Psychedelic Integration 

Working with psychedelics opens the door—sometimes wide and fast—into what is often called the Mystery.

 

The experience may feel expansive, life-changing, tender, disorienting, or utterly ineffable. You may find yourself flooded with emotion, insight, or a sense of energetic rearrangement. It’s common to feel as though something has shifted—permanently—and to be unsure what to do with it.

 

You are not alone.

Psychedelic states invite a wide range of experiences: awe, grief, wonder, fear, beauty, terror, truth.

In their wake, they often leave big questions:
What was that? Was it real? What does it mean for my life now? Who am I becoming?

These are not questions meant to be answered quickly. They are meant to be lived into—with support, with curiosity, and with care.

Integration Is a Practice of Listening

Integration is the tender space between the moment of revelation and the embodied unfolding of its truth in your day-to-day life. It is the slow stitching together of what you’ve seen, felt, known, and remembered into how you live, relate, speak, and move through the world.

Without support, this process can be overwhelming. Insights can flood the system, revealing long-buried patterns or unmetabolized grief, past trauma, ancestral threads, or soul-longings that can no longer be ignored.

Sometimes we think we’re doing it wrong because it feels so intense. But more often than not, this intensity is a natural part of the integration arc. A confusing swirl of emotions—hope, grief, clarity, fear, joy, and doubt—is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that something is moving.

The Pull Toward Change

You may feel the sudden urge to change everything: leave the relationship, quit the job, move to the mountains, shave your head, adopt a new name. This desire is common in the wake of powerful insight. And yet, there is deep wisdom in allowing the dust to settle before making major life changes.

Psychedelics can accelerate our awareness, but embodiment takes time.

The post-journey window is a time of heightened neuroplasticity, openness, and vulnerability. A time of great potential—and risk. With support, this window can be a fertile ground for transformation. Without it, it can become a time of confusion, collapse, or impulsive decision-making that can compound suffering rather than relieve it.

There Is No Silver Bullet

Psychedelics are not a cure-all. Despite the memes, soundbites, and seductive promises, no medicine, molecule, or mystical experience replaces the slow, relational work of becoming.

The phrase, “It’s like 20 years of therapy in one night,” is often repeated in psychedelic circles. And while it captures the intensity of the experience, it can set up unrealistic expectations. What we often forget is: if that’s true, those 20 years of integration are still required.

Healing isn’t something we can fast-track. It’s something we commit to.

Common Pitfalls: Bypassing and Consumerism

In psychedelic communities, it’s easy to get caught in the allure of more—more journeys, more medicine, more insight. Sometimes this leads to what’s called psychedelic bypassing—using altered states to escape from reality, rather than learning how to be with it. We chase peak states, sacred visions, or ego-deaths while neglecting the work of repairing relationships, owning our patterns, tending our wounds, or showing up for the ordinary sacredness of daily life.

There’s also psychedelic consumerism—an unconscious drift toward comparing trips, counting ceremonies, or collecting experiences like spiritual trophies. It’s not wrong, it’s human. And it’s also something that can be gently named and worked with, so we can return to the deeper intention of healing and connection.

There is no shame in finding yourself in these places. Only an opportunity to turn inward, and ask—What do I really need now? What am I willing to feel, and to tend?

Psychedelic Work Is Sacred Work

Whether your journey involved cannabis, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, ketamine, ayahuasca, mescaline, or another substance—whether it was underground, clinical, ceremonial, or solo—it’s important to remember that these experiences are potent. Sacred. Risky. And deeply human.

They are not meant to be navigated alone.

The legacy of psychedelic medicine reaches back through time, carried in the songs, prayers, and protocols of Indigenous cultures. This work asks for reverence—not just for the substances, but for your own psyche, your body, your story, and your lineage. Integration is one way we practice that reverence.

When the Feelings Are Too Much

You might find yourself thinking:
“I wasn’t ready for this.”
“I can’t unknow what I saw.”
“I feel numb.”
“I don’t recognize myself.”
“I want to blow up my life.”
All of this is normal.
You are not broken. You are not crazy. You are not too much. You are in a threshold space—a liminal zone between the old and the emerging. And this is where therapeutic support can help.

My Approach to Integration Work

I offer a grounded, spacious, and non-pathologizing space for you to explore what’s arising. My approach is somatic, trauma-informed, relational, and spiritually attuned. Whether you are in the anticipatory phase before a journey, freshly back from one, or still making meaning months or years later—I meet you where you are.

In our work together, we might:

• Explore the emotional terrain revealed in your journey

• Track somatic cues and nervous system responses

• Discern the difference between insight and urgency

• Tend the grief, wonder, disorientation, or numbness

• Contextualize ancestral, spiritual, or archetypal themes

• Map what is ready to be acted on—and what wants more time

• Rebuild safety, stability, and connection after a rupture

 

There is no one-size-fits-all template for integration. The process is as unique as you are. Some experiences need storytelling, some need silence. Some ask for ritual, some for movement. Others just need time. I help you listen to your body’s pace, your spirit’s whispers, and your heart’s knowing.

Is Integration Therapy Right for You?

You might wonder—Is my experience "big enough" to need therapy?
Or—Can’t I just talk to my friends?

Yes. And also, therapy offers something different. A neutral space. A relational field. A depth of attunement and containment that friends—even wonderful ones—may not be able to offer.

I offer free consultation sessions where we can feel into whether this work, and this relationship, is the right fit. There’s no pressure. Just space to be honest.

If you are on the path of integrating a psychedelic experience, you do not have to do it alone.
If your heart feels tender, confused, inspired, or full—there is room for it here.
You are welcome just as you are.
Let’s begin.