I know that many plant medicine "gurus" such as Terrance McKenna etc have recommended to take very big doses of psychedelics to sort of bypass your ego. I don't have a problem with that at all but I've come across quite a few people these last couple of weeks that are struggling with the integration of those kinds of journeys.
Remember my previous post when I talk about the continuous flow of contractions followed by expansions? Well here's a perfect example when someone takes a big dose of psychedelics and feel amazing during the trip and/or afterwards but then a couple days/ weeks afterwards they feel like they are in a dark space with depression and anxiety and they don't know how to get out of this state. Continuing to take big doses won't help as it becomes a spiritual bypassing since you're not able to face your inner pain in the now
I find this desire to take really big doses mostly from men and I also found that men have a greater problem with being with their feelings. I believe that the need to take bigger doses is a way to be swept away by the plant that you're working with. Not needing to be fully present, not really because the plant is going to be so strong that it will force you to be present.
Coming back to everyday life after such a journey will most likely not have made you more present. Rather you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of heavy energies to process and transcend afterwards, so the resistance to feeling becomes even greater. The need to resist and avoid feelings will always be there until you face it. I mean really face it and that can only happen through mind full presence through your everyday life.
If you are a person that is struggling with every day tasks, of being in the world as it is, to be present with life's ordinary choices and actions then I would recommend to not blow your self to pieces and instead get back to basics. Meditation, mind fullness. Presence in the little things. Like when you're washing the dishes or walking down the street or when you are eating. To become present in the now. Practices that help you to become embodied such as yoga, tai chi or chi gong.
I often find this idea that if I take this medicine and allow it to blow me up, then my whole life will change and I will transformed. Yes that sometimes happen, but I find that it does so in response to the choices that we made in our life. When we have created routines and practices to change our life, when we've taken steps to open ourselves to love, to align ourselves to love. It's when we shown up in our everyday life that's when the medicine will have a much greater effect. When our prayers and our actions align then God meets us half-way even if we don't work with master plant medicines.
The work as I see it will never be about forcing the energy to open and to expand. Again your expansion will be followed by a contraction as great as the expansion was. When you force the energy to expand you will be forced to contract with it.
I think it's important to understand that the energy knows you better than you know yourself. We don't have to control anything. We rather should learn to surrender and let go of the need to control. The need to know. Let it be. It will come when it's ready to do so.
Rather take the time to listen and slow down. It's the subtle energies that we are working with and it requires a very heightened sensitivity. That can only be developed through being present with yourself at all times. To face yourself, your feelings and thoughts and to be there with what is. That requires continuous practice until it becomes a second nature.
It's about becoming aware of the desire for certain states of mind. It requires a presence around the things we don't want to feel, around the things we don't want to experience. Resistance creates persistence. Awareness and presence without wanting to change anything awakens your own healer inside. Awareness and presence creates space inside for the energy to expand, to rise and to heal you.
I would recommend for anyone that likes to blow themselves apart in plant medicine journeys to also practice much smaller doses and to practice building up a sensitivity to feeling the subtle energies. If you don't feel anything in smaller doses then by always having big doses won't make you more sensitive, rather the opposite you will become numb needing huge doses to feel anything at all. Then the medicine becomes a crutch and you may find that you never really feel like you're receiving actual healing but just swimming around in the same energies over and over.
It always comes back to the day to day life. The ordinary. Who you are in the ordinary states of being? How much magic can you create in your ordinary? How much can you enjoy the ordinary? The little things... like feeling the wind in your hair or the sun on your skin or the earth beneath your feet.. watching a flower grow.
How much can you feel and be in the now? Only through the practice of presence can we ever become masters of our own destiny and our own healers.
Much Love,
Kristina