Start Here: What do you actually want to change?

[u/vlal97]

A lot of discussion around psychedelics focuses on what happens during the experience.

Another big part of the conversation is what happens afterwards — usually called “integration.”

But this community looks at things differently because we dont sit passively with psychedelics and hope they help us in the way we want.

Here we consider "integration" starts before the first trip or ceremony not after. Here we don't go into a trip or ceremony with no intention at all and we dont go into ceremony with a vague intention to "see what happens" or "show me what I need to know". Instead we do analysis, sometimes with outside help as an educated third eye, of our own internal state and the life events that led to them, to understand what drives the things we want help with. Then we take these "knowings" to our psychedelic session and use them to specifically target the healings we want.

(There is an example of what I mean below but if this resonates with you, drop a comment below. What tools do you use to understand yourself in preparation for ceremony? What are you trying to heal that you need healp with? What are you struggling with after your last ceremony?)

An example of what Im talking about with results:

Psilocybin, small macro dose. Sharing with permission, details kept general.

Mapped beforehand with me in a private call

Specific issues related to this person's upbringing, tied to a lack of expression/boundaries, trust, grief, safety/grounding, and control/perfectionism. Most of this was not known to them in any pattern that was discernible. I was able to make links between what they saw as separate phenomena, based on my experience in psychedelic therapy and Reiki.

What intention they actually formed, based on the above, for their ceremony:

1. Clearing the throat chakra — being able to express my emotions
2. Being able to feel more connected to my body, and identify what my body is telling me and the emotions that need expression
3. Being released from trauma that might be blocking my root chakra and interfering with my digestion and other nervous system elements
4. Rebalancing and releasing feelings of grief, sadness, and loneliness associated with my past

What happened as a result of the psychedelic session, combined with the mapping and intention setting:

1. Physical relief from chronic sciatica (right side) and lower body tightness. This person said it felt like they had received a massage, in terms of the physical relief — and exercising became easier with less pain in the days after.
2. Relief was concentrated on one side of the body (right), lining up exactly with what was mapped — e.g. a masculine influence in this persons youth that discouraged them from expressing emotion in an emotionally unstable household.
3. Calmer facing decisions that might disappoint someone else (related to boundaries).
4. Ongoing body/somatic awareness that wasn't there before.

Also some other effects that were also observed by this person — a strong intuitive shift (crown chakra), and a release of anger, which is often tied to repressed feeling and a blocked throat chakra. Likely this will be related to Root chakra as well.