Serving residents of British Columbia, Canada
Preparation & Integration
Deep Awakening offers psychedelic preparation and integration therapy for mental health support, as well as guidance for navigating transpersonal domains and for cultivating sacredness within everyday life. Experienced, professional therapy and guidance is provided for promoting safe, beneficial conditions before, and meaningful, life-enhancing experiences after psychedelic journeys.
Psychedelics as a Path to Wellness
Psychedelics are powerful, psychoactive substances that have great potential for helping us experience wellness and reconnect with a sacred dimension of our lives. Psychedelics can open human consciousness to previously unimagined dimensions and show us unexamined aspects of ourselves as well as the inherent interconnectivity of all things. This can be both healing and mind-expanding.
Psychedelic journeys - although often transcendent experiences in themselves - can show us the way back into a sacredly immanent way of life. When the transcendence of a psychedelic journey is over, we return once again to our everyday lives. When we harness the insights and experiences of a psychedelic journey and integrate them into our ordinary lives, this can open us up to greater meaning, possibility and wellness.
Scientific and Sacred
Modern science in the forms of medicine and psychology bring valuable perspectives and practices for navigating psychedelic journeys. The field of medicine is particularly valuable for establishing the physical safety of psychoactive substances for humans. As such, Deep Awakening looks to the modern medical establishment for guidance in the matter of safety.
The field of psychology also offers a number of theories and techniques that can be helpful for some people in the preparation and integration of psychedelic experiences. As such, Deep Awakening incorporates theories and techniques from the field of psychology when it is deemed helpful.
Beyond these specific circumstances, Deep Awakening also looks to contexts outside of science for ways of helping people experience meaningful, healing and sacred psychedelic journeys. This can involve the realms of art, mythology and ritual among others.
Further information about Deep Awakening's psychedelic preparation and integration services is provided below.
Psychedelic Preparation
Aspects of Psychedelic Preparation
The way and the degree to which one prepares for a psychedelic journey tends to have a significant impact on the depth and quality of the experience.
Below are a number of topics / themes / considerations that are typically addressed in psychedelic preparation sessions with Deep Awakening:
Substance & Dose
The choice of psychedelic substance and the amount of substance being used are necessary and important considerations in the preparation process.
Some questions to consider when choosing a psychedelic substance and dose include:
- What is your purpose for this psychedelic journey?
- What substance best aligns with this purpose?
- Do you have previous experience with this substance?
A helpful general rule for choosing a dose, especially with a new substance, is: start low and go slow.
Safety & Harm-reduction
Safety - both physical and mental - is the first concern of a beneficial psychedelic journey. Issues, such as physical and mental health conditions, and medications and other substances that may have problematic interactions with the use of a psychedelic substance, need to be discussed and planned for. When these issues are present, people will be encouraged to seek outside support from professional medical experts. In the event that a client chooses to use psychedelic substances despite the presence of an identified physical or mental health risk, the therapist may use a harm-reduction approach to help the client reduce the risk of harm and have as safe an experience as possible.
Set & Setting
After physical and mental safety concerns are addressed, "set and setting" are the next two important factors to be considered for increasing the likelihood of a beneficial psychedelic journey.
"Set" refers to the mindset that a person brings into a psychedelic journey, including mood, attitude, beliefs, intentions and expectations (these latter two are discussed more below). Through the experience of many psychedelic explorers, it has been found that a person's mindset can have a significant influence - for good or ill - on a psychedelic journey.
"Setting" refers to the physical space and social environment in which a psychedelic journey occurs. As with mindset, it has been found through experience that the setting of a psychedelic journey can significantly influence the overall experience and is an important factor to be considered during the preparation phase.
Worldview & Sense of Meaning
Being conscious of one's personal worldview and meaning-making system can be helpful when entering into a psychedelic journey. With this being said, it can also be helpful to realize that the psychedelic experience may challenge this worldview and meaning-making system in a significant way. However, the more a person has conscious awareness of their views and presuppositions before a psychedelic journey, the easier it can be to integrate the possible challenges to those views and presuppositions afterward.
Intentions & Expectations
It can be useful to make the distinction between intentions and expectations in the context of psychedelic journeying. Intentions are the hopes and goals that we bring into a journey, while expectations are the outcomes that we believe will result from a journey.
Many people have found benefit in having clear intentions for entering into a psychedelic journey. Intentions can be broad or narrow in scope and are usually very personal in nature. It is possible that intentions may influence the course of a psychedelic journey, and when that happens it can be experienced as meaningful and empowering. But this is not guaranteed; sometimes the psychedelic journey has plans of its own. However, even when intentions are not ultimately met, the intention-setting process can still be helpful for providing a marker from which to gauge and better understand the experience that was had.
Contrary to intentions, expectations are usually unhelpful. Expectations tend to hold a lot of weight in our minds and when psychedelic journeys do not meet expectations - which is often the case - disappointment and discouragement can result. This resulting contracted mindset can cloud and detract from the awareness of other insights and beneficial experiences that were made available during the journey.
In short, when preparing for a psychedelic journey, it can be helpful to set clear intentions, but hold them lightly, and to let go of expectations altogether.
Psychedelic Integration
Aspects of Psychedelic Integration
The process of integrating a psychedelic experience involves allowing and promoting new insights, feelings and ways of being to take root in our lives and change us in beneficial ways. Without an intentional integration process, it is possible for the experiences of a psychedelic journey to be fleeting and not have a significant, ongoing impact on how we live our lives.
Below are a number of topics / themes / considerations that are typically addressed in psychedelic integration sessions with Deep Awakening:
Being & Becoming
Paradoxically, the integration process often involves both accepting and loving ourselves exactly as we are, and aligning with the natural impulse to grow into greater versions of ourselves. A useful metaphor is that of an acorn that grows into an oak tree. The acorn is perfect exactly as it is. And, given the proper conditions, it will naturally grow into a greater version of itself.
Health & Wellness
Health and wellness are often of primary concern for people seeking therapy, psychedelic or otherwise. A psychedelic experience can be a powerful catalyst for making improvements to one's mental and physical health. Psychedelic integration can help to harness the power of that catalyst and turn it into meaningful, lasting personal changes.
Purpose & Meaning
Purpose and meaning can be understood as essential aspects of a fulfilling life. A psychedelic experience can offer profound insights regarding life purpose and meaning, but if those insights are not grounded in day-to-day living, they will likely be forgotten without having been useful. The integration process provides an opportunity to channel psychedelic insights into a more meaningful, purposeful way of life.
Practice & Commitment
Deep Awakening views practice as one of the cornerstones of an effective integration process. Some general examples of potentially beneficial practices include meditation, journalling, physical exercise and learning a wisdom tradition. However, practices can also be very specific to an individual and their personal goals. Regardless of what the practice is, great benefit can be found in identifying and committing to meaningful practice.
Connection & Relationships
By looking at life through a certain lens, everything can be understood in terms of connection and relationships. Relationship to self, relationship to others, relationship to the world, relationship to Spirit. Depending on the nature of our connection, these relationships can be sources of love, joy and meaning, or stress, anguish and alienation. A psychedelic experience can offer us insights into how to improve our relationships and the integration process can help us to make those insights reality.
Creativity & Expression
Creativity and expression are natural and intrinsic aspects of the human experience. However, very few of us bring conscious awareness to how we inevitably create and express ourselves in the world. A psychedelic experience can open us up to the sublime beauty and grandeur of existence. The integration process can help us to live our lives more creatively, more expressively, and in more conscious alignment with the beauty of the world.
Service & Reciprocity
Perhaps, one of the most profound insights that can be gained from a psychedelic journey is the value of service and reciprocity - aligning ourselves with ways of being and relating in the world that are generous, helpful, sustainable and just. This includes not only our relationships with other humans, but also with non-human animals and all the natural environment. Finding meaningful ways to be of greater service to the world can be a valuable aspect of integration therapy.