More medicine or more integration?
Psychedelic escapism, newsletter fatigue, and some updates
Hi there,
Recently, there seems to be quite some newsletter fatigue. I’ve noticed it in myself, where the swelling number of unread Substacks in my inbox has begun to feel more like a to-do I’m behind on than a pleasurable pastime. And I’ve heard it from others, both readers and writers.
Do you feel the same? I’m curious to hear about your reading preferences and what you hope to get from The Journey in the future.
Speaking to over 30 of you over the past few weeks has filled my heart and reminded me why I do this. Many of you asked about ongoing coaching at the end of our session. For those of you who are interested (or, didn’t get lucky with pro-bono sessions to begin with) — I plan to open a handful more slots sometime in the summer. Stay tuned for more details then.
Today:
Why some journey a lot but never heal (aka, the trap of psychedelic escapism)
4 questions to help you determine if you should have another journey
Brief resource roundup
The trap of psychedelic escapism
Psychedelic journeys are no guarantee for (true) healing, improved well-being, or ethical purity for that matter. I used to naively believe that anyone using medicines with intention is destined to benefit. That’s simply not true. Psychedelics can and do perpetuate spiritual narcissism and ego inflation.
They can also foster addiction to healing. If you look for things in you that need fixing, you’ll always find something. You don’t find wholeness by fixing the parts of you that don’t feel whole, you find wholeness by learning to be with the sense of lack.
When healing becomes a strategy to cope with the reality of flawed human nature, it turns into a compulsion that perpetuates the sense of deficiency rather than integrates it.
I know several who are on the healing journey but are stuck sitting with medicines every few weeks, sometimes for years on end. Trapped in the cycle of compulsive self-improvement. More is not always better.
You may be thinking all I do is journey (fairly so because I write so much about it), but the reality is that I’ve only had 1-2 bigger journeys a year for the past few years.
After my first ceremonies, I took an entire year to integrate the earth-shattering truths Ayahuasca had revealed. The experience helped but didn’t heal me, as a result of which I got trapped in defeat (“I’m a lost cause, not even psychedelics can help me”).
Ultimately, I realized how much Ayahuasca had improved my life: I quit drinking, smoking, and all non-psychedelic drugs, I became more in tune with myself and with nature, and I began developing self-love. It had helped more than anything else I’d ever tried, and so I decided to fully commit to it.
I returned and vouched to drink “as much medicine as I had to” to cure all of my symptoms (binging and purging, depression, insomnia, and some other PTSD-related symptoms). I usually recommend people build a relationship with one or two medicines rather than “stamp the psychedelic passport”.
Turns out, medicines did work on me — tadaa! I just needed more time with them. After a year or so of regular ceremonies, most symptoms were gone and Ayahuasca told me to “come back once a year or so for maintenance”. It’s been 18 months since my last ceremony (and I don’t feel called to go back any time soon).
This is the natural progression of the medicine journey. In the beginning, one or a few journeys can be enough to get things started. If you have deeper-rooted trauma, you’ll need several journeys to heal (depending on the medicine). There’s no quick fix, this work takes time, not necessarily because the journeys take time but integration does.
So, if you’re somewhere in the between now, and you’ve worked with medicines but are still struggling — let’s explore how to know if it is time for you to return for more.
4 questions to help you determine if you need more journeys or integration
1. Is it a matter of awareness?
The biggest sign that returning is in your favor is if your current level of awareness is not sufficient to progress on your journey.
Are you still puzzled by some of your behaviors? Are you struggling to understand why parts of you still self-sabotage, freeze, self-harm, isolate, or hurt?
Psychedelics help venture into your subconscious so you can understand the roots of your symptoms. It’s hard to (truly) heal symptoms without the awareness of what’s causing them. Once you have the awareness, you can integrate it.
For example, my journey revealed that my eating disorder behaviors were a substitute for emotional regulation. I became acutely aware of my inability to feel, label, and tolerate emotions. But I still didn’t understand why it was so hard for me.
During a cactus journey, I learned that a part of me believed that it was not safe to feel. The cactus also showed me why I adopted this belief. The insight was a revelation that explained much of my behavior growing up.
2. Did you get the message?
“When you get the message, hang up the phone”, Alan Watts famously said in regard to the psychedelic experience.
Let’s say you struggle with self-love (as we all do). Maybe you’ve never been able to accept yourself until the medicines showed you the root of your fractured self-esteem and revealed your divine, perfect, imperfect nature. You bathe in the afterglow of self-acceptance for a while, but eventually, the self-hatred comes back.
It can be tempting to get another quick fix from the medicines, which are great at reminding you of your loving (and loveable) nature. But unless you learn to remind yourself, you’ll always rely on them. You externalize self-esteem. What you need is not to transcend your self-hatred but to integrate it.
3. Are you able to complete the process?
Sometimes processes don’t complete within the ceremony or retreat. The medicines cut you open but didn’t have enough time to close you back up. You’ll need to determine whether you can complete the process on your own through integration, or if you need help from the medicines.
This will depend on the degree to which you “got the message”. The nuance here is that both your mind and your body need to get it. If you intellectually understand it but lack the felt experience in your body, your nervous system remains dysregulated.
The day after the cactus taught me that a part of me believed it wasn’t safe to feel, I was overcome by grief for the little girl inside. Even though I affirmed myself that it was now safe, my body didn’t believe it. Within an hour, I walked into a bakery and purchased $20 worth of pastries to escape the sensations in my body.
I returned to ceremony only two weeks later (the only time I’ve ever left less than three months in between journeys). People around me were purging, crying, and laughing, but Ayahuasca did nothing but bask me in the feeling of safety all night, reprograming my nervous system. My compulsive eating reduced drastically.
4. Are you trying to shortcut?
There’s a saying that the toughest journey you could have with Iboga is the one where you return to medicine before you’ve integrated what it taught you. Most medicines are not as strict, but this is a great ethos for any journey.
Return only when you’ve integrated what you’ve previously learned to the best of your abilities. This doesn’t mean you have to complete integration (which is a life-long endeavor anyway). Rather, it means you’ve made a consistent, intentional effort to put your insights into practice.
Medicines can provide insight into all types of questions: Why are you the way you are? What do you need to let go of to change? What’s your purpose? How can you find love? What should you do about this specific job or relationship situation?
Medicines give excellent guidance. Every time I’m in a bind, I’m tempted to consult them. But (and that’s a big but) — if not approached with moderation this can be quite disempowering. Resist the temptation to outsource wisdom. The reality is that all answers lie within you.
Integration will reveal them over time, unless (1) it’s a matter of awareness, (2) parts of you didn’t get the message yet, and/or (3) you opened a process that you’re unable to complete yourself. But if none of these conditions apply, you’re better off working on finding awareness within yourself rather than returning to the medicines.
Further resources
〰️ LSD becomes the third psychedelic (following MDMA and psilocybin) to get the FDA Breakthrough designation for MindMeds research on anxiety disorder
〰️
on why we don’t need self-help but support〰️
provides an unsettling glimpse into the state of culture〰️ I stumbled upon this memoir thanks to
and inhaled it , a tough but incredible read〰️ My partner, a pianist & composer, released a beautiful album of piano music. Great for cozy mornings, creative activities, or rainy Sundays!
“If you get the message, hang up the phone.” - Alan Watts
Thanks for this. It’s always helpful to read an outline of one person’s journey, whether it’s about psychedelics or something else. I wonder if there could be a Substack that was every week a different person writing a one to two thousand word essay on their personal journey. Each writer could say what mistakes they believe they made or where they were misdirected. Something like the book: The Courage to Heal.
I did a few dozen journeys with ketamine (because that’s what was available to me) that were incredibly interesting and worthwhile in themselves, but didn’t seem to make a difference. Then I started using mushrooms and those journeys became increasingly difficult. My last was last July, and now I’m in a place where I don’t know if I am wisely using this time to integrate that complex journey (which seems to have made it possible for me to start my own Substack and to comment more), or if I’m just afraid of what will happen next. It’s always a question, I think, with mushrooms. They feel dangerous, but just how dangerous?
So lots of questions around how many journeys to do and when it’s time to do them and whether maybe you’ve done enough. I love what you say: “You don’t find wholeness by fixing the parts of you that don’t feel whole, you find wholeness by learning to be with the sense of lack.” But learning to be present with “the sense of lack” (which can be terrible) or anything like it is the hardest thing of all, and I am still so far from being able to do that.
Wow, thank you! Which tools do you use to integrate psychedelic experiences?