I’ve seen amazing work being done with people who are using medicine work and psychedelics as a tool for transformation.
These are my thoughts on how to best prepare for a journey so you can experience the deepest transformation possible.
I think the most important thing is to determine what you’re looking for before you start the journey. If you’re just looking to have an experience or to see what happens, then there isn’t really a whole lot to do.
You’ll go in, do whatever you do, come out, and move on with your day.
If you want to use your journey as a tool for transformation and inner work, that’s a different story.
Pre-Work is Essential if You Want to Use Your Journey as a Tool for Transformation
It’s essential to do all your pre-journey work. I mean, the pre-journey work as far as keeping your diet within the restrictions, no sex, no alcohol, and get plenty of sleep.
Next, figure out what questions you want answered.
Then you can go into the journey with the intention to get your questions answered. Remember that the answer you receive may not come in the form you were expecting… or be the answer you want.
I also recommend you speak with your therapist to figure out which questions to bring into your journey
Because what happens during a journey is you come in contact with more of yourself. Sometimes this can be terrifying.
The key is to allow yourself to be afraid while also letting whatever comes to the surface to exist. Don’t resist it. Don’t push it down. Let the energy flow through you without blocking it, controlling it, or ignoring it.
This is how you integrate more of yourself. This is how you heal.
Now, when you’re clear on the direction or the questions you want answers for… it’s like you’re giving yourself incentive to sit with whatever comes up.
Because you’re clear on what you want, you have a destination. You have a goal.
And because you have a goal, you have a question you want answered, you can relax and trust that the medicine is showing you exactly what you need to get your answer… even if it’s deeply uncomfortable for you. Or you’re terrified of the energy you feel.
There’s an art to asking the right questions going into your journey.
If you’re too specific, you may not go to the depth you want. If your question is too general, your experience could be all over the place.
You want to find a good balance between specific and general questions. Then your journey is focused into an area of your life you want help with and you can integrate the answers you receive into your everyday life.
This is also why I recommend working with a therapist before your experience. They can help you craft a powerful question for your journey so you get the most from the experience.
Alright, now that you know how I recommend you prepare for a journey, what about afterward? What do you do after the experience to create long-lasting change in your life?
How to Integrate Your Journey to Create Long-Lasting Transformation
After you come out of the journey, spend a couple of days in as quiet an environment as you possibly can be.
Use this time to reflect on whatever came up in your session.
Spend plenty of time writing things down. Take notes to recap your journey. It’s very easy to slip back into everyday life. If you don’t take the time to write it down, you can start to forget the experience. It can become less important.
There’s a caveat to this though.
When you make a journey with either psilocybin or other medicines, it’s almost like you get a shot of information. It’s as if you experience a condensed period of life in a short period of time.
This means you can uncover an immense amount of information in a very short amount of time.
For some people, it can be deeply challenging to stay grounded with all this information. They already have difficulty retaining energy in their bodies and staying grounded in the energy they feel when they’re not in a journey-space.
If you have a person who has already has a hard time staying grounded, and you give them an immense amount of information in a very short amount of time, it’s easy for them to get overwhelmed.
Enroll an Ally into Your Experience
An ally could be a trusted friend or a coach.
But I highly recommend a professional therapist that you have a standing relationship with as your ally. Especially if you’re using your journey experience as a tool to go deeper into the work you’re doing together.
Make sure you book a session with your therapist before and after your journey. Use the initial sessions to get clear on exactly what questions you want answered… and then the sessions after your journey to integrate your experience.
This will help you process the information you uncovered.
Take your notes with you to the appointment. This will help you stay in your body. The more grounded into your body you are, the deeper the transformation will go and the longer it will last.
Having a session booked for soon after your journey will give you a place to unload or dump your experience all out on the table and sort through it.
But don’t wait a long time between your medicine journey and the session with your therapist. Life comes back fast, and your journey goes on the back burner.
There’s a window that’s just barely open for a very short amount of time after your journey. And it’s very easy to forget what came up and slip back into whatever habits you have if you don’t integrate the experience quickly.
So, make sure you take lots of time to journal right after your journey and take at least a day or two of quiet time.
For example, I always take a day and a half to two days to keep my calendar very light and keep my interaction with the outside world to a minimum. This helps me let my experience saturate into my system.
If you’d like an ally for your journey, I’d love to support you.
Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation call. This is not a sales call. It’s a simple check-in to make sure we resonate with each other.
I’ll ask you some questions about what’s happening in your life and answer any questions you have about my work.
If it doesn’t feel like a good fit, I’ll let you know or you can let me know. There’s no pressure to work together.
Click the link below and we can find a time that works for you and schedule your complimentary 30-minute session: