Blog

  • What is Preparation?

    Preparation involves the steps you take before embarking on a psychedelic experience to ensure that your mind, body, and environment are aligned for a positive and meaningful journey. It sets the foundation for a therapeutic experience that can be deeply healing and insightful.

    Why is Preparation Important?

    Safety: Psychedelic experiences can be intense and unpredictable. Proper preparation ensures that you are physically safe and in a supportive environment. This includes understanding the substance, dosage, and potential effects, as well as having a trusted guide or therapist present.

    Mental Readiness: Entering a psychedelic experience with a clear and calm mind is crucial. Preparation helps you address any anxieties or unresolved issues beforehand, creating a mental space that is open and receptive to the journey. This readiness can significantly influence the quality of your experience.

    Intentionality: Setting clear intentions for your journey can guide your experience and help you navigate the insights and emotions that arise. Whether your goal is healing, self-discovery, or spiritual growth, having a defined purpose provides direction and focus.

    Enhanced Integration: The insights gained during a psychedelic experience are more effectively integrated into your daily life if you have a solid foundation. Preparation helps you establish this foundation, making it easier to apply the lessons learned to your everyday life.

    How to Prepare Effectively

    Education: Learn about the psychedelic substance you will be using, including its effects, potential risks, and therapeutic benefits. Knowledge empowers you to make informed decisions and reduces the likelihood of unexpected challenges.

    Physical Preparation: Ensure your body is in good health. This might include eating a light, healthy meal beforehand, staying hydrated, and getting enough rest. Physical well-being can greatly influence your mental state during the journey.

    Set and Setting: Choose a comfortable, safe, and familiar environment for your experience. Surround yourself with items that bring you comfort and a sense of security. The setting plays a crucial role in shaping the nature of your journey.

    Therapeutic Guidance: Engage in preparatory sessions with a therapist. These sessions can help you articulate your intentions, address any fears, and establish a supportive relationship with your guide. A therapist can provide invaluable support and insight, both before and during your experience.

    Preparation is not just a preliminary step in psychedelic therapy; it's the cornerstone of a meaningful and safe journey. By dedicating time and effort to prepare, you set the stage for an experience that can profoundly impact your life. I'm here to support you in every aspect of your preparation, ensuring that your journey is as enriching and transformative as possible.

  • What is Integration?

    Integration is the process of making sense of and incorporating the insights and experiences gained during a psychedelic journey into your everyday life. It's about connecting the dots between the extraordinary moments of clarity and your day-to-day existence. Think of it as weaving the profound into the practical, allowing the wisdom of your journey to inform and enrich your life.

    Why is Integration Important?

    Sustained Growth: Psychedelic experiences can be incredibly powerful, offering deep insights and emotional breakthroughs. However, without integration, these revelations can fade, leaving you with fleeting memories rather than lasting change. Integration helps solidify these insights, turning ephemeral moments into enduring personal growth.

    Emotional Processing: Psychedelics often bring unresolved emotions to the surface. Integration provides a safe space to process these emotions, helping you understand and release them in a healthy manner. This emotional clarity can lead to greater inner peace and improved mental health.

    Practical Application: The lessons learned during a psychedelic journey can be profound, but their true value lies in how they are applied in your everyday life. Integration bridges the gap between the visionary and the practical, enabling you to implement positive changes in relationships, career, and personal habits.

    Community Support: Sharing your experiences with others who understand can be incredibly validating and healing. Integration often involves participating in group discussions or one-on-one sessions with a therapist, fostering a sense of community and support that enhances your journey.

    How to Integrate Effectively

    Journaling: Writing about your experiences can help clarify your thoughts and emotions. Keep a journal to document your journey and the insights gained, revisiting these entries as needed to track your progress.

    Therapeutic Sessions: Regular sessions with a therapist can provide guidance and support, helping you navigate the complexities of your experience and offering tools for integration.

    Mindfulness Practices: Engage in mindfulness practices such as meditation, yoga, or breathwork. These practices can ground you, helping to maintain a connection to the insights gained during your psychedelic journey.

    Community Engagement: Join integration circles or support groups where you can share your experiences and learn from others. This communal approach fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of your journey.

    Integration is not just a step in the psychedelic therapy process; it's the bridge that transforms fleeting moments of insight into lasting change. By dedicating time and effort to integrate your experiences, you ensure that the wisdom gained during your journey continues to unfold, enriching your life in profound and meaningful ways. I’m here to support you every step of the way, nurturing your growth and celebrating your transformation.

  • The Importance of the Body in Psychedelic Therapy

    As we delve into the profound realms of psychedelic therapy, it's crucial to recognize the significant role that somatic work and the body play in healing. Our bodies are not just vessels for our minds; they are repositories of our experiences, emotions, and traumas.

    Understanding Somatic Work

    Somatic therapy is the field that explores the connection between the body and mind, emphasizing how our physical state influences our mental and emotional well-being. It recognizes that trauma is not only stored in our memories but also in our tissues, muscles, and cells. This perspective is vital in psychedelic therapy, where the release and integration of trauma can lead to profound healing.

    Why is Somatic Work Important in Psychedelic Therapy?

    Trauma Release: Our bodies often hold onto trauma, manifesting as physical tension, pain, or discomfort. During a psychedelic experience, somatic awareness can help bring these stored traumas to the surface, allowing them to be processed and released. This release can lead to significant emotional and physical healing.

    Holistic Healing: Healing is most effective when it addresses both the mind and body. Somatic work ensures that the body’s role in storing and expressing trauma is acknowledged and integrated into the therapeutic process, leading to more comprehensive healing outcomes.

    Enhanced Presence: Somatic practices encourage a heightened sense of presence and awareness of bodily sensations. This can deepen your connection to the present moment during a psychedelic experience, facilitating a more grounded and embodied journey.

    Self-Regulation: By becoming attuned to your bodily sensations, you can learn to recognize and regulate your emotional states more effectively. This skill is invaluable both during and after a psychedelic experience, helping you to navigate challenging emotions and maintain emotional balance.

    Incorporating Somatic work into Your Practice

    Body Scans: Regularly practice body scans to become more aware of your bodily sensations. This mindfulness technique can help you identify areas of tension or discomfort that may be linked to stored trauma.

    Movement Practices: Engage in gentle movement practices such as yoga, tai chi, or dance. These activities encourage the release of physical tension and promote a deeper connection between your mind and body.

    Breathwork: Breathwork is a powerful tool for accessing and releasing stored emotions. Practice deep, conscious breathing to enhance your somatic awareness and support emotional release.

    Therapeutic Touch: Consider incorporating therapeutic touch or bodywork into your healing process. Techniques such as massage, craniosacral therapy, or acupuncture can help release physical and emotional blockages.

    Recognizing the importance of somatic work and the body in psychedelic therapy enriches your healing journey, providing a holistic approach that addresses both mind and body. By embracing somatic practices, you can unlock the deep-seated traumas stored in your tissues, paving the way for profound transformation and well-being. I'm here to support you in every step of this integrative process, celebrating your growth and healing along the way.

Your well-being is important to me, and I believe in a holistic approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. I assist you in exploring your deepest self, connecting with your inner wisdom, and uncovering the profound healing that lies within you. Together, we will tailor our sessions to address you as a whole person, creating personalized experiences that integrate targeted therapeutic modalities and techniques to suit your unique needs #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide
“We may not be responsible for the world that creates our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.” - Gabor Maté #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide
Part 4: Our job, the job of our tender, wounded, poignant yet incredibly resilient human hearts is to rise above the culture/s that squashed us, to give it our collective middle finger so to speak, and in so doing to reclaim our inherent worthiness and belonging. My job, as your counselor-artist-guide is to walk alongside you as you re-connect to yourself. To clear your path of the cultural stones and debris that have gotten in your way over the years, that you’ve accepted as your own, and to point out obstacles you may have overlooked. To guide your awakening to your own inner wisdom and healer, for ultimately, you are your own best medicine. No matter your current struggle, I trust that your journey is unfolding in exactly the right way, at exactly the right time. You are still, in spite of – and perhaps even because of – everything that’s happened in between, a sacred being of love and light, perfect, worthy, and whole exactly as you are, in every way imaginable. It’s your birthright to know that to be true, deeply in your bones, I’m excited to bear witness to your unfolding. #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide
Part 3: As a child of globe-trotters, I visited 25 countries before the age of 13. I witnessed powerful communal and cultural rituals – I have felt, and understand the power of culture to connect, empower, and uplift. I also recognize and bear personal witness to our particular Western culture, which very often does the exact opposite. It separates. It diminishes, it squelches. Some of us mistakenly learn we don’t belong, some of us that we don’t even deserve to exist. Supportive family and/or community structures can negate some of the damage, but we must remember that families and communities are also products of the dominant culture. Quite often, they repeat and can even deepen the harmful messaging. #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide
Philosophy Part 2: What’s hard is that from the moment we’re born (even before we’re born) our conditioning begins. We emerge into a world that, even when our parents have the very best intentions, is committed to keeping us small, keeping us in our place, keeping us feeding the cultural machine of “not enough”. We’re taught that we’re NOT perfect, in fact we’re severely lacking, we’re separate from each other and the natural world. We’re kept in a constant state of needfulness, of no matter what we try, never being able to get fully “there” with our happiness, contentment, or acceptance of self and circumstances. #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide
Philosophy Part 1: A newborn enters the world a sacred being of love and light, perfect exactly as they are, in every way imaginable. They are boundlessly connected to all beings, everywhere, their existence in this realm, right here, right now is deserving of infinite celebration, they are worthy, whole, and complete. #zoejohnson #innerroadtrip #psychedelicguide