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The world of psychedelics and plant medicines can be a challenge to navigate. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or preparing to embark on your first journey, it can be difficult to determine which medicine is right for you, how to participate in a ceremony safely, and how to apply your experiences to your daily life in order to achieve long-lasting happiness and peace of mind.
Integration coaching can take place both before and after a psychedelic experience. Pre-integration coaching can help you determine how to properly prepare for your experience to ensure that you get the most out of it. And post-integration coaching is essential for making sense of the experience, and understanding how it relates to you and your goals.
The world of psychedelics and plant medicines can be a challenge to navigate. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or preparing to embark on your first journey, it can be difficult to determine which medicine is right for you, how to participate in a ceremony safely, and how to apply your experiences to your daily life in order to achieve long-lasting happiness and peace of mind.
Integration coaching can take place both before and after a psychedelic experience. Pre-integration coaching can help you determine how to properly prepare for your experience to ensure that you get the most out of it. And post-integration coaching is essential for making sense of the experience, and understanding how it relates to you and your goals.
Pre-integration coaching starts with getting to know YOU. Who you are, how you see yourself, and what you want to gain from your upcoming psychedelic experience. We will create a customized plan centered around your chosen medicine so that you can get to the root of what you really want to achieve from your ceremony or retreat. Some of the topics we will cover include:
– Setting Your Intentions: It is so important that we go into a ceremony with clear goals for ourselves. Depending on the medicine you’re working with, there are a variety of ways to set goals and intentions. Working with one of our coaches will help you get clear on exactly what you’re looking to get out of the experience, without getting confused.
– Eliminating Expectations: Most of the time, psychedelic medicines show us unexpected things in ways that can be challenging to understand. It is important to be open to anything and everything these powerful medicines reveal. We like to say, “Set it (your intentions), and forget it (your expectations)”.
– Staying Focused: Generally, people book ceremonies and retreats weeks or even months in advance, and a lot can happen during that time. Many emotions, fears, and memories will rise to the surface before a ceremony. And we want to help you focus and integrate those feelings into your intentions so that you go into the experience as strong and prepared as possible.
– Working with The Medicine: Working with powerful plant medicines is unfamiliar to the vast majority of people. We will prepare you to work with the medicine, instead of against it. Letting go is key to getting the most out of your psychedelic experiences.
– Final Preparation: Wondering what you need to bring to a ceremony or retreat? Not to worry, we have compiled cheat sheets that will eliminate the guesswork so you can focus on what really matters.
Post-integration coaching focuses on what happened during your psychedelic experiences. What you saw, what you thought about, what you felt, and how you feel now. We will help you make sense of your experiences, extracting the knowledge that was revealed to you (including some nuggets you may have missed), and organizing the information in a way that helps you reground. Some of the topics we will cover include:
– The Download: What happened during your experience? What did you see? What did you learn? We are going to take a deep dive beneath the surface and evaluate your experience from start to finish. This will help you to connect the dots between what you experienced in the ceremony and what you hope to achieve in your day-to-day life.
– Real Integration: Having these experiences is one thing, but lifelong change comes from applying what you learned to your daily life and routines. We will help you form a simple plan that keeps you clear-headed and focused so that you don’t end up back where you started. It is crucial to integrate these experiences so you can truly and completely heal.
– Back to the Matrix: Oftentimes, it can be challenging to return to the world after a psychedelic experience. Returning to work and reintegrating with your family and friends inevitably leads to some bumps in the road. We will help you stay on track by creating a plan that allows you to reground, refocus, and remain in the driver’s seat.
All Trip Coaches are traditionally trained medicine providers in addition to being integration coaches. Unfortunately, the psychedelic coaching space is loaded with well-intentioned people who have had a few experiences, taken an online course, and now call themselves “experts”. When you work with a Trip Coach, you are not only working with an integration coach with a lot of personal experience taking psychedelics and plant medicines, you are working with a traditionally trained medicine provider that has spent time working under an indigenous shaman. This is a true rarity in the rapidly growing realm of psychedelics and plant medicines.
Have you ever seen a photo of someone straddling a state line with, for example, one foot in California and one foot in Nevada? The Trip Coach Program was designed from the unique vantage point of having both a great deal of experience taking medicine, as well as having gone through traditional indigenous training to hold ceremonies and serve medicine. When you work with a Trip Coach, you are not only working with someone who has valuable experience on both sides of the medicine, but you are working with someone that has healed and is leading a truly happy life. The Trip Coach program and its Coaches are experts at helping others effectively navigate their truth so they too can heal, lead happy lives, and achieve their goals.
While we would never instruct you to take a specific medicine, as that is a choice that must be made by you and you alone, we would be happy to speak with you about our experiences with various medicines in order to give you the information you need to make the best decision for you.
No, as most plant medicines and psychedelics are, unfortunately, still illegal in the vast majority of countries, a Trip Coach will never assist you in procuring plant medicine or psychedelics. Furthermore, and for your own safety, we would only recommend that you partake in these experiences under the guidance of a trained provider or shaman. Taking plant medicines and psychedelics on your own, particularly for the inexperienced, can be dangerous; and our work is always centered around what is best for you.
We will only recommend plant medicine centers or retreats that we know are operating legally, either under a government-issued medical license or in a country where the substance being administered is legal. Additionally, we will only recommend centers and retreats that work with trained medicine providers and indigenous shamans. The list is small, but these are among the best centers, providers, and shamans in the world.
This can be one of the most difficult parts of the space to navigate. Safety is of the utmost importance, but how do you know who to trust? First, we always recommend that you read plenty of reviews and testimonials. If a center, provider, or shaman doesn’t have a plethora of former participants raving about their services, move on. Second, we suggest you ask detailed questions about their safety protocols. Where will you be sleeping? Do you have your own room or is it shared? If it’s shared, is it gender-specific or co-ed? What safety and medical protocols do they have in place?
Additionally, a huge red flag for any center, provider, or shaman, is if they do not ask you about your medical history or if you are currently taking any medications. There are a variety of contraindications when it comes to plant medicines and psychedelics, some of which can be deadly. From neurodiversities to antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals, many things cannot be mixed with plant medicines and psychedelics. It is important that the center, provider, or shaman is aware of your current medical situation so that they can make the most informed decision regarding your participation.
Finally, we have a small list of centers, retreats, shamans, and providers that we recommend. They operate legally and are among the best at what they do in the world.
A ceremony is an important indigenous ritual where an individual receives plant medicine from a trained provider and/or shaman. There is almost always traditional music, also known as icaros, playing or being sung. And there are specific and traditional rituals and guidelines that must be followed.
A retreat usually takes place over the course of one week or more. Most of the time, it can take 2 or more ceremonies to clear you out physically, mentally/emotionally, and spiritually. Since these medicines aren’t legal in some countries, people have to travel to have these healing experiences. Generally, a retreat will consist of multiple ceremonies.
Bwiti is one of the oldest traditions on Earth. It can be traced back more than 10,000 years, originating with the Pigmies deep in the jungles of central west Africa. Bwiti and Iboga medicine go hand-in-hand. Bwiti translates to the study of life and to be Bwiti is to be a student of life.
A provider is someone who has trained under a shaman to serve medicine and has the blessing to do so. A provider is not a shaman.