I spent the last year learning about psychedelic-assisted therapy. Part of receiving my certification was having my own psychedelic-assisted therapy session, specifically ketamine-assisted therapy. I have decided to share my thoughts in the days following my ketamine journey…I hope you enjoy it!
What a beautiful experience. Sharing love and connection with a group of like-minded individuals that built a community in a matter of hours, holding space for healing and receiving the thing each of us needed most, and taking in the present moment, fully soaking up learning, giving, and receiving knowledge, inner wisdom, and healing.
I was looking forward to this weekend since I signed up for the class last November. I patiently waited for my turn and absorbed the lessons and lectures and time spent sharing and listening to other classmates, but the KAP weekend would be the apex of the entire course. I would finally experience ketamine.
I had been so focused on experiencing ketamine myself, I think I lost the whole point of the weekend of the psychedelic experience: connection.
Connection is so healing. Being part of a community, a healing community, that is also part of the medicine. It’s not just the ketamine.
Somewhere during the coursework, I had forgotten the importance of connection. I’ve known in my practice how important connection is in the way I connect with each of my clients so they feel seen and heard and not alone. Over the weekend, I got to experience that for myself in a professional setting. Although the word “professional” doesn’t feel quite right given the bonds I formed with both students and teachers. It gave me a space to feel held, to stop doing all the work myself, and let others take care of me, which is something I’m not so good at.
Shocking, I know.
I didn’t realize before this weekend how so alone I’ve felt professionally with my journey of psychedelic healing. How badly I wanted a community of my own to be held in and supported by and get excited with the new frontier of psychedelic-assisted therapy. The journey also showed me that I deserve to be proud of myself and to feel good about my own healing. Life has gone by so quickly I don’t think I’ve fully taken the time to be grateful of all the work I put into myself and to bask in that healing. To just allow myself to slow down and feel good.
Every person experienced something different on their own inner healing journey, but one thing I know we all had in common was the sense of community and we were all healed by that as well. The medicine gives you exactly what you need, and by medicine, I mean both the ketamine and the community.
There is still so much stigma around ketamine and psychedelics. It’s been drilled into our heads for so long that these medicines are drugs and they’re bad for you and will fry your brain. That is so not the case. I will say set and setting truly do matter. Intention matters. It’s not a magical fix all by any means, but it can provide you with what you need if you let it, and sometimes what we need isn’t necessarily pleasant. Sometimes we need a wake-up call or to face our fears or bring us down a notch. And, as I learned, sometimes we need to just relax. Every experience is different. We are all different humans so, of course, the journeys won’t all be the same. I think that’s what is so great about these medicines: they mold to what you need.
I also understand that just because my medicine session is over doesn’t mean my journey is over. My journey will never be over. I will always strive to better myself, to better understand myself, and to treat myself better. That requires making changes, especially as life changes. Life will inevitably change and I’ll learn to change with it.
I felt a sense of sweet sadness on the last day of our KAP weekend retreat. I’m still trying to find words for how grateful I am for the love and connection I felt all weekend. I’ve always been an emotional mess when it comes to goodbyes. I woke up that morning with sad yet grateful tears…then continued crying throughout the remainder of the day. Hah. It felt good to feel comfortable crying in front of others. That’s not exactly something I’ve allowed myself. When I allowed the tears to fall I was met with love and compassion and acceptance. Which of course made me want to cry more. Until I didn’t. It was what I needed. I didn’t need to hold back those tears and be “strong”. I needed to release those tears because the weekend was so beautiful. After I released those tears, I felt so full and whole.
Something I’ve been coming to terms with is that I’m “emotionally sensitive” and that’s ok. I am loving all parts of myself.