deep places in the shadow of your own self.
“I would say that with other psychedelics you go in thinking this is going to be a good time. I hunker down, like, ‘OK this is going to be tough,’” he said. “It’s the hardest medicine possible that I’ve tried.”
At one point in the episode, the Super Bowl XLV winner gives a confusing soliloquy about caterpillars and butterflies to a drug-induced group in the midst of a mind-bending spiritual journey.
“The butterfly is just another term for the caterpillar,” Rodgers asserts.
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“It’s really a caterpillar the entire time, and the caterpillar opens his wings and just cannot f****** believe. ‘this is my life now'”.
“‘I get to fly around, I get to smell flowers, and eat flowers. To live like that, living your wildest dreams every single day.”
The spaced out signal caller was presumably trying to use the caterpillar-butterfly analogy as a metaphor for personal metamorphosis and actualization.
Sadly, that was mostly lost on fans, who saw the clip and proceeded to mock the man who has previously been associated with UFO encounters, and COVID conspiracy theories.
“Imaging coming down from this feeling and realizing you’re on the Jets,” joked one fan.
“I’m a beautiful butterfly!,” wrote another, referring to a line in Disney’s hit animated film, A Bug’s Life.
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In August 2022, the QB claimed on ‘The Aubrey Marcus Podcast’ that taking ayahuasca helped him win back-to-back MVP awards in 2020 and 2021.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Rodgers said.
“I really don’t. I don’t really believe in coincidences at this point.”
Asked in a separate interview about how he got into the drug, Rodgers said: “I was searching, for sure. My life was through one lens of organized religion. So I’m like, ‘Where are people in life finding deep peace and centeredness and presence outside of what I knew?’”
Ayahuasca may have helped Rodgers battle is personal demons, but it’s done little to improve his fortunes on the football field this season.
This season has been an unmitigated disaster for Rodgers and the Jets.
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Gang Green are 4-10 this season and officially eliminated from playoff contention, with their 14-year playoff draught the longest in all major American sports.
The Jets were supposed to win the Super Bowl win Rodgers under center, but he’s been a shadow of his former self and looked every bit his 41 years.
The expectation around the organization is that he won’t be back next season, with the veteran QB claiming he will reevaluate at the end of the campaign.
“I’m gonna take some time after the year. Unless I get released right away,” he said this week.
“But I will still take some time [to decide] whether or not I’m gonna play. I will take some time to get away from it either way.”
Rodgers has completed 305 of 488 attempts this season for 3,255 yards and 23 touchdowns. He has been sacked 32 times and thrown eight interceptions.