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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Inspirational Message
On Intentions Versus Expectations
Nature of Entheogens
Purposes & Benefits
Cautions & Disclaimers
Preparation Guide
Logistics
Mental Prep
Physical Prep
Spiritual Prep
Homelife Prep
Relationships Prep
Lifestyle Prep
Integration Prep
Navigation Guide
During Your Experience
Common Experiences
Tips to Maximize Your Experience
Understanding the Medicines
Understanding Your Role
Meetings Challenges
Managing Disappointments
Navigation Skills
Life Changes
Coping Skills
Integration Guide
About Integration
Self-Love & Self-Care
Benefits of Integration
Process of Integration
Phases of Integration
Roles & Principles
Areas of Integration
Integrative Activities
INTRODUCTION
DISCLAIMER: Being True To You (BTTY) does not approve/disapprove, suggest or advocate for the use of entheogenic or psychedelic substances, nor does BTTY make referrals or help people connect with psychedelic substances. The BTTY community provides integrative coaching around transformational experiences such as entheogenic journeys, meditation retreats, holistic treatments, personal development workshops, and other psycho-spiritual healing and transformational events. This workbook does not qualify you to use entheogenic substances that are not legal in the United States. This book is meant to serve in a harm reduction capacity to support people around their own decisions.
Inspirational Message
Welcome to the Being True To You Psychedelic Integration Workbook, providing extended
support, guidance, and accountability in your journey work with psychedelics. Whether you are healing from the past, tuning more fully into your present, or setting up for a
better future, having proper education, guidance, accountability, and integration support is invaluable for this kind of process. We believe in you, thank you for trusting in us to be
a part of your journey.
On Intentions vs Expectations Drop the Expectations: A key understanding in working with psychedelic substances is to release all expectations, and instead focus on intentions. Expectations create attachments for the experience to happen in a certain way and produce a specific result. This leaves room for disappointment, and can cause you to miss out on the opportunities that arise that were not planned. A common phrase with psychedelic work is that “you don’t get the experience you want, you get the experience you need”. Approaching your experience with humility and an openness to whatever arises is key. Clarity through Intentions: Intentions clarify why you are undergoing this journey and what you’d like to accomplish, while creating an openness as to how things happen. Intentions open communication between your highest goals and the spirit/intelligence/function of the psychedelic substance. Having intentions gives meaning, strength, and courage to your journey and helps you get through the difficult moments with your end goal in mind. Intentions keep you focused, grounded, in your process, and open to whatever arises throughout the experience.
My Intentions Intentions bring clarity and improve outcomes. You do not need to know how or when your intentions will come true, it’s just good to know what they are to deepen your experience. Name your intentions, then let go of your attachment to the outcome. Once you write your intentions and any questions you would like answered, you can memorize and review them leading up to your experience. It is good to write in positive tense focusing on what you want, rather than what you don’t want. Questions I would like answers to: 1)
2)
3)
My intentions for this journey: 1)
2)
3)
Nature of Entheogens Psychedelic or visionary substances are often referred to as entheogens, meaning “generating the divine within”. These substances, be they plant medicines or chemicals, have the power to awaken you to higher perspectives and allow a deep cleaning of your psyche, followed by a stronger connection to your true self and your greater life purpose. Every entheogenic journey is different, every time, for everyone. While we still don’t fully understand how these substances work, cultures that have used them for thousands of years say they carry a sentience or intelligence about them that works with your higher self to produce the exact kind of experience you need in your life at that very moment. The gifts and benefits from psychedelics can come before, during, or after (and even a long time after) your actual experience. It is important to embrace your total experience, to stay present with the moment, and not to attempt to analyze your experience too quickly. Every experience offers a unique lesson, and it’s often never what you expect. Psychedelics often magnify your challenges and burdens, which can be difficult but creates an opportunity to work through them to find a level of healing that is otherwise out of reach.
Purposes and Benefits Psychedelics provide opportunities for deep introspection and self work, open awareness to higher truths, take you into an expanded state of consciousness, help you release blocks and find your passion in life, create healthier intrapersonal and interpersonal connections, and provide a reset and rite of passage into the next level of your life. These are in no way guaranteed, but here are some commonly reported benefits that people have reported after working with psychedelics:
1. New Vision: A fresh look at life, happier, lighter, freer, full of awe, wonder, compassion, love, gratitude, able to see the beauty in the world
2. Release Burdens: Let go of heavy emotions, resentments, anger, blame, shame, fear, and negative & limiting beliefs; able to release & resolve trauma
3. More Focus: Reorganization of the brain, more relaxed mind, accurate perspective, less chaos and confusion, more patience and presence
4. Questions Answered: Solutions become clear, problems dissolve, guidance and direction opens, people see their blocks and how to move forward in life
5. More Confidence: Able to make decisions easier, trust in themselves, gets unstuck from procrastination, become empowered to take steps forward
6. Future Clarity: Excitement about next steps/life purpose, eager to create better habits, determined to stay true on a forward-moving track
7. Healthy Body: Feel more clean/pure, desire healthier foods and exercise, disfavor unhealthy food and substances, get better sleep, feel better
8. Social Reassurance: Relief from social anxiety, depression & isolation, self-defeat, and the inner critic, desire & openness for reconnection
9. Self Connection: Align with truth, passion, purpose, mission, values & virtues, people remember what’s most important in life
10. Stronger Devotion: People recognize and explore their own spirituality, realization of one’s place in the collective, connection with the divine or a higher power
Cautions & Disclaimers 1. Psychedelics are not for everyone, never pressure or be pressured into using them 2. Do not undergo these experiences alone or without proper screening 3. Only undergo these experiences with a trusted and experienced practitioner 4. Only undergo these experiences in a safe environment with the proper set and setting 5. Dosage does matter and cannot be guessed at 6. Do not combine psychedelics with others substances, or fail to communicate any drugs
you are taking to a facilitator 7. Know that psychedelics are illegal in the US and some other countries 8. Know the contraindications of each substance 9. Do not take psychedelics if you’ve had a history of severe psychiatric problems 10.Do not take psychedelics if you’ve been experiencing any heart difficulties
PREPARATION GUIDE
Preparation helps you maximize the opportunities and benefits, mitigate risks and disappointments, and open yourself up to get the most out of your experience. Preparation starts your transformational journey through early self-reflection, introspection, and contemplation. Purpose of Preparation: Preparation helps you prepare for change, growth, and whatever
level of transformation you are ready for. Do not expect the psychedelic substance to do all the work for you- preparation helps you get clear on where your work lies, and what your role in it is. This process helps you tune into and refine your inner world as you make changes in your outer world. Ultimately, preparation sets the groundwork for what is to come so you can make the most out of each experience.
Truth be told, no amount of preparation can completely prepare you for a psychedelic experience. Once you are in the journey, you will have to figure it out for yourself. Taking preparation seriously will help you face the experience with trust and confidence.
Preparation Begins Now: As soon as you decide to take a psychedelic, your adventure
begins. Right away, new and unfamiliar emotions may arise, new sensations in your body, old memories and new thoughts may surface, and things in your life might get stirred up. Changes begin to take shape inside out outside, shifting and restructuring so you can mature into the next phase of your life. Change brings discomfort, and without foresight into your process of change, you’re likely to misinterpret and dramatize what is happening. Preparation, through mindfulness and practice, helps you stay in your process, face your work, observe your patterns, release attachments, and find your truth through this entire phase, not just during your actual experience.
Prepare for the “Felt-Experience”: Psychedelics hit the bloodstream at different paces,
but at their peak can feel very intense. Some people report experiencing extra-sensory perception, expanded consciousness, visions and tracers, auditory experiences, physical sensations, nausea, euphoria, heightened blood pressure, out-of-body experiences, and much more. Psychedelic substances temporarily expand the rigid way we see, think, and feel in everyday life, and allow access to higher truths and insights, which is not always an easy or fun experience. Depending on the substance, the length of the experience itself can be challenging too; it takes a lot of endurance and patience to get through a long psychedelic experience. Once you're in, the only way out is through.
Preparation Questions Answering these questions will help to “prime” you for the experience, bringing focus to your current situation, your highest goals, and what your role is after the experience is over. 1) What are the factors in your life that have led you to this journey? 2) What does your highest self need and want right now? 3) What are the most challenging things for you in life right now? 4) What would you like to see changed in your life? 5) What changes do you anticipate are needed to create this new life? 6) What do you anticipate your work and role being in this process?
Mental Prep
1. Get clear with intentions: Intentions give clarity and depth to your experience and give you strength and perseverance during tougher times.
2. Develop a curious-observer mindset: A curious-observer mindset allows you to see your life from an outside perspective, to exist outside your thoughts and emotions, to learn from them, not be ruled by them.
3. Prepare for discomfort: Your experience will take you beyond your normal reality and into a series of altered-reality experiences and phases. No part of this will look or feel normal. Leading up to your experience, whenever you feel discomfort, rather than reacting to it, allow space for it, lean into it, drop the resistance, and embrace the challenge as a learning experience.
4. Be ready for expansion: Psychedelic experiences will stretch your conscious awareness outside of your everyday reality. To some degree, you will get the opportunity to explore your “inner space.” Start now to go inward, let go of anxieties and attachments, and just breathe into the moment with no resistance.
5. De-stress your mind: Practice bringing calm in the face of stress, tension, or worry. Avoid intense drama, toxic relationships, and even violence in the media, film, literature, music, or arts; this all causes intensity and chaos in the mind, bringing more stress and unnecessary distraction. Focusing on the breath is a powerful tool for this.
My Mental Prep Notes:
Physical Prep
1. Medical screening: You must do your research when it comes to medical safety. Know that there are medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical contraindications with many psychedelic substances, and that you need to get well informed here to ensure a safe experience.
2. Right Nutrition: The cleaner, healthier, and more hydrated your body is, the better the experience will be. It is best to avoid processed, sugary, fried, and junk foods. Incorporate a wide range of vegetables and greens, lean meats, nuts, grains, fruits, and seeds into your diet (depending on your personal dietary choices and restrictions).
3. Purify and detoxify: As much as possible eliminate toxic and unnatural substances, such as candy, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, chemical products, and so forth.
4. Right sleep: Remove distractions and influences that interfere with your sleep, and switch to habits that support good sleep.
5. Right endurance: Get some light to moderate cardio exercise leading up to your experience to support you through the intensity and duration of the experience. Flow activities like swimming, dance, moderate weight-lifting, yoga, and qi-gong build endurance and balance neurochemistry.
6. Body-awareness: Pay attention to your body and what it is communicating. Everything will be magnified during your experience, so start paying attention to what your body has to say to you. If feel you need to reduce stress, modify your diet, or do some light exercise and stretching to alleviate discomfort, do it.
7. Body-relaxation: A relaxed body going in will soften and deepen your experience; a tense body holds resistance, traps energy, and inhibits the flow of the experience. Prepare now through body relaxation practices. Continue to breathe, relax, stretch, and open.
My Physical Prep Notes:
Spiritual Prep
1. Open the spiritual dialogue: Where is your spiritual awareness on a daily basis? How tuned into your true self are you? Do you contemplate the purpose of your life? How can you deepen the spiritual dialogue within yourself? If you have a spiritual path, tune more deeply into it while remaining open minded about what may happen. If you do not have a spiritual path, be open to having a new experience that may give you a new perspective on life’s biggest questions.
2. Start a meditative practice: Meditation is one of the best ways to prepare for a psychedelic journey. Meditation teaches you to go beyond the mental chatter, to let go of stress and anxiety, and to open your awareness for expansion. Meditation prepares you for a transpersonal experience and can ease and enhance your experience.
3. Connect to inner guidance: Tune into your inner guidance system (intuition, instinct, higher knowing, gut feeling, wisdom). Inner guidance and feedback can come through your mind, heart, body, or through external signs, situations, and people. Differentiate temptation, desire, and cravings from your highest truth and wisdom.
4. Clarify your spiritual purpose: Think beyond your pursuits and goals, and contemplate your higher purpose and spiritual development. Psychedelics present a profound opportunity to awaken and grow spiritually, and having a sense of higher purpose activates strength, courage, determination, and perseverance in every area of your life. Acknowledging things like family lineage, the collective good, what the afterlife may be, and what the source of life may be, brings depth and new insights to this kind of journey. It is not important to have a spiritual path or to have any answers, but rather to be open to these questions from a place of curiosity.
My Spiritual Prep Notes:
Homelife Prep 1. Set the stage for integration: Identify where you will go after the experience. It is important
to set aside time and space to integrate your psychedelic journey. This space needs to be as supportive, peaceful, therapeutic, and nourishing as possible. A stress-free environment is key.
2. Refresh living spaces: If you experience is happening outside your home, clean, refresh, reorganize, and restock your house beforehand so you have a nice place to return to. A fresh home supports a new start. Clean spaces reflect a clearer and more focused stress-free mind, which supports positive change.
3. Incorporate new stimulus: Spruce up your home with positive stimuli and healthy activity options. Choose activities that deepen, not distract, your integration. Incorporate stimulating, inspiring, creative, and engaging things to inspire creativity and spark ingenuity. Many people find benefit in creative writing, arts, and crafts.
My Homelife Prep Notes:
Relationships Prep 1. Inform loved ones: Inform those close to you of your journey and process. Share what
you’re doing and why. Let them know where you’ll be, and keep them in the loop.
2. Share intentions for change: Express yourself truthfully to your loved ones, and talk about your intentions and vulnerabilities. Ask for what you need, including accountability. Allow them to share feedback and accept it without resistance. Get them on your team.
3. Improve your social network: Enhance your real social network and relationships. Move toward the relationships that help you become a better person, and away from the toxic relationships. Develop new standards for relating and bonding.
My Relationship Prep Notes:
Lifestyle Prep 1. Outline tasks & responsibilities: Outline and complete as many tasks and responsibilities
beforehand so you’re not burdened with things to do afterwards. Schedule adequate time for integration, and then schedule everything else around that.
2. Draft a plan of action: Outline your goals and action steps so you have clarity and feel directed and motivated after your experience. Knowing your goals helps you move into alignment with them. Think about areas of self-improvement too.
3. Establish a daily discipline: To support your integration, establish a daily discipline, or mind-body-spiritual practice. A daily discipline improves character, which improves habits and quality of life.
My Lifestyle Prep Notes:
Integration Prep 1. Integration education: Success with psychedelic journeys is directly proportional to your
integration. Just winging it, or taking it as it comes does not work well. Get educated on integration, both from this workbook and elsewhere.
2. Tracking insights: Track your insights, realizations, and breakthroughs as you approach and prepare for this journey. Paying attention to your insights now will help you stay alert and receptive to them within and after your experience.
3. Specialized support: Locate and set up specialized support before and after. Surround yourself with others who understand and who will have a positive impact on you. Specialized community extends your integration efforts, solidifying positive changes.
My Integration Setup Notes:
NAVIGATION GUIDE During Your Experience Psychedelic journeys can be very strong, intense and fascinating. You may experience multisensory hallucinations, a heavy sensation of energy in the body, intermixing and heightened thoughts, voices, intense emotions, distortions in vision, and see geometrical shapes and fractals. On top of this, you may have a kind of psychic mirror into your personality, your life situation, your past, how you’ve affected others, and a clear view of things that you’ve worked to suppress and hide away from. Journeys like this take a lot of strength, endurance, and patience to get through. It can feel like time is standing still, like the feeling will never stop. Or it could feel like you’re dying, losing control, going insane, or losing your grasp on reality. A number of things could come up from past memories, present concerns, internal fears, future doubts, life reservations, and so forth. The experience may last longer than expected, it might take a long time to activate, it might not happen at all, it might have lingering residual effects, or it might take more out of you than expected. Every experience is unique, and you can never fully know what you’re in for until you are there. Entheogens bring about a transpersonal experience, which is very different from our normal everyday sense of who we are and what the world is. Your sense of self may be entirely new, and the world may appear entirely different during the journey. Often, people report that this experience is profound and life-changing, giving a glimpse of how we are interconnected with all living beings and have near-infinite potential, which we forget in our day-to-day lives. When we embrace and do not resist these experiences, they have long-lasting therapeutic benefits, and help the brain to form new pathways and integrate new, more positive attitudes and beliefs.
Entheogens Can Create Changes In:
● Consciousness ● Sensory perception ● Emotional state ● Mindset and thoughts ● Demeanor and mood ● Willpower
● Muscle movement controls ● Appetite, urges, desires ● Sexual drive ● Worldview ● View of life, self, others ● Spiritual sense
Navigation Tools, Skills, & Strategies
Tools involve the use of internal or external stimuli to either enhance or bring ease to your
experience. Tools like these will help to bring forth the experience you’re looking for by bringing in calm when you need a breather, bringing in faith and trust when you are experiencing fear, and activating a greater sensory perspective when you’re ready for more. This is not an exact science; tools provide methods for coping, anchoring, and discovery.
★ Use a familiar reassuring mantra or affirmation ★ Picture someone you love and admire ★ See yourself surrounded with golden-white light ★ Bring and hold a special rock, gem, or grounding object ★ Connect with natural elements such as the air and the earth ★ Listen to a guided meditation or music ★ Use expressive arts to convey feelings, meaning, and insight ★ Use incense, aromas or essential oils to activate more senses ★ Follow sound vibrations and breath moving through the body ★ Cover yourself with a comfortable blanket for a sense of reassurance ★ Bring fans or feathers to “move” stuck energy ★ If things feel “stuck” change things up. Go from inside to outside or vice-versa,
turn on or off music, etc.
My Navigation Tools:
Skills demonstrate self-awareness and help you stay alert and attentive to the learning, healing,
and growth opportunities within the experience. Skills allow you to be the researcher, observer, and an active participant in your journey, helping you to deepen the experience and get more out of it.
★ Talk to the medicine as if it were a person, ask for what you need ★ Practice deepening self-inquiry ★ Observe your thoughts and focal points ★ Feel and listen to your emotions ★ Hear your judgments, worries, and fears ★ Note your doubts, insecurities, and shame ★ Track the narrative voices in your head ★ Pay attention to what core beliefs you hold on to ★ Watch for exaggerated aspects of the self that become magnified ★ Try to see yourself from different perspectives/angles ★ Pinpoint and release negativity ★ Invite positivity and light to cleanse your emotional field ★ Take note of signs, symbols, and salient moments to process later ★ Allow your energy to flow and travel without resistance
My Skills to Practice and Incorporate:
Strategies are applied teachings that help you move through your experience organically,
objectively, and optimistically. A strategy could be directly appointed toward a goal or it could be ‘not to have a strategy’ and to simply face whatever arises with courage and trust.
★ Show reverence and gratitude to the substance and facilitators ★ Sit in an upright meditative position for a direct conversation with the “spirit” of
the substance or your “higher self” ★ Activate body awareness, let your body speak to you ★ Spend time both in the passenger and the driver’s seat ★ Say yes to move past resistance into the next frame, level, or phase
★ Own your experience as yours, honor it as it was designed for you ★ Challenge yourself to go further ★ Love and accept yourself deeply and completely ★ Call upon ancestors and closest kin for guidance and support ★ Look for the blessing and intrinsic value in all things ★ Observe how certain thoughts “feel” in the body ★ Take an active role in navigation, participate in the journey ★ Ask specific questions about yourself, your life, and your purpose ★ Talk to your future self, ask for advice and guidance ★ Send healing healing, forgiveness, and acceptance to your younger self
Strategies to Practice and Incorporate:
Tips to Maximize Your Experience
● Remember to breathe: Awareness of breath is your primary lifeline to ground you in both worlds; it will help stabilize you and get you through any challenging moments. The only way out is through, and you can get there through focusing on your breath.
● Surrender to the experience: Surrender and let go of the need to control the experience, relax the mind, let go of the need to know everything, embrace the infinite love and mystery that is within the psychedelic space.
● Go inward: Let go of the outside world, home-life, relationships, and all the to-do’s, and turn your focus inward, observe your own innerworkings and psychological patterns, close your eyes when you can, and truly see yourself.
● Observe areas of resistance: Notice when your mind and body get tense, caught up on something, uncomfortable, afraid, in denial, defensive, judgmental, angry, and so on. Consciously release this tension.
● Have compassion for yourself: Leave out the self-judgment, criticism, and worry about whether you’re doing it right or not. Just be where you are and accept how you and the substance are showing up, whatever that looks like.
● Say yes to each moment: Lean into the experiences you encounter, especially very difficult ones. Saying yes opens the gate and allows you to get through to the next level or phase. This is what you are training for, and where the rewards come, and this shows your acceptance and appreciation for each opportunity.
● Trust you are safe: Have faith you are where you’re supposed to be, doing the work you are intended to do, and having the exact experience you need to have to get the results you want.
● Stay in your process: Continue to introspect, continue your meditative exercises and integration activities after your experience, and don’t rush out of your experience and jump into old comforts and patterns.
Important Tips for Me to Remember:
Meeting Challenges
Being prepared for the unexpected can help you bring yourself to reassurance faster and maintain trust and ease throughout your journey. This kind of experience can be very intense, and proper preparation goes a long way in helping you get through it. Psychedelic experiences can produce any number of challenges and difficulties. When these are met with resistance, they can lead to unpleasant and unhelpful “bad trips”, but when they are met with courage, acceptance, and proper planning, they can produce the greatest learning and healing opportunities.
There are many things that can challenge you during a medicine experience, from the medicine “not working”, to not having the experience you were hoping for, to having a very intense
experience that doesn’t let up the entire time. You could get really sick, feel pain or terribly uncomfortable in your body, or feel like you’re losing control, on the verge of a mental break, or even dying. You might see terrifying things, face your demons, relive traumas, stir up difficult emotions, or learn truths you were not ready for. You might not feel supported in the moment, you might start worrying about things at home, or simply be so overwhelmed by the experience that you feel unable to process anything and want to escape.
Psychedelic journeys are known to sometimes bring out your deepest fears and also bestow incredible healing and growth on the other side of them. To prepare yourself to meet challenges is to prepare yourself to face your fears. You can begin this process of facing fears before you enter your journey to get practice recognizing what those fears are and understanding how you’ve been responding to your fears. Beyond fears, reflect on and talk about hardships in your life and ways that you can feel empowered by facing them. Everything in this workbook can be used to prepare yourself to step into the unknown, the unfamiliar, and the unpredictable arena of psychedelics where challenges are inevitable.
Challenges for Me to Prepare For:
Managing Disappointments Managing disappointment starts with managing expectations. As soon as you become aware of an expectation during your journey, work to release it and trust that whatever is happening is right for you in this moment. It is important to remain humble and open-minded when working with psychedelics, and not impose expectations.
Start now by observing your ego’s tendencies to compare your experiences to others, to expect a certain kind of psychedelic experience to boast about later, or to be validated in having a life-changing experience. Remind yourself to focus on what the experience is offering in the moment.
If your experience was less than you hoped for, focus on what you did notice, learn, and discover. Where was your resistance? Where was your disappointment? What moved you, both good or bad? What inspired you, elevated your understanding, or opened you up? Write down your insights and gifts so the benefits become more tangible to you.
It’s also helpful to talk about these disappointments, to understand them and learn about yourself through your unmet expectations. This is an opportunity for you to see how your reliance on the external is preventing you from connecting with your own power. Remember always to look within and “own” your experience, however it plays out.
The lasting value of any psychedelic experience lies in the integration. There will be many fruits that come to blossom if you stay in your process and don’t get hung up on disappointments. Keep in mind that your brain’s tendency to ruminate on disappointments stems from the ego and addictive mind which is always looking for external solutions, holding you back from experiencing a higher truth and wisdom already within you.
To Ensure I Don’t Get Stuck on Disappointments, I Will:
When it Comes to My Personal Journey, My Intuition Tells Me:
INTEGRATION GUIDE
About Integration
Integration is the process immediately following a psychedelic journey, that works to implement the insights gained for lasting positive life changes. Psychedelic experiences open the door to transformation, but the lasting benefit comes through integration.
Integration is a process of mindfulness and cultivation that takes the insights and realizations discovered through psychedelic experiences and brings them into real life. Integrative work guides you and holds you accountable to making the changes you set out to make. Psychedelic experiences offer a window of opportunity for you to improve your mindset, character, lifestyle, relationships, and disposition in life. Integration means to make something whole again; to join and unify the parts of yourself back together. Integrative work helps you continue to self-reflect and embody emerging wisdom and insights into your daily life. The psychedelic experience itself invites deep healing and an evolutionary opportunity that lasts for many weeks following the experience itself.
When you invite psychedelics into your personal healing and growth process, big energies are unlocked, lifted, and transformed. While the experience itself only lasts for a relatively short period of time, it will continue to impact you for months, years, and potentially the rest of your life. Being open to this long journey of unpacking the experience and trying your best to learn the many lessons that are contained in it will help you glean the maximum possible benefit.
Benefits of Integration
Integration is where the fruits of your entheogenic labor blossom in your life. The benefits and opportunities are vast, and vary for each person and each experience. You cannot know what benefits you will receive; hence
you must enter without expectation, an open mind, and gratitude for the experience you get no matter what it is. You must allow the benefits to emerge in your life; upwards of 95% of the benefit becomes noticed after the experience, sometimes weeks, months, or years later.
Possible Benefits of a Psychedelic Experience:
★ Spiritual connection, release of fears and activation of love, acceptance of life as it is ★ Fresh start, new beginning, awakening, remembering virtues, passions, finding meaning ★ Clarity, realizations, new perspectives, answers, solutions, ideas, higher awareness ★ Self-love, self-acceptance, confidence, esteem, reassurance, hope, courage, ambition ★ Connection, sense of belonging, sense of security, feelings of love and peace ★ Sense of relief, better handle on life, not so burdened by daily tasks and challenges ★ Above the former drama that limited progress, beyond the procrastinations and fears ★ Inspiration, motivation, purpose, meaning, productivity, performance, and activity driven
Risks Without Integration: Without proper integration you risk missing out on 95% of the
benefit of your experience. You risk wasting time, energy, and money for little to no long-term results, and you risk creating more psychological instability and problems in your life if you try hiding away or taking lightly such an intense and important experience.
Process of Integration
Integration begins in the preparation stage, and continues immediately following your psychedelic journey. Once the substance is no longer in the bloodstream, and you’ve recovered from the experience itself, then you begin the main stage of integration.
How to Prepare for Integration:
● Utilizing this workbook to its fullest ● Engaging in 1:1 and group coaching ● Setting intentions without expectations
● Complete tasks to clear your plate
● Preparing integrative materials and activities
● Asking for support from your loved ones and community
● Identifying the right place to go afterwards
● Practicing preparation & navigation skills
How does Integration Work? Integration works through the conscious application of the
insights gained on your psychedelic journey into your daily life. It is where the old aspects of yourself meet and transform into the new you. Often it takes the shape of unlearning old ingrained habits and beliefs, replacing them with positive ones, exploring new passions and interests, and seeking deeper, more authentic relationships and community connections.
What is Getting Integrated?
Integration can mean many things:
★ integration of mind, body, and spirit ★ integration of self, other, and mother nature ★ integration of inner and outer worlds ★ integration of past, present, and future ★ integration of old self and new self ★ integration of principles into real life ★ integrating changes into your life ★ integrating a new perspective on life
Process of Integration
Step 1: RECEIVE Take in information from the psychedelic experience, before, during, and after (through your perceptions, self-reflection, conversations with others, integrative activities, emerging insights and wisdom, incoming feedback and messages, and intuitions)
Step 2: PROCESS Create space psychologically and physically to introspect, contemplate, and feel what all this means (intuitively, reasonably, practically, personally, socially, and spiritually)
Step 3: ACTION Bring the discoveries and insights into action; implement, apply, and integrate new changes (form new perspectives, bring clarity to issues, expand horizons, choose healthier habits, and act with integrity)
Step 4: RELEASE Identify what is no longer serving; what did the experience highlight and reveal? (let go of doubt, drop negative attitudes, relax defenses, quit bad habits, stop the drama, and end the complaining)
Step 5: PRACTICE Repeat and reinforce your new beliefs and habits (establish morning routines, daily anchors, weekly accountabilities, new standards, healthy habits, and practice good follow through)
Phases of Integration
1st Month
“Honeymoon Phase”
● Medicine afterglow (substance still circulating)
● Taking it all in, bathing in it
● Usually first 2-4 weeks ● Similar to step 1 above
1-3 Months
“Between Worlds”
● Not who I was and not yet who I will become
● Can be the most challenging time
● Vision for life is still unfolding
● Requires lots of support & community
● Similar to step 2 as process is emerging and action is solidifying
● Can be hard to release the old patterns as the new path emerges
3-6 Months
“Clarity Arising”
● More evidence of new vision for life in the here and now
● Actualizing the necessary pieces
● Easier to release the old patterns and more fully practice the new
● Similar to steps 3, 4, 5
Your Role & Principles
Your role is to learn about integration, set the stage for your integration afterwards, draw as many insights as you can from your experiences, and accept and work through the “homework” the journey leaves you with. Take advantage of this workbook and other inspiring or integrative materials available to you. No matter what, stay in your process and do not resist or avoid to it. Rely on experts and the closest people in your life who you can ask for help if it gets tough. Areas of Integration
MENTAL
What did you discover about your psychology? What is the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors? How clear vs. chaotic, or liberated vs. entangled does your mind function or not function? What are your psychological strengths vs. shortcomings; where are your
areas of fear, denial, and resistance? Where did you feel proud and solid in your mental landscape? How can you take what you’ve learned about your psychology to make positive changes to your mental health and your brain’s functionality?
Personal Reflections on My Mind:
EMOTIONAL
What did you learn about your emotional health? What did you notice about your emotional patterns, and how does this relate to your family and history of emotional patterns? What influences your emotional state the most, both positively and negatively? Where are you stuck or blocked emotionally? How can you take what you’ve learned about your emotions to strategize a practice or set of practices you can use to increase your emotional awareness and emotional maturity?
Personal Reflections on My Emotions:
SPIRITUAL
What did you learn about your spirit and true self? How would you describe your sense of spirituality, now and before? How did your experience expand or not expand your spiritual awareness? How did your experience speak to your place and purpose in this world? What is your sense of life all about; why do you think you are here? How can you bring this awareness into your life, and continue to cultivate your spiritual presence, whatever form that takes?
Personal Reflections on My Sense of Spirituality:
PHYSICAL
What did you learn about your physical body and physical health? In what way did your body speak to you? Did you experience any pain or aches? Where does your body need nourishment and attention? How might your mindset, lifestyle, personality, relationships, or environment be influencing the quality of your physical health and wellness? How can you turn your insights about your physical body and physical health into action steps you can apply in life right now? Use your experience to develop your daily body awareness.
Personal Reflections on My Physical Body:
HOME
What did you learn about your home life and other environments you spend time in? How do your environments affect your quality of life? What feels nourishing and protective to you, versus stagnant, toxic, or out of place? How can you turn your insights into action steps for home improvements? Think outside of the box and get creative about things you can do to improve your living spaces. What kinds of stimulating, nourishing, and therapeutic elements and activities can you incorporate into your home? If you’re seeking a major life change it can help to undertake a complete home makeover.
Personal Reflections on My Home Environment:
LIFESTYLE
What did you learn about your lifestyle, habits, patterns, themes, and daily activities and focuses? How can you turn your insights into action steps for lifestyle-improvements? This will include a change in perspective, as your behaviors are simply a reflection of how you see yourself and the world. To your change behavior you must change your perspective, and to change your perspective you must redesign your life in addition to transforming your inner world.
Personal Reflections on My Lifestyle:
RELATIONSHIPS
What did you learn about your relationships and your social network? How do you relate to others? What are the quality and value of your connections? What needs to change or improve? How can you turn your insights into action steps, mindful practices, or skills training to improve the quality of your relationships and social life? What relationships do you want to enhance and nurture? What relationships do you need to redefine or completely transition out of?
Personal Reflections on My Relationships:
Integrative Questions
How do you feel about your experience? What are your most salient memories? What themes came up? What was highlighted?
Personal Reflections:
Where were your areas of resistance and difficulty? What were your breakthrough and insights? What did you learn about yourself? What shortcomings, attachments, or notions did you identify?
Personal Reflections:
What visions, imagery, symbols, signs, observations came up? What ideas, opportunities, or doors opened up? What else came up for you in the experience? What is coming up for you now?
Personal Reflections:
What does this all mean to you? What do you or could you take from it? What have you learned, gained, or discovered through your psychedelic journey? What do you see are the most important things in life?
Personal Reflections:
How can you take what you’ve learned and implement it into your life? What homework did the journey leave you with? What are your next steps?
Personal Reflections:
Helpful Integrative Activities
● Journaling
● Charting and tracking new goals
● Meditation
● Breathwork
● Hiking/camping/being in nature
● Drawing and painting
● Music composition
● Dancing, chanting, drumming
● Flow activities
● Keeping a dream journal
● Fasting, juicing
● Sensory deprivation tanks
● Yoga
● Connecting with positive community
● Integration coaching support
● Accountability systems for commitments
