10 Reasons you NEED a skilled guide for your psychedelic journey
/Guided psychedelic journeys are an enormously fast-growing topic of interest, discussion and research in both alternative and conventional medical circles. Patients are demanding better and safer options for treating mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, disordered eating, addiction and substance use, you name it! (Thank you Michael Pollan for spotlighting some of these psychedelic treatment options and putting the misconceptions about their use and public opinion to the test of informed investigative research!)
As a healthcare provider on the forefront of emerging psychedelic medicine, I have come across a few common questions and concerns from patients regarding the now well known concept of “set and setting”. People are curious (and excited) about the possibility of healing from within, but often feel a little lost and can be hesitant about safety, logistics and who might be a good fit to work with.
1. To keep your body safe!
In some ways this seems to go without saying, but it really doesn’t. Keeping your body safe does not mean someone you know who can sit on the couch in the other room while you have a psychedelic trip. This does mean someone who helps to set up the environment to reduce the likelihood of accidents and injuries (things like appropriate lighting, moving obstacles in the room, having CPR training, knowing how to handle vomiting/purging, etc…). This person should understand how to be calm under pressure or in urgent/emergent situations and how to respond without themselves going into fight or flight mode. Ideally, this person has some basic CPR and first aid training…believe me this can come in handy. People in NOSC (non-ordinary states of consciousness) as in psychedelic journeying, may move their bodies in ways that are unexpected, or need to use the restroom without really being able to use their limbs normally, etc… Having someone on your team who knows how to deal with changing safety situations will make you feel comfortable and safe and able to let go into the psychedelic journey.
2. To call you out on your BS!!!
This one gets three exclamation points, because out of this whole list, this is probably the MOST important one. Another way to look at this is that a skilled psychedelic guide will help you set a clear intention, be there to witness the journey itself, and then help you move through the obstacles and old limiting patterns that will inevitably surface later on. A skilled healer should know exactly what patterns of limitation/challenge/obstacles you are facing and not let you get away with falling back into those patterns once you have a clear new direction from your journey work.
***this process may not happen after one single psychedelic journey, your insights may be rolled out over a few sessions, or take even longer in some cases***
3. To bring in the element of human connection and to amplify the energy field.
Humans are social creatures, we crave unconditional love and acceptance of our most authentic selves, and being in the psychedelic space allows us to shed some of the layers of inauthenticity that we carry with us in our normal, waking lives. Having a healer who can witness us in our burgeoning authentic states of being is a powerful force for healing and transformation. Your guide also provides an “amplification” factor for the love and intention that one brings into their journey. Having a skilled facilitator witness some of our most vulnerable and life altering moments is key for transformation. This person should be fully present for what’s happening throughout the psychedelic journey and can also serve as a touchpoint in the future, you remember and recall the transformative messages, insights and changes that occur during this kind of peak life experience.
As a healer and guide, I am often praying, sending love and holding the intention for the highest level of healing and transformation for my patients in their journey state. In psychedelic journeys, I find that the 1 + 1 of me and the patient creates a field of healing and energy transformation is exponential.
4. To create a clean “energetic bubble” in which the journey can occur.
This sounds super “woo woo” but I honestly cannot stress the importance of clean energy enough. When someone is on a psychedelic trip or journey, they are accessing large and often unfamiliar parts of their brain and nervous system which are normally “damped down” by the moderating parts of the brain or ego structure (otherwise known as the default mode network or DMN). During a psychedelic journey, these wide open nervous system states and alterations in consciousness create extreme vulnerability and susceptibility to internal feelings, the feelings of others, and if you believe in it, Higher Consciousness. In other words, it’s critical for a journey guide to be able to assess and evaluate the energetic space in which the psychedelic trip will occur and take steps to clean it up if necessary. This can include strategies like intention setting, grounding, releasing negative energy, cleansing the space, and creating sacred space with altars or sacred objects. Healers are ideal for this kind of guided journey because we are called to work with people in vulnerable situations…DIS-EASE of any kind. The empathy and compassion that healers bring to a psychedelic healing journey are pivotal for creating the transformative changes that patients are asking for.
5. Comforting touch from another being who is comfortable in the altered space is a powerful thing.
At my core, I am a bodyworker. I have always felt a profound connection with my loved ones through the power of touch, and have discovered this is one of my deepest loving offerings as a healer. Sometimes, in an altered stated, the power of love and connection can be shared with a simple arm on the shoulder or with the holding of hands. It’s amazing to me how in non-ordinary states, we are more childlike, and often more receptive to love perceived through our feeling, sensing bodies, not just with words and actions. I love to offer comforting touch for those who wish to heal and connect in this way. If you are interested in psychedelic journeying, talk to your guide about touch that is either welcome or unwelcome during your journey state.
6. Help set a clear intention and remind you of it before, during and after the psychedelic journey.
We’ve already touched on the importance of…ahem….intention-setting and grounding BEFORE embarking on a psychedelic journey. And let me tell you, there are a lot of folks out there who may tell you that you don’t really need to sit down before a journey and work it out. They may tell you “everything that needs to come up will happen organically during the journey” or “just choose a word to focus on during your journey, that’s enough” or “the integration is more important than the preparation”. This is not true in my own personal journeywork experience nor that of my patients. I have seen time and time again that the more love, focus and intention you lay down before going into your journey, the more you get out of the actual psychedelic experience as well as the integration process.
***Don’t let intention setting stall you from actually taking your journey. Some peoples’ fear and anxiety can keep them for too long in the intention setting process, ultimately serving as a tactic to avoid doing the actual letting go into a psychedelic journey***
7. To walk you to and from the bathroom during a trip.
OMG I can only express how this is a real….actual….thing. Going to and from the bathroom in the middle of a journey without having an accident is sometimes a monumental feat, especially with ketamine (but other medicines as well). And more important than the physical act of walking to the bathroom is the importance of not letting the journeyer get distracted and pulled out of their experience by going to the bathroom. Having a skilled guide recognize your physical needs early and respond to them quickly helps you to STAY in the altered state that you want to be in for healing to occur. This includes things like not chit chatting too much on the journey to and from the bathroom, normalizing our bodily functions and changes that sometimes happen when people are in altered states, etc…
8. To care for your needs during and post journey.
This is a little piggybacking on #7 but it truly bears repeating. We are human beings in human bodies that have human needs. We need warmth, food, water, bathroom, all of it. Especially with psychedelic journeys that are long….like 6, 8, 10 hours long. It is critical to have a journey guide who has thought of these details before the journey and can respond flexibly to your body’s needs during and after a psychedelic journey. This helps you to feel more grounded, like keeping your blood sugar stable for example, not in a state of lack or worry (I don’t have my water bottle, etc..), and again STAY in the energetic mindscape for healing to occur.
9. To hold your hair back
Sounds dramatic I know. But seriously, physical nausea/vomiting/purging in psychedelic journeys is a thing and you need someone who is not only comfortable with this possibility, but will help you through the process. Instead of feeling weird and “shamey” around this possibility, a skilled guide should help you to get the most out of this kind of physical, often karmic release.
10. They bring their own guides and insights into the space.
If you are stuck, it’s helpful to have someone with you that is “unstuck” or at least aware of and moving towards their own healing. In my ketamine psychedelic sessions with patients, I always offer to keep a journal entry of the experience. I write down the details of the session including start time, dosage, and whatever they share as their intention before the journey begins. Once the journey starts, some patients are quiet and introspective, some are more social or communicative. Either way, I keep a journal of everything they share and also write down my own intuitive insights, speculations and feelings as the journey progresses. I work actively with my own guides, helpers and Spirit, and will record what is going on for me during the session. It constantly amazes me how what comes through is often spot on for what the patient was feeling, seeing, experiencing within their journey, even if we are not sharing the words or visions until after the journey is finished. If you are stuck in the journey, a skilled healer should be comfortable calling on their own guides and helpers to elicit movement towards health and healing.