Psychedelics

A Pathway to Healing and Transformation

You have pulled up this article on your phone and you are interested in what I have to say about psychedelics and transformation.... I am writing this from my home on a farm in Ontario - it is snowing and a couple days after Christmas. We're both firmly planted in a version of reality.

I am trying to write to you about another one. What I am writing is a translation from cosmic to "normal" reality. It's not an easy task and that's what I want to say up front. There is nothing I can say that will live up to the experience of opening to who you really are.

You know when you make a shift in perspective? Like perhaps you realize that you don't need to be so hard on yourself about something. Or perhaps you come to see that the person who really hurt or angered you wasn't acting out of ill intent. Perhaps your vision of your own possibilities grows. Most of us are familiar with this kind of a shift in mindset.

Working with psychedelics is a mind, body, heart, and soul cosmic shift. What do I mean by cosmic? I mean we connect with the vastness of everything. We connect with our minds, hearts, bodies and souls. Then we return.

Used well, these medicines are the most powerful way I know to improve your life. They are being used across the spectrum of human experience to stunning results - for physical health, mental health, PTSD, grief, and palliative care. My interest is in psychedelics for peak performance. Psychedelics for maximizing our legacy, for bringing our gifts to the world and expressing ourselves and enjoying ourselves at the highest possible level. If psychedelics are effective in treating treatment-resistant depression and PTSD think what they could do for you.

What do I mean by psychedelics?

A definition is difficult. So I will use the particulars - by psychedelics I am referring to a group of medicines both traditional and contemporary that are used for powerful healing including (but not limited to): Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, and LSD.

How do they work?

Back to the idea of translation above. I can offer a few thoughts. But these medicines are not limited to our version of healing. This is the power of them. Human modalities are limited by humans. Psychedelics used with respect (more on that below) love us with a power we can often barely stand. They can take us far beyond what any research paper has been able to put into words. They can take you exactly where you need to go. For you.

When you consider how unique each person is it seems insane how we try to fit ourselves into boxes over and over again - other people's boxes. What if we could connect with who we truly are and our own relationship with the universe?

Here are some themes in my work with psychedelics: The first is a deep connection with ourselves. Renowned addiction expert Gabor Maté said this about ayahuasca: “In its proper ceremonial setting, under compassionate and experienced guidance, the plant—or, as tradition has it, the spirit of the plant—puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the very factors that drive all dysfunctional behaviors. Consciously experiencing our primal pain loosens its hold on us. Thus ayahuasca may achieve in a few sittings what many years of psychotherapy can only aspire to.It may also allow people to re-experience inner qualities long been missing in action, such as wholeness, trust, love and a sense of possibility. People quite literally remember themselves.” (Ref)

I have often experienced and witnessed others experience a sense of being combed over by the medicines. The medicine works its way through the body healing physical and emotional blocks and wounds. 

While under the effects we are open. We have the opportunity to re-frame and re-program ourselves at a higher level. This is why being with an experienced facilitator is important. You want to work with someone who can hold this high vibrational state and help you integrate a new version of yourself while you are working with the medicine.

Your ceremony will be exactly yours. You will be met by life (i.e. the medicine) in exactly the way you need. Their love never fails. We don't get to say what our journey looks like necessarily but if you step into the stream you will be carried. And nature knows us better than we know ourselves.

Transcending Beyond the Mind

If we introduce psychedelics to the mind just to get ideas, or clarity and a vision, we miss the point. Most of us don’t need more vision and clarity; it’s helpful but that’s not what we need most. We really need the to feel grounded and present in who we are no matter what anyone else thinks. We need to feel like we can enjoy ourselves without feeling guilty or like we’re wasting time. We need to have self-esteem, will, and power. Psychedelics offer us this kind of healing - far beyond ideas and insights. The healing happens spontaneously and we don't usually realize it has happened until weeks later.

The Three Parts to Transformation

We all know someone, perhaps ourselves, who did mushrooms or LSD and had a bad experience. That happens when you don’t have the three pieces to transformation that helps hold the experience together.

Intention 

For work with psychedelics to be in service of healing you must set your intention. It’s what you want out of the experience - the reason you are searching out the medicine.

It could be to open your heart. You could be seeking guidance on many different aspects of life. Some people want to remove blocks or need help reaching a certain goal. Processing grief is a common intention. It can be anything.  I started because I wanted to have my first baby. 

The intention guides the work. Imagine you are an astronaut and you go into space. What? You'd be lost. You have an intention - going to the space station, to the moon.... what happens along the way is an adventure and an opportunity to learn and the intention offers direction. When you feel lost you return to the intention.

Container

The container is the physical environment in which you’ll be having your psychedelic experience. You want to find a really tight container.

You become extremely sensually sensitive under most psychedelic substances so you generally want to avoid crowded places and loud noises. You really want to have controlled surroundings that work for you. Low light is ideal.

You definitely want a trusted person with you who can maintain the container when you cannot. A facilitator is even better who can work with you emotionally and do energetic work with you throughout the experience. They can also witness you and reflect back to you later what they experienced. I see my work as a ceremonialist - I call in my connection to spirit and yours and I hold this cosmic connection throughout the ceremony. 

Whatever you choose, trust is paramount. Be aware and make clear agreements. This is vulnerable work physically and energetically.

Integration

You know the feeling of travelling to somewhere very different from where you live and realizing your life at home is kind of flat and not thought through? That there is more to life that you want to live? Then you get back home and you get busy and nothing changes?

It can be like that with psychedelics - you learn so much but then you come back from the trip and you never think about it again. That’s not transformation. Transformation is a daily practice. It takes work and commitment. 

Usually, integration involves emotional release and some processing to break old patterns and create a new way of being.

You might have rage that needs to be expressed. You might need to atone for misdeeds in your life. There are grief rituals. Guidance. Things you want to explore. Bringing new ideas to life. It goes on and on and on.

If you’re hoping to achieve expansive integration commit yourself to your integration. My programs involve breathwork, emotional release, coaching, sexual energy cultivation, subconscious reprogramming and spiritual clearing. This is because I work to help my clients keep all the levels of energy moving after their experience with the medicine. 

However, in order to truly transform, you must take what you’ve learned and let it change you. These medicines show us another way. They open us up to love, what we're missing, the connection between each of us that we don't always feel, and the natural world. 

Psychedelic work is part of a decision to evolve. Through this work our deepest intentions and dreams are met one-thousand-fold by life. What is possible expands. And we remember who we are.