Plant medicine has become extremely popular in recent years.
For this reason, I wanted to provide you with a “how-to guide” regarding what you can expect and questions you should ask if you’re interested in exploring psychedelic therapies.
In this post, I will be covering the following:
🌿 What psychedelics are and how to use them.
🍄 How to know which modality is suitable for you, and
🌵Finding a good practitioner or container to hold you through whatever you seek.
So first of all, we’ll cover some basics.
What are Psychedelics, and what do they do?
Psychedelics are plants.
When we take or ingest these plants, they alter the chemistry in our bodies and help us access non-ordinary states of consciousness.
In the world of healing work, we refer to these states as journies.
These plants are intelligent beings that can teach us things, heal trauma, and help us release addictions.
We can also use psychedelics to access states of emotion that we can’t normally access on our own.
When used correctly, they can help us expand and experience all kinds of incredible benefits.
I aim to give you some basic information to help you have the best result when working with these plants.
There are a couple of different routes you can take.
Some plants are used for social gatherings and connections, being open and vulnerable, and aren’t quite as hallucinogenic as others.
Others we call the “big teacher plants,” like ayahuasca.
These plants will often put you through a significant experience, where you will often face some of your fears or worries and work through them.
These plants can provide the experience of coming out the other side with a new understanding or a better sense of freedom.
Scientist or Shaman?
Within the healing community, you will find people with varying opinions about the best way to do plant medicine.
Some people will say only clinical or scientific ways are the best.
Psychedelic therapy has become very popular and is now decriminalized in some places.
In this modality, a psychologist or therapist would guide you through a psychedelic experience.
These facilitators understand how to work with the plants and provide excellent results.
These agents have been used for centuries to help us individuals.
Science is finally starting to catch up and document the positive effects of psychedelics in scientific terms, which is super cool.
That’s one end of the spectrum.
On the other end, you would be working with a shaman.
Shamans will typically have a concrete understanding of what works best for the particular plant medicine you will be working with and the specific needs of the group of people coming together.
Not a Quick Fix
So how do you know which way is right for you?
Psychedelics are most popularly used to help you recover from trauma, heal the body or specific ailments, and grow and evolve.
You can use these plants to self-heal, expand your vision and dreams, and step into different ways of interacting with life.
If you’re considering working with entheogens, you must understand that they aren’t a “one-and-done” healing modality.
In our American culture, we can easily get pulled in by the idea of being saved after doing one big thing.
As tempting as this may sound, I encourage you to take a slower, more integrated route.
This type of practice can help you in your healing, but it may or may not be the thing that changes your life.
It’s not like a pill you can take and don’t have to do the work or be involved.
The most important part of the transformational process is after you take them.
This part often gets overlooked, but having some help or guidance with taking what you experienced while you were journeying and integrating it into your life is incredibly important.
This step can give you a greater understanding and help you make the necessary changes the plants are showing you.
Sometimes when we have a significant plant medicine experience, returning to our regular lives can be very disorienting.
Choose your adventure
Another factor to consider in choosing your plant medicine experience is whether you should go overseas or stay in your own country.
Some people believe going overseas or out of the country is better because it provides a more authentic experience.
I want to challenge that a little bit.
You can have a wonderful experience working in this way.
However, there’s also something compelling about staying within your own culture and not having a language barrier.
Having the comfort and the safety of a familiar culture can support you as you go in deep and work through your stuff.
Again, going out of the country to do this work can provide you with a beautiful experience. But remember that even though it’s out of the country, it doesn’t mean the experience will be more authentic.
People outside of our country have learned how to accommodate Americans. Keep that in mind when you go to make your decision.
Get to know your practitioner
No matter which route you decide to go, I recommend being able to meet with your shaman or practitioner before you go into the ceremony to see if it’s the right fit.
It is essential to know a little about their background and qualifications.
And most importantly, you should feel comfortable with this person.
If you feel a sense of hierarchy, like they have some power that you don’t, I encourage you to continue looking around.
Look for a practitioner that you could have lunch with.
A more comfortable dynamic will create a nice setup for the best experience possible.
I encourage you to ask questions.
If they are a good practitioner, they should have no problem answering these.
How do you know if psychedelics are right for you?
Usually, you’ll feel a calling or might start to get curious.
You might notice signs or invitations showing up in your life in certain ways.
Plant medicines often will come to find you.
It’s a beautiful combination of putting out our intention and allowing life to meet us and give us what we want.
You might find that once you put that intention out, you’ll receive an invitation, meet somebody who facilitates, or meet somebody who just went to a ceremony.
I encourage you to follow those threads.
There’s nothing wrong with searching the internet for something and signing up.
But I find, when we follow the flow and those invitations from life, it generally results in a better, more healing, and more magical experience.
You have the power of choice.
When deciding on your experience, there are important questions to ask yourself.
Would you prefer to be inside, outside, or both?
What’s important to you?
What are you comfortable with?
Would you prefer to be in a group or do solo work?
Would you prefer to be maybe around just people that fit within your gender or your race?
These are all entirely fair things, and having these desires is absolutely reasonable.
Figuring out what will make you feel the most comfortable can be especially helpful if this is your first time working with psychedelics.
Having that sense of safety will help you drop in with the medicine and better receive the teachings and healings that it wants to give you.
Being Intentional
Another question you should be clear on is,
“Why are you feeling called to do it?”
Do you feel like it’s going to save you? If that is the case, you should hold off and work on some other personal development stuff first.
The final questions should be,
“What do you want to work on?”
or
“What is your intention?”
Be clear with yourself on what you hope to get from the experience.
This is an essential part of the process.
Journeying Without Plants
The plant teachers can help expand our consciousness and awareness and help us interact with life differently.
However, you don’t necessarily need the plants to journey and expand your consciousness.
One of the foundational pieces of shamanic practice is using shamanic journey. And similarly, the practice is basically to get yourself into a slightly altered state of consciousness where you can access the theta wave site.
In this state, you tend to be more intuitive and can receive information and teachings from spirit guides and teachers.
Though they are similar, there is a clear difference between meditation and shamanic journey.
Where meditation has you let things pass through your awareness without attaching to them, journey will guide you through thought patterns, memories, and different realms to show you things.
These teachings will help you embody a deeper understanding and wisdom and help you heal.
If you are considering working with plant medicine, I encourage you to start with a Shamanic journey.
Once you learn how to journey without medicine, you will have a much better experience when you are working with the plants.
You’ll better understand how they interact with you, how you interact with them, how you can ask them questions, and how they can better take you where you want to go.