One of the biggest misunderstandings of psychedelics is that they are a cure-all... that they are miracle medicines. Psychedelics are a miraculous medicine, but not a magic pill.
Psychedelics have proven power to change the brain and help people with numerous mental conditions, but their power comes from being a tool that users can use to heal themselves.
You are responsible for doing the work.
Psychedelics open certain portals and increase awareness and knowledge of hidden and suppressed events/traumas -- but participants HAVE to do the work in integrating the psychedelic experiences into real change in their lives. Your goal should be making sense of the lessons and messages you received during your journey and figure out how they can be applied to your everyday life.
Sometimes the lessons you are supposed to learn are brought out during the ceremony; others take reflection and time to come together into something meaningful. But regardless, psychedelic journeys provide you with an abundance of knowledge and insights, often an overwhelming amount.
Integration can be painful -- intense/confusing realizations, acceptance, difficult/painful changes... but integration should be for the good -- for leaving behind trauma and negative experiences and beginning anew.
Think of things this way. The psychedelic experience is the seed, your life the soil, and integration like a blooming flower, and as the petals open over time, the depth of your understanding, healing, and growth expands exponentially... so keep at it. To take this analogy one step deeper, as you are integrating your experience, you may need to change the "soil" in which you live -- so that your flower blooms bigger, better, brighter.
The key thing to remember is integration is a process that can take days, weeks, or months... and even years -- depending on how much effort you put into it and how powerful the experiences. Integration involves reflecting, meditating, journaling, sharing, and action.
Some parts of integration may be foreign to you -- maybe even something you never expected -- but the key is to remember it is a process and to keep working at it. It may also take a bit of work to find what method works best for you; there's no rush, so the key is simply taking your time to sift through your journey and start processing and making connections.
Finally, remember that you must resist the temptations to push away the lessons and insights and go back to living your life as usual. As painful as some of these actions may be, as part of your integration, you may need to break old patterns/habits, break away from certain friends or family members -- whatever it takes to foster the healing you need.
Two fantastic tools for integration are journaling and community.
You can journal in whatever way works for you -- on an electronic device, in a book or binder, using words or a combination of words and drawing/painting. The key is EXPRESSING all the details of what is going on in your head -- from the journey and moving forward with your healing/transformation.
Once you have had some time to recover from the psychedelic journey, here are some journal questions/prompts that may help you with integration:
Whether it's the people who also participated in the psychedelic journey or your significant other or a community of others who have had psychedelic experiences, you need to seek out community... seek out others to share stories and struggles. You could also consider hiring an integration coach.
One excellent online community for meeting others who have had psychedelic journeys is Empathic Health, whose mission is to "craft the best healing community in the world for our members, and to have fun doing it."
How you integrate is much less important than the actual integrating... so integrate as you feel: journal, create art, write music, etc.
Integration HAS to be part of your psychedelic experience -- otherwise you are really taking the medicine recreationally.
Complete healing and transformation come from putting in the work to understand all the lessons and then determining how those lessons can be incorporated into your life... your new life.
Dr. Randall S. Hansen is an educator, author, and advocate, as well as founder and CEO of
EmpoweringSites.com,
a network of empowering and transformative Websites, including EmpoweringAdvice.com.
Dr. Hansen's latest book, Triumph Over Trauma, is available in paperback and ebook versions.
Dr. Hansen has been helping empower people to achieving success his entire adult life.
He is also founder of EnhanceMyVocabulary.com,
MyCollegeSuccessStory.com, and
EmpoweringRetreat.com.
He is a published author, with several books, chapters in books, and hundreds
of articles. Dr. Hansen is also an educator, teaching business
and marketing at the college level for more than 25 years. Learn more by visiting his personal Website,
RandallSHansen.com. You can also check out
Dr. Randall Hansen on LinkedIn.
