Psychedelics and the Road to Transformation
Given the complexity and expense of clinical trials, much of the research emphasizes the power of the medicine, not the full therapeutic healing process. Whether it is psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA, 5-Meo or LSD…it doesn’t matter which psychedelic we are talking about, none of them are a magic pill or a flying carpet that take us to a life of harmony or nirvana.
Psilocybin or ketamine do not erase your memory, they may also not erase all your painful, false beliefs about yourself. In IFS language, we would say that psychedelic medicines are not erasing or getting rid of your parts. Protective parts are necessary defenses you developed in response to your environment from an early age on. To help you cope or survive. We have never heard a client not wish their anxieties or depression away. “I don’t want this anymore” - is usually the ask, at the beginning of every healing journey.
But can you think of a part within you for a moment, a part that had to work hard for you? E.g. many of us have a part that wants to be perfect at things, because being perfect at school or at a sport got us a smile from mom who was otherwise sad and depressed, or from dad whose attention was on work all the time. Would we really wish that little kid away? That is you - your life, your experiences. Does this little kid in you deserve to be vanquished and abandoned again? No, on the contrary. We finally want to bring this kid home, to the present, and we want to be able to take care of it in ways that we deserve. Psychedelics teach us to not be afraid and stuck in the past anymore. They teach us to love ourselves, and our parts. Long after our journeys end, we will still be more equipped to remember our worth and we will be more empowered to act from a place of being loved and deserving.
That is the road towards wholeness. That is the work, psychedelics are not a magical eraser.
The magic of medicine journeys is an embodied connection, a felt sense to our authentic, strong and compassionate self. We remember who we are underneath all the pain and trauma in our life; and this remembering allows us to see our life from a completely new perspective. Trauma is not what happens to us, it is our perspective on it, trauma is what we believed happened to us, or why it happened to us. (The belief is typically a self-defeating one, e.g. “this happened because I am bad”.)
At OUR HOUSE we help clients stop chasing after experiences. Our clients understand that they may still get triggered after a journey; that their shadow parts may still come up. We help them notice that their ability to cope has transformed on their journey Their ability to stay more regulated has increased, to face the storms and difficult situations from a place of deeper connection to self, strengths and self-worth. Even if mystical experiences and unity fade after a while, the embodied sense and memory of love and compassion remains with us. We can find it again, but we have to work on remembering where to find it.
It is this knowing and remembering that helps us reflect before acting. It’s a feeling or state often described in meditation. An experience of being able to hold our emotions and being able to look at them, like a cloud in the sky. Except that psychedelics get us to this skill and experience much faster! This moment of regulation and pause, that allows us to become an observer of our thoughts and emotions is everything. It helps us realize that we are not our thoughts. It helps us in this constant process of holding life - and its difficulties. The challenges, the shadow, the struggles. Remember what Buddha said? Life is suffering. It means struggles are everywhere, in the people around us. It just is what it is. But we are not dependent on other people’s healing. Our own work with psychedelics allows our unconscious and our trauma parts to be hijacked less. We can see more clearly how our earlier relationships were shaped by unmet needs, projections, and inherited relational patterns. Understanding replaces shame. Insight replaces repetition. We begin to recognize before reacting. We also begin to recognize pain more in others more, with compassion, instead of believing that their pain and anger is our fault.
being human, living with an ego or our minds is a constant process of working with our thoughts and interpretations of experiences. With psychedelic therapy it becomes easier to turn our thoughts into acceptance, empathy, kindness, and understanding for ourselves and others. That is why psychotherapy and integration post our journeys is important, because they support us in this process. Psychotherapy after psychedelic experiences helps us see more clearly, it helps us implement change better, it helps us process the information better without falling back into old patterns.
I will give you an example of a volleyball game I attended, and where my daughter’s team was cheated out of a big win. When I made my way over to the other parents, some time after the game, there was still much commotion and anger, parents filing complaints with the volleyball association. For a moment I had no idea what all this anger was about? Then it dawned on me…they were still hung up on “feeling done to”, their children having lost the game. My mind had let go already, the loss was in the past, there will be many more games. I wasn’t projecting “being done to by others”, or “not being in control”, “being a victim at the hand of others” or whatever other life experiences had these parents caught up in their triggers and projections. A beautiful feeling, no? Working with someone like us at OUR HOUSE, therapists and facilitators who truly understand psychedelic healing, can help you turn your experiences into calm and peace. Peace will not just automatically arrive on your doorstep. But you get to choose it.
The simplest way to put it…
Psychedelics without therapy is like…
striking a match but not lighting anything with it
opening a door but not walking through
That is if you are looking for emotional healing. If your objective is recreational use, that is a different story! And that is 100% fine, too!
