Embodied Insight: The Role of Sensation in Psychedelic Preparation and Integration

A somatic approach to navigating altered states with integrity, care, and deep listening.

“Insight isn’t just something you think. It’s something your body knows.”

In recent years, psychedelic therapy has moved from the margins to the mainstream. And while there’s an ever-growing conversation around plant medicine, ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin, there’s still something quietly missing in the rush toward healing: the body.

In my work, I support clients before and after psychedelic experiences using an embodied, non-pathologizing lens rooted in over two decades of practice at the intersection of somatics, Gestalt, East/West psychology, and psychedelic integration.

What I’ve learned is this:

Without the body, insight has nowhere to land.

Preparing the Ground: Before the Journey

Many people seek out psychedelics hoping for a breakthrough. But the nervous system doesn’t respond well to being cracked open too quickly. My approach to preparation is less about “getting ready” and more about building relationship—with the body, with emotion, with boundaries, and with the parts of you that may emerge in altered states.

In our preparation sessions, we focus on:

• Cultivating a felt sense of safety and inner ground

• Establishing embodied resources to return to if things become overwhelming

• Exploring your intentions through the language of the body, not just the mind

• Practicing regulation through breath, movement, and presence

We prepare not by controlling the journey, but by learning how to listen more deeply.

Because when the body is included, the experience can be metabolized—not just endured.

Integration Is the Ceremony

Too often, the focus is on the trip itself—on visions, catharsis, ego death, or peak insight. But I believe the real medicine lies in the after. In the quiet weeks and months when the insights start to soften, stretch, and whisper.

When the question becomes:

Can I live what I saw?

This is where somatic integration becomes essential.

Together, we might:

• Track where the psychedelic experience lives in your body now

• Explore images, sensations, or unfinished movements that still linger

• Gently welcome the parts of you that were revealed

• Grieve what no longer fits

• Identify the “new rhythm” that wants to emerge in your life

It’s not about making meaning immediately.

It’s about staying in relationship with what was opened.

Integration is a slow unfolding, not a checklist.

The Body as Guide, Not Obstacle

In a culture that glorifies transcendence, the body is often treated as something to bypass. But in the somatic traditions I’ve been shaped by—at Esalen, in Gestalt awareness practice, in the dance, on the mat, and in ceremony—the body is not an obstacle to spirit. It is spirit, embodied.

And in altered states, it becomes even more important to stay close to the physical—to learn to orient, sense, breathe, and return. Psychedelic experiences can activate trauma, memory, or ancestral material. They can also bring profound clarity, love, and possibility.

It’s all data, and your body knows how to hold it if given time and trust.

A Final Note

Psychedelics aren’t magic bullets. They are doors—and like any threshold, they require presence, preparation, and integration to pass through in a good way.

If you’re considering this work or already on the path, my role is to help you move through these states with grounded support, embodied awareness, and deep respect for your inner wisdom.

Whether or not we work together directly, my wish is that you feel empowered to approach this work not just with reverence for the experience—but for your own body as the vessel that carries it forward.

If this resonates, I offer preparation and integration sessions (in person or online), and hold space for those working in expanded states—including therapists, facilitators, and seekers. Reach out if you’d like to learn more.

Embodied Insight: The Role of Sensation in Psychedelic Preparation and Integration