Eating Disorder Recovery and Microdosing - What To Expect

As more people are becoming curious about psychedelics and their ability to support people move through depression, anxiety, addiction, and eating disorders, the practice of microdosing is also receiving increased interest.

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Microdosing is the practice of consuming a small amount of plant medicine, like psilocybin (magic mushrooms), on a regular or weekly basis.

The hallucinogenic effects are small, meaning that the soup on the stove won’t change to a purple colour, but it may seem more nourishing, alive, and vibrant (and possibly easier to eat).

When you microdose, the world feels more intimate.

Your place in the world feels more connected as you experience a dropping away of the false illusions, and a deepening into the interconnectedness of things (including how each ingredient in your soup is part of a complex and beautiful web that you are also part of).

Microdosing can sensitize you towards your own body and your inner emotions. The veil starts to feel thinner allowing whatever has been suppressed or numbed out to come to the surface to be acknowledged.

With this increased intimacy and sensitivity, things can feel confronting for the psyche. One of an eating disorder’s main strategies is to put up walls and defensive armour to keep the tender, fragile, painful emotions at bay.

Through restriction, excessive exercise, or obsessive planning, one stays focused on the external, in the future, or on outside expectations, in order to stay away from what is brewing inside. Avoiding emotions is one of the eating disorder’s main tasks.

Microdosing may take you to an edge whereby you start to feel and connect to those previously hidden emotions.

As such, microdosing can be challenging!

This is because sacred plant medicine or psychedelics shine light on repressed sensations, feelings and memories - the things we don’t want to look at - so that we can acknowledge them, and move through them, and ultimately heal.

If you are microdosing or are thinking about starting to microdose for your eating disorder recovery, and to free up your relationship with food and your body, there many be moments of discomfort as you start to venture into the places you have been working so hard to turn away from.

Whilst each person will have their own microdosing journey, you may notice four shifts come up: feeling hungry, feeling tired, feeling feels, and feeling lost. These are beautiful to work with, especially if you are in recovery. Here’s why…

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Feeling Hungry

If you are microdosing for your eating disorder recovery, one of the things that you may encounter is a feeling of being hungry.

This is because plant medicines illuminate the places that we have ignored, hid from, or suppressed. When there has been a history of eating disorders, there has been history of restriction in some way or another (for more on restriction, read this).

Ignoring hunger and the subtle cues of hunger are a large part of an eating disorder - and if we have practiced not responding to our hunger (and only responding when there’s obvious tummy growling or when we feel faint), the more subtle cues of hunger are missed, and we simply get used to feeling hungry. all. the. time. without realizing it.

As such, if you start microdosing there may be feelings of increased appetite. This is the medicine illuminating the restriction, the malnourishment, the undereating, and the lack of fuel in the body (as well as heart and mind).

It's important to listen to these cues, to trust these feelings of hunger, and to respond to your body's needs. This is an opportunity. The feeling of hunger is being amplified for you to listen and is a chance for you to do things differently, and to see how it feels and what happens.

It is a chance to choose differently for your recovery; for you to take care of your body and transform your relationship with food.

With the cognitive flexibility that plant medicine offers, you can use these windows of opportunity when microdosing to respond from an aligned and courageous place in relationship to food and your body. This is how you create new pathways that support your recovery.

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Feeling Tired

Another thing you may notice when you start microdosing is just how tired you feel. A large part of what recovery is about is learning how to slow down, to yield, and to pause.

So much of the eating disorder wants to just keep pushing, going, doing, and excessively exercising - with often not enough nutritional support. The energy of the eating disorder is to steamroll through and to not stop.

The body is running fast, running on empty, and running from the painful past. When things slow down, all the emotions and memories that have avoided come up. The eating disorder is like protective strategy is to ensure you just keeps going.

When you start working with plant medicine, they may ask you to slow down so that you can feel what has been hidden away allowing for healing to occur. We have to feel to heal, and feeling comes by slowing down.

When you're microdosing and there's a sense of feeling really tired, it's another opportunity for you to do things differently: to slow down and to allow the body to rest, as a way to support whatever wants to come up to be felt.

It doesn’t mean coming to a complete halt but to make small shifts towards taking a few conscious breaths, pausing between tasks, taking a moment to look around your environment, or feel the energy in your body. Pausing.

When you slow down in a sustained and supported way (ie. not collapsing but rather resting), there is a chance for the nervous system to recalibrate so that you start to come back into balance, build up capacity to feel, acknowledge, accept, and ultimately move through the pain that has been suppressed through the eating disorder.

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Feeling Feels

For people choosing to navigate eating disorder recovery, there is also a deep refamiliarization and re-navigation of one’s emotional landscape. In the beginning of recovery, it can be challenging to feel the feels or name the emotion that is bubbling to the surface. Sometimes it can just feel like numbness - like a vast plain of nothingness.

Not being able to sense or articulate an emotion could be a protective strategy. In the past, you may have learnt that if you expressed your emotions, they wouldn’t be received in the ways you needed. And so, you learnt to hold them in and block them off - because it’s easier to do that than to feel the rejection of not being received.

Sacred plant medicine, including microdosing, amplify our emotional state, intensifying our current inner world. The emotions that were repressed or avoided come up to the surface through the support of psychedelics and give us a chance to feel, acknowledge, and accept the emotions.

For people with eating disorders, this can be a challenging but deeply transformative experience. When we turn to the emotions rather than hiding from them, we rely less on the disordered food and body strategies. This is because these strategies played the role of managing the emotions through restriction, excessive exercising, purging or eating past discomfort.

When we build capacity to be with our feelings, we don’t need the eating disorder. This why psychedelics can support people in eating disorder recovery, specifically through consciously connecting with and moving in and through the emotional landscape.

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Feeling Lost

It is possible that when you start microdosing, you may notice at times a feeling of being a little lost, or a bit aimless. This is a really interesting insight to work with.

The eating disorder likes to control things, has a rigid way of navigating through life, and feels protected when it knows each step. When the microdosing comes in, you can be opened up to a more flexible way of being - and that can feel scary. It can bring up anxiety when there isn’t a roadmap or a plan.

This is an opportunity to experiment with the spontaneity, the ever-changing moments of life, to trust the unknown, and to ground into anchors that feel resonate and valuable for you and you only - not based on what someone or some program told you is important.

Sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find ourselves.

The medicine is shining light on the illusion of control that the eating disorder attempts to give us, and instead asks us to open up to reality of impermanence, to trust the unknown next step, to develop capacity in the face of change, and move from rigidity to flexibility not only with food but in our lives.

“When we truly surrender and truly trust the unknown, we run into something big… We come to understand it’s coming from within.” - Joe Dispenza

Psychedelics and microdosing increase cognitive flexibility, meaning they support people in eating disorder recovery to more easily change their thoughts around food, allow for emotions to come through, and for the body itself to release tension.

With the support of psychedelics, there is an ability to go to the root of why the eating disorder developed, process painful memories and challenging feelings, reduce pervasive food and body thoughts, and improve self-love and self-acceptance.

There is an increased sense of self-trust that develops through this process. This self-trust leads to an inner grounding or anchoring - a feeling of, “I deserve to be here, I belong, and I am worthy to live my life.”

This self-trust leads to a greater ability to face and move through challenging feelings from a more grounded, centered place without needing to numb, relieve or suppress through food or body manipulation.

There is more flexible, grounded, and compassionate approach to life and towards oneself, even in life’s ups and downs.

Through this process, the nervous system is able to move beyond the old imprints of the stress survival responses, and into a blueprint that is aligned with the present moment. This is the process of embodiment - and recovery is all about deepening into one’s own embodiment.

Learning to hear and respond to hunger, listening to when rest is needed, allowing emotions to be acknowledged, and anchoring into deep trust are the gifts that the medicine can give us as support in realizing our full self, beyond the eating disorder.

For more articles on microdosing:

Can Microdosing Support Eating Disorder Recovery? — Francesca Eats Roses

Microdosing for Eating Disorders

Photo by Taylor Deas-Melesh on Unsplash

What Plant Medicine Reminds Us in Eating Disorder Recovery

Psychedelics ask us, How much more powerful could we be if we spent more time creating the shape of our lives, instead of creating the shape of our bodies?

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How much more powerful could we be if we spent time molding our dreams and visions into reality rather than sculpting our legs and arms into a constructed idealistic shape?

How much more time would we have to focus on what truly brings us joy, meaning, passion, purpose, and value? This is the shift in perspectives, values, and priorities that plant medicines bring.

How powerful are we if we have to shapeshift in order to be “worthy”?

How powerful can we be if we deny our hunger and suppress our appetites?

How powerful can we be if we are taught to question our voice, value, and worth, and disregard our intuition in favour of someone else’s opinion?

The path of healing from an eating disorder is uncovering, recovering, and discovering the power within. The power moves from being determined by external factors and takes root in the unwavering place deep within that k n o w s.

Through this quest of recovery, we question the validity of our judgements, beliefs and opinions about ourselves and others until we come to an unshakable understanding of our inherent worth and dignified belonging.

When we stand from this place, we create our lives in shapes, rhythms, and textures that are meaningful, purposeful, whole, and connected.

The power radiates from within.

This is one the teachings of sacred plant medicine: to move from the fragile, external focus to an internal focus.

Microdosing or journeying with a larger dose of psychedelics often point to this teaching: shift the need of relying on outside validation to feel powerful, loveable or accepted, and instead ground within the innate worthiness of simply being human.

Realizing that the power is in our hands, that the medicine is us and is already here, a great awakening occurs.

Inner strength often takes form in ways we don’t often recognize

From there, we remember that our power lies not in someone else’s hands but in our own, and yet, who we are today is inextricably interconnected to a larger whole. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and those who came before us, who left us gifts and challenges to work with. The power is in our hands.

Our bodies are bodies of the Earth, containing the same elements found in nature.

When we journey with sacred plant medicines or psychedelics, they help us break the spilt between ourselves as humans and the Earth, and as such, we open ourselves to pathways of healing and other voices who can support our growth and healing.

This means the body isn’t ours alone – we are made of microorganisms, water, air, codes and memories from our ancestors – and this frees us up to design a recovery roadmap that includes many realms, beings, and elements that inspire and speak to us in deep, meaningful and resonate ways.

When we remember that our bodies are made up of our ancestors and the Earth, we are reminded of a larger web of support that surrounds us, that we can lean into, and that we can start to trust once again.

We are so much more powerful and can go so much further together. When we expand in this way, it’s no longer just each one of us in our own bubble, and this opens us up to other ways to receive healing – none more better than the other.

psychedelics remind us that…

When I take care of my body, I am taking care of the Earth.

When I take care of the Earth, I am taking care of my body.

By receiving the goodness from the Earth, we celebrate each other’s existence.

This sense of direct connection of intertwinement means that we are never alone, and that our healing and transformation is interconnected and interdependent with the whole.

That means that your recovery is important and has a positive and powerful impact (sometimes in ways that we could never imagine or comprehend), and that there is a great network of various forms of support that can be tapped into and explored.

Photo by Brianna R. on Unsplash

Can Microdosing Support Eating Disorder Recovery?

As more research studies are coming out to support how microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms can improve mental health and mood, how it can be of benefit for those navigating eating disorders and disordered eating?

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Since many people who experience eating disorders also experience depression, anxiety, stress, mood swings, social anxiety, and other addiction, it certainly seems compelling that microdosing could support eating disorder and disordered eating recovery in positive ways.

Microdosing is the act of repeated self-administration of mushrooms containing psilocybin at doses small enough to not impact regular functioning. Microdose practices are diverse and sometimes include combining psilocybin with substances such as cacao, lion’s mane mushrooms, and/or niacin (vitamin-B3).

A recent study supported by Paul Stamets and others, and published in Nature Journal, summarizes that "psilocybin microdosers demonstrate greater observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month relative to non-microdosing controls".

Considering the big health costs and ubiquity of eating disorders, anxiety, and depression, as well as the sizable proportion of people who do not respond to current treatment options, the potential for another approach to addressing eating disorders deserves substantial consideration.

As of yet, there is no agreed upon treatment for eating disorders. Individuals often know on a cognitive level that their food and body behaviours are limiting them in some way nor supporting their well-being long-term, however there may be resistance, fear, apathy, or lack of motivation to change the behaviours. Additionally, individuals are confronted by food on a daily basis, and so it’s not as easy to adopt the “out of sight out of mind” mentality.

On a collective level, there is also the added pressure of diet culture, the culture we live in right now that is fueled by body comparison, food moralisation and demonization, weight stigmatisation, competition, and discrimination. On a global scale, we are swimming in this energetic soup which and has become the way we have been conditioned to relate to food and our bodies. It can be hard to catch a break when one is navigating an eating disorder.

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Microdosing may provide an opportunity for us to get out of that collective soup, question the validity of our inner thoughts, and find inspiration and empowerment to continue walking the road of recovery.

Microdosing, when combined with other healing modalities such as somatic coaching, talk therapy, dream analysis, embodiment practices, and nervous system regulation skill development, can offer a break from the eating disorder.

By working with adjunct therapies that aim to unify body and mind, microdosing has the potential to create spaciousness around the incessant food and body thoughts, allowing for new narratives to be formed.

Through this work, the veils start to life. We may notice that we exist only in our heads and are disconnected from our bodies, or that we don’t know when we are hungry or full, or what food we intuitively want to eat or enjoy eating. With support from microdosing these observations, insights, and questions start bubbling up, leading to increased awareness and choice. As so begins the process of recovery and reconnection.

Plant medicines are here in a big way at this time because we are collectively moving through a huge time of transition. We are walking through a portal that is asking us to shed the old ways of separation and disconnection and to step into new ways of connection and wholeness.

Sacred plant medicine and our own higher consciousness help us remember. They illuminate the fragmented parts within us so they can be integrated back to wholeness. Many people who experience plant medicine share how connected they felt to their bodies, their breath, loved ones, animals, trees, bodies of water, soil, mountains, the Earth.

This is the medicine of connection. And it is the medicine we are needing at this time.

Psychedelics keep us on our path of healing and transformation, encouraging and inspiring us to face our fears and allow others to see us in our process, as we are. They remind us that we are all going through the portal right now and that by abundantly being there for one other is the way forward.

As we leave the cobwebs of diet culture’s competition and comparison behind, ask yourself: What does a world without diet culture look like? This is the future that plant medicine asks us to dream into being.

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The potential of microdosing for eating disorder recovery feels exciting and promising. Depending on what future studies discover, we may find ourselves understanding eating disorder recovery and creating recovery roadmaps in different ways.

Whilst these studies and approaches to microdosing research are still new, the continued progressive movement in the field has the potential to indicate how the relationship between microdosing, eating disorders, and mental health – which impacts millions around the world – can be recontextualized and transformed within the current collective understanding.

Eating disorder recovery with the support of psychedelics (and somatic awareness), presents an opportunity to reconnect with what resonates with the heart and aligns with the soul’s deep calling. It gives us the chance to remember why we are here at this time, and why we inherently deserve to be here.

How do you think microdosing can support eating disorder recovery?

New growth can be supported by microdosing in eating disorder recovery

Photo by Justin Dream on Unsplash

Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine for Eating Disorder Recovery with the Help of Psychedelics

In eating disorder recovery, reclaiming the divine feminine within is a personal initiation and the retrieval of one’s intuition.

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For many people navigating eating disorders, disordered eating, or dieting, there often has been a rejection of the sacred feminine. Many of us, whether we are female, male or non-binary, have not gone through this process of learning how to connect with and live from the seat of our intuition - and psychedelics can help us reclaim this inner power.

When I was in my own eating disorder, I feared this energy, because she associated with power, vulnerability, and existing in the liminal of the unknown.

I was afraid of taking responsibility in my life (no longer a child), where I would be required to take up space and speak my truth. I didn’t believe I was worthy to stand in the center of my circle and claim my right to be here.

The thought of coming into my own power and my authentic embodiment felt like a threat - I feared if I came into myself, I would shift collective dynamics and societal structures - and I was threatened by the possibility of being rejected by the collective.

For many, there may be a sense of feeling powerless in a patriarchal system (of which diet culture is built upon), which leads to the embodiment of submission, resulting in a fading into the the background, letting others take the lead, and a desire to not be seen.

This may cause a felt sense of helplessness, or feeling helpless, which in order to compensate leads some to become overly independent - a desire to do it all alone. As such, helplessness can manifest as being hyper-independent, which in a way, is getting stuck in the unhealthy masculine, which is symbolized as doing things alone and in a rigid, cold way.

The Sacred Feminine is lost when we stop listening within. She is lost when we try to be good and perfect for the outside world. She is lost when we fear the world coming in too closely, or when we are unable to hold our own boundaries. When we cannot safely find our way to the Sacred Feminine with the support of elders, and community, we find ways to shut her off.

The armour of the eating disorder is a way to try feel safe in a world that doesn’t support the power of the Feminine.

The root of my eating disorder was a disconnection from the body of the Earth and her cycles, as well as my own. Recovery includes remembering and reclaiming nature’s cycles, and our inner cycles - and that they are not something to fear but rather can be harnessed for healing and creation.

At her core, the Feminine energy is about cycles and is connected to nature.

For women, coming to accept our menstrual cycle is part of reclaiming the Feminine. The female cycle of the bleed is an intimate reminder of the Moon cycles, as well as the Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring seasons in nature and within our own bodies.

Cycles teach us about life, death, and rebirth, impermanence, letting go, surrendering, and releasing.

Embracing the Feminine means embarking into the void space. She is comfortable with the unknown - and she flows in it graciously and strong. This, of course, is opposite to eating disorders which want to keep everything organized, structured, and under the illusion of certainty. Yet, the Feminine is cultivated when we start the process of rebuilding the ground within, and move from a linear to a cyclical orientation.

As such, she knows that all cycles are liminal in essence; transition are ever-present, and nothing is ever solid. The liminal, in-between space is where anything is possible.

It is the space of possibilities, new growth, birth, manifestation, regeneration, change, transformation, and creation. In these spaces, she turns inwards rather than penetrating the outside world for answers, and listens inside.

Stepping into the embodiment of the Feminine, is a pathway out of an eating disorder, because it's a process that requires inner seeing, hearing, and knowing - rather than looking outside for answers. This cultivation of intuition is our sixth sense that first disappears when we starve, binge, purge, or get wrapped up in diet culture.

Intuition is a sensitive and subtle sense that can easily get numbed out by the dense energy of the eating disorder. And it's a skill that we all have, can redevelop, and can all learn to trust by tuning into our senses (our five senses), and our interoception (feeling into the body).

Our body is our greatest portal into the Divine Feminine.

This is why an embodied approach to eating disorder recovery, where we work on developing the body as a resource for healing is such a powerful approach. When we connect with the body, intuition and hidden gifts emerge.

Recovery asks us to slow down in order for the sensitivity to build by paying attention to the world around us and the world within. The sensitivity can then be transmuted into one’s power, and used as a way to attune and discern the world around us.

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Indeed, psychedelic medicine, like psilocybin, Ayahuasca, Iboga, MDMA, or ketamine, support us in unveiling the truth of all the external constructs we have to believe, and the walls that we have built up in within ourselves.

Psychedelics and plant medicine help us bring us back to the truth of our power, and reconnect us with the body, with feeling, and ultimately with this deep, dark inner knowing, which is our intuition.

When we enter a plant medicine experience, whether it’s a macro or microdosing journey, we move from the known to the unknown. Our brains under psychedelics become “entropic”, meaning new connections are made, and we are able to think more flexibly and perceive in alternative ways. We see and feel things anew. Working with plant medicine takes us into the deep recesses of our mind, body, and heart, to reclaim the forgotten or repressed parts, in order to integrate, expand, and create something aligned and new. We can only do this by entering the void space.

Indeed, eating disorder recovery is about going into those void places, reclaiming the ignored parts, holding ourselves with nurturance and care, and ultimately coming back to our true self.

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When we step into the portal of reclaiming the sacred feminine, we are asked to let go of the dependent child role, as well as releasing the once-necessary structure and guidance from our caregivers, especially the Mother figure, seeing that she is no longer the central guide for our future and for our instinctual life. It’s like learning how to hunt and fly on our own (but not alone).

Parent-child dynamics start to shift and change to allow a new woman to be birthed, where she's able to take more risks for her own life, and to become clear on her own values, not the standards fed to her by previous generations.

The more we step more into who we truly are by releasing old or generational imprints, the more we are asked to examine the shadow aspects of ourselves. We have to let the pressure build between the false self and the real self, in order to find home within.

In seeing and accepting the shadow - warts and all - we learn to accept the full spectrum of life, which is of course is the opposite of diet culture, which wants us to accept only one way of being and looking in the world.

We need to incorporate otherness to heal. We need flexibility to heal. We empathy to access safety and no longer move from a place of shame. We need self-acceptance for recovery.

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Stepping into the sacred feminine means integrating some kind of otherness, wildness, or earthiness that is not always accepted by society.

People may raise their eyebrows and react. Thus, to stand in recovery is an act of rebellion. It takes a revolutionary stance to go against what society tells us.

When we incorporate the full spectrum of human expression - through acceptance and flexibility, healing takes place. And when we can turn that same gaze of compassion onto ourselves, we recognize the great power within, trust develops, there is space for listening, and our intuitive gifts emerge.

Photo by Poppie Pack on Unsplash

Plant Medicine: Psychological Flexibility For Eating Disorder Recovery

People with eating disorders often have a fixed way of thinking - and psychedelics seem to help break the pattern of thinking that repeats, ruminates, and rigidly obsesses on food or the body.

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During a plant medicine journey, if fully surrendered to and not resisted, psychedelics can soften the day-to-day control and avoidance strategies of the eating disorder.

People with eating disorders get stuck in mental loops, replaying the same mental content, often with a highly negative and self-critical tone. This perpetuates worry, rumination, anxiety, and obsession over food and one’s body. These thought patterns also influence the nervous system that gets the message that there is danger, switching on heightened arousal states and stress responses.

The more stressed and in danger we are in (whether it’s real or perceived), the narrower and more rigid our focus. Eating disorder recovery is about opening up the focus and seeing the whole forest rather than fixating on the single tree. It is like we are loosening the rigid scar tissue of our psyches.

Psychedelics can massage the defenses of the the eating disorder. The usual mental loops are interrupted and when not resisted or controlled, the eating disorder and what lies underneath it are faced, felt, and processed during a plant medicine journey.

Neuroimaging research shows that psychedelics alter the activity in the default mode network, which are the brain regions that appear to be most centrally related to the sense of self, worry, and rumination.

When in an altered state, this part of the brain is reduced, meaning the ongoing mental chatter and eating disorder voice becomes less dominant for a time, leaving the person more present, and open to new possibilities.

People who experienced a psychedelic experience, describe experiencing mental freedom and clarity. They were released from mental traps, and thoughts were more free to flow and were less ruminative and repetitive. Life becomes flexible, spontaneous and full of possibilities.

Like a psychedelic journey, when we choose eating disorder recovery, we never know exactly where our path will take us.

Eating disorder recovery is a completely creative process, unique to each individual. There is no correct way to heal. There is no one way to heal. And if we can open up to the possibilities of change and healing within, we will be taken on a journey we could have never planned for or anticipated.

We have leave the shores of the known, and dive into the depths of the unknown in order to recover. We have to let go the habitual behaviours and automatic thoughts, and choose something different and new.

And it can be scary to let go of what once gave us a sense of protection, identify, and focus. But if we desire change, this is the path.

Birthing is never easy or without pain, be it a universe, a child, or a fresh start in life. Contraction precedes expansion. Darkness comes before dawn. Joy follows pain. This is the way of things. ~ John Mark Green ~

When we think about a tight muscle becoming loose, there is ultimately greater movement, flexibility, and ease. Our psyches are the same, and we can practice our flexibility through engaging in art, meditation, connecting with others, dancing, processing emotions, being in nature, and rekindling connection with something greater than ourselves.  

Psychedelics offer a burst of flexibility, however it is up to the therapeutic support thereafter to help ground and establish lasting new mental and behavioural habits. Integration is the practice of keeping up with flexibility.

It is powerful to experience an embodied felt sense of being totally free from an eating disorder, to be in the present moment, and engaged with life in a connected, intimate way.

Like plant medicine, disordered eating recovery asks us to be open to change, to wipe the slate clean and try something else.

Like plant medicine, eating disorder recovery asks us to find the ground and foundation within ourselves, despite the groundlessness of impermanence that is all around us.

Like plant medicine, disordered eating recovery reminds us it is ok to not know; but it is how we hold ourselves through these unknown spaces that matter.

Like plant medicine, eating disorder recovery asks how we can trust in our essence, our core self.

Over time, with less focusa and energy on the eating disorder, there is space to dream, to create, to envision, to redirect, to make decisions from an aligned and wide perspective. This is flexible living.

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What is the Best Psychedelic for Eating Disorder Recovery?

Is there a recommended plant medicine or psychedelic for eating disorder recovery?

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Psychedelics and plant medicines are “non-specific amplifiers”, meaning that whatever is at the forefront of our mind, or whatever is holding the strongest emotional charge at that moment, often comes up to the surface during a psychedelic experience.

Whatever arises may be in our conscious awareness, or maybe it is deep within our subconscious but impacts our actions, reaction, and decisions without us even realizing it (this is how trauma works).

Additionally, psychedelics and plant medicine are able to also work in a transdiagnostic way.

This means that they can attend to and shine light on eating disorder behaviours, addiction, OCD tendencies, ruminating thought patterns, depression, anxiety, any kind of maladaptive control pattern, or chronic illnesses because they go to the root of where these behaviours and adaptations developed, rather than putting a band aid over the symptoms. This root can go back before we were even born, shining light on generational patterns and traumas.

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With this overview, it seems then that any psychedelic could be supportive to catalyze an individual on their recovery path. However, the main question is, which medicine do you feel most drawn towards?

Why do you feel drawn to this plant? What is fueling the desire to journey with the specific medicine?

Which sacred plant medicine do you feel in resonance with?

Where is your curiosity leading you?

Where is your inner compass pointing you towards?

How can you make space within yourself to drop from your head and into your body, and hear what is the most aligned path for your highest healing?

This process asks us to look within and trust ourselves that what we are drawn to is right for us. Of course, we can receive input and guidance from others, but ultimately this is a process of trusting the core self, the voice within, and that sometimes strange yet magical intuitive pull.

It is trusting in the unknown. It is trusting the body’s wisdom. Being in this process is representative of what eating disorder recovery is about as a whole!

Each medicine has their own “personality” and their own ways of working with individuals, allowing different parts within the psyche to be opened and worked with. Some people are attracted to a certain medicine because the plant medicine’s energy is speaking to the energetic signature of that person.

No medicine is better than the other. They are just different. And each and every journey will be different, even if you sit with the same medicine multiple times.

Sometimes we need a certain medicine for a certain moment or period in our lives to move through a particular chapter, and then we feel pulled to another kind of psychedelic (or pulled to no medicine at all).

what plant medicine can best support eating disorder recovery?

For those who are in early phases of recovery, working with a medicine that doesn't a require specific diet/dieta is important to consider. If you know (aka deeply know) that you are in a fragile place in your recovery, it can be triggering to restrict your diet for a plant medicine ceremony/journey. Please be mindful and honest with where you are, what you have capacity for, and what your intentions are for working with plant medicine. Sometimes it’s better to place the importance on maintaining stability with food and your well-being/mental health than on a pre-ceremony diet.

This means that perhaps exploring altered healing states with psilocybin (magic mushrooms) or MDMA, rather than Ayahuasca or Iboga. Again, this is very much according to the individual.

Mushrooms and MDMA can support us in feeling the interconnectedness with life, play, and openness. These two medicines do not require a strict diet.

Ayahuasca can aid in helping us release traumas and clear any old physical, emotional, mental, and energetic space.

Iboga can catalyze a break in the habitual and addictive eating disorder patterns.

There are many psychedelics and plant medicines that can support disordered eating recovery. it depends on where you are in your healing journey, your physical health condition, and what medicine you feel called to at this time.

It is also important to consider dose, who will support you (ie. guide/shaman/facilitator/friend), and the space you will be journeying in.

These factors impact the relationship you will have with the medicine itself in the actual psychedelic experience.

For non-psychoactive medicines, cacao medicine is gentle and soft, and can help people open the heart and feel more enlivened. Hapé (rapé), a snuff made out of sacred tobacco and tree ash, helps with grounding and lengthening the body, supporting individuals to stand their power and take up space in dignified ways. These two medicines represent sacred feminine and masculine plants and when combined can help unify and balance the yin and yang within, bringing a sense of wholeness and integration to the system which is so important in eating disorder recovery. Including medicinal mushrooms, like lions mane, reishi, and chaga with cacao or a microdose of psilocybin may also be supportive for the physical, mental, and emotional body in eating disorder recovery.

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Trust that the whatever medicine you feel drawn towards, granted you have done the necessary research, clarified intentions, and are prioritizing your physical, mental, and emotional safety, you will receive what you are needing in the moment to uncover, discover, and recover yourself.

Psychedelics do not cure or act like a magic pill.

They enhance our vision and awareness on the places that we cannot see ourselves. They highlight aspects of ourselves we have forgotten or repressed, and give us a chance to see things in a new way. Plant medicine take us to the root of where the eating disorder stemmed form and with this new knowing we can start to direct our lives differently.

As such when the journey ends, the ceremony of life begins, and as part of the integration process, we can meet ourselves each day armed with new insights and deeper presence.

When combined with other healing modalities like talk therapy, somatic therapy, dance and art therapy, as well as when supported by another, like a coach, therapist, counsellor, or mentor on a long-term and regular basis, the old thought patterns and internalised beliefs can be chipped away and worked through, creating fresh opportunities and greater space for a more inspired and aligned blueprint to be imprinted into the psyche.

Psychedelics help us to learn about ourselves through an embodied understanding: this experiential understanding gets into our cells and nervous system. The whole body, including the mind, are unlearning and learning new ways of being. With the support of plant medicines, individuals can believe and feel on a full body and cellular level that they love themselves - perhaps for the first time. This can be forgotten over time, but it can always be remembered because it's in the cellular memory.

Each medicine in their own way, can also remind us of us the bigger web that that we are connected to; we are part of this unified existence and that we all have a part and role to play. And we all deserve to be here. This is so important for people with eating disorder who often feel separate from the world and society, like they don’t belong, or deserve to be here. Plant medicine remind us that there is support and holding all around us and that we are worthy to receive the goodness and love that is already here.

Unlike what diet culture wants us to believe, the answers are inside of us.

Psychedelics are not an external cure, they catalyze us to look inwards; healing is internal journey. Psychedelics can show us the way, but they won’t do the healing for us.

The medicine that we seek are within. We are our own guides for our own healing and transformation.

Creating Safe Containers for Psychedelic Journeys

Holding space for psychedelic journeys is about establishing and maintaining a certain energetic frequency for a container that is imbued with safety, transparency, clear boundaries, and woven with trust and rapport.

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The intention for any container - whether there is plant medicine or not - is to do no harm. This is inherently conducive for vulnerability to peek through the armour of the eating disorder, and for healing to occur.

In order for people to be able to access themselves, they need to feel safe.

Where there is space for vulnerability, there is space for healing. If on the other hand, we are concerned for our safety, our nervous system is then on high alert, anticipating threats, even if it's subconsciously. This results in a contraction, tightness and rigidity. And deep, enduring healing happens when there's flexibility, a loosening up the scar tissue, an opening up, and when there’s a supportive presence who can assist in the massaging of the psyche’s defenses. Indeed, holding space means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for somebody.

When there is presence and holding, there is immense healing that can happen.

The word container means to “hold” or “to enclose”, implying that there is a certain kind of holding that happens in these spaces. A container can be a medicine journey space, a coaching session, a relationship between friends, in a marriage, and within your own body. They are formed through our words (“be impeccable with your word”), and structured and informed by our nervous system, how we hold ourselves, and how we move through the world.

Containers are also also formed and impacted by our feelings and our mental chatter, as well as by the relational dynamics of those who are also in the same container as us, our past history, and our preparation process over the previous days, weeks or months.

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We consciously create safe containers for our nervous system to experience something different. Many of us who seek healing, and those who seek healing with the support of psychedelics and sacred plant medicine, are often looking to clear trauma from the roots up.

Trauma is not just an event that took place in the past, but it is an imprint left by that experience on the mind, body, and brain, which then impacts how we live and survive in the daily life. It is through these safe containers, with the empathic supporters, guides, or listeners, the body can start to learn that the danger or the trauma has now passed, so that one is able to live in the present.

When there is trauma, and as it is with eating disorders (which can be seen as as responses to trauma), the psyche is stuck in the past, rigid, with no place to go. And when we choose to open up to healing, there's an increased flexibility, where we can move from the past into the present. There's a literal energetic movement that occurs. With this new mobility, we can start to envision a future with a mind that is more flexible, stretching itself towards greater possibility and capacity. There's a feeling a renewed purpose, and compassion: when we see how the past has impacted our lives from the lens of compassion, there is a wider perspective that can be taken. There's more flexibility in what and how we see things, and how even the challenging times served a very important role in our growth.

A container is demarcated moment in time where we consciously create a space that allows us to dream, and that allows us to envision that future that is free, whole, and aligned with our core self. It is also a moment in time and space to try something different, to rewrite old pathways into ways that are clearer and clarified.

In a container, we have an opportunity to model to ourselves, and to others who are in the space with us, who we wish to be - not an attempt to be perfect, or in an attempt to prove anything to anyone, but simply to practice the version of ourselves without the layers, the veils, and the masks. As such, we can all lead by example in these containers, collectively creating a reality that is free from those layers of hiding.

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The more there are containers and spaces that are safe and supported, the more we can practice this version of ourselves that is whole, free and enough. With practice, we can start to radiate this more aligned embodiment in the outside world beyond the parameters of a container.

A true container will always point you back to yourself to look within. I’m sure you know what I mean by this, particular when in a plant medicine journey container!

True container will allow whatever is here, whatever each individual is experiencing and feeling to be welcomed and process through.

A true container has basic guidelines that keeps everyone safe. Once that scaffolding has been set up and agreed to, then there are an infinite amount of possibilities that can occur within the container.

When containers are held in safety, neutrality, and trust, the organic process can lead to very deep healing and insight.

A container is also a co-creation. It's an active process whereby everyone has the chance to show up fully. Each individual who is present to the maintaining of container, and are able to contribute their wisdom and their medicine into the space.

In a container, there are three things that we can do to support someone. The first is to listen. The second is to listen. And the third is to listen some more.

Included in establishing and holding a safe container includes confidentiality, lots of kindness, acceptance, non-judgement, and patience. Each person takes responsibility of their own self-care, as well as taking responsibility of any triggers that arise.

Triggers often point back to a past trauma or unresolved conflict within our own selves. Containers can thus play out some very interesting social dynamics, symbolizing the microcosms of our lives and bigger archetypal relational dynamics within the collective. So notice the projections, resistance, entitlement, jealousy, irritation, envy, the exasperation, and intimidation. Notice in what moments you give, or take away your power; notice the power plays. Notice when you start playing the role of the mother for another, or the role of the father, the child, or the sibling. Pay attention to when you play the victim, rescuer, or perpetrator.

Indeed, in sacred plant medicine containers, there is heightened sensitivity and so any unintegrated aspects of ourselves come to the light to be seen. This is because the medicine shows us all of the aspects and parts of ourselves that we have forgotten about, ignored, or suppressed. There are many opportunities in these consciously created spaces to take the wider perspective, to practice compassion to ourselves, and put ourselves in the observe role.

Establishing a container creates structure that allows for subconscious depths to safely reveal themselves.

Those who are supporting the space are required to hold the energetic frequency of integrity, neutrality, and empathy.

Space holders should be doing the work themselves by looking at their shadows and fears. If they are not looking at their own shadows and fears, how can they support others to do the same? Medicine work makes us realize our shortcomings and requires us to face them with honesty and courage.

Additionally, the more time space holders can get to know everyone in the container, the more trust and rapport can develop. Space holders should have a good idea of each individual’s history through proper screenings, whilst holding a trauma-informed, ideally with an understanding of somatic therapy. Space holders should have a set of guiding principles of a code of ethics to support them and clients.

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It's important to remember that when we step into a psychedelic journey container, we are also stepping in with our own container: our own body, our vessel, that also contains our nervous system.

As such, it is important to develop and strengthen a daily practice. A daily practice helps us cultivate generosity, loving kindness, and experiential and embodied wisdom. When we keep tuning our bodies daily, we keep tuning and maintaining the container within. It’s the daily sweep on the inner landscape. Chop wood, carry water, sweep the leaves.

It's also good to get used to cleaning up physical spaces regularly. Most likely when you see people create physical spaces for healing or journeys, there is a lot of focus on clearing the space. The space is well laid out and is smudged. There are some clearing prayers and invocations that people speak out loud. Meditation to clear the old thoughts is practiced. Individuals often have showered. There is calming music, relaxing aromas, and soft blankets to make the container feel welcoming. Cleansing the space supports the idea that we clear from dense to subtle we release the old and make space for the new across all the various layers.

Clear, release, and let go within the physical space. Clear, release, and let go within our own body-container.

The more that we tune and refine and take time to observe ourselves in all moments of the day, the better we get to know, trust, and feel safe within our own container - and then the healing and transformation is ongoing and happening in real time in our daily life.

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When held well, anything within a consciously co-created therapeutic container is possible. For people with eating disorders or disordered eating, there is a chance to express love, to connect with our bodies, with our power and intuition, and face our fears. There's the opportunity to go to the root of our suffering, to understand it and transmute it into love into light. For some, this may be the first time processing the eating disorder or the past trauma in that way.

Whatever arises, we can practice being fully honest with ourselves; and when we are fully honest with ourselves, we allow others in the container to be honest with themselves too. And the more honest we can be, the more vulnerability there is, and the more healing can occur.

When a container is held in authenticity, with love and non-judgement, we can meet those challenging moments with curiosity and trust, and leaning in with flexibility, rather than rigidly resisting and contracting.

When our own container and the containers we step into are held securely, safely and kindly, really important work can be done. With a structure and foundation, we can access freedom and flow within our innate healing intelligence.

May we keep sweeping and showing up.

Photo on Unsplash

Moving From Rigidity to Flexibility: ED Recovery and Plant Medicine

How does the word “rigid” make you feel? And what happens in your body when you hear the word “flexible”?

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Two words, two different frequencies. How have these words showed up in your life?

When we think about the word flexible, it relates to being able to bend, something that is movable, having a sense of suppleness or workability. Rigidity on the other hand implies something that is fixed, something that cannot be changed. It is inflexible and unyielding.

This concept of moving from rigidity to flexibility sums up the process of eating disorder recovery and encapsulates how psychedelics and sacred plant medicine can support that transition.

Eating disorders are controlled, rigid patterns that have been picked up unconsciously during times of challenge, stress or trauma. And over the years, these behaviour patterns get refined by our unconsciousness, determining how we move through, act, and engage with ourselves and the world. Challenge, stress or trauma causes a fragmentation in the psyche, or a truncation from the whole self. Indeed, so many of us are moving through the world wounded.

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trauma is like scar tissue

Many of us have experienced some kind of physical injury, for example a gash in the skin. When there is an open wound, the body heals with scar tissue by covering it up. Scar tissue is like this biological glue that the body uses to repair itself. It's not the same as skin tissue - it's a little bit less elastic, which leads to tightness and often limited movement and may even cause pain for some people. Scar tissue doesn't align itself in the same organized or symmetrical pattern as normal tissue. It also has a different composition to normal tissue with some people saying that it's weaker than normal tissue, and easier to reinjure. Scar tissue is also more pain sensitive. Scar tissue is different than normal tissue metabolically, meaning that it’s much more poorly oxygenated, nor does it receive nutrition, hydration, or fluid lubrication as well as normal tissue.

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the eating disorder is the scar tissue

However, without scar tissue we could never heal and return back into the world. It is with scar tissue that the body is able to attach nerves back to nearby structures and regain function.

I personally have had my own relationship with scar tissue after having surgery when I fractured my tibia in February 2021 in a motorcycle accident. Over the course of a year, I have been finding ways to mobilize this rigid area back into a movable flexible state.

I really like how this analogy of scar tissue relates to trauma and eating disorders. We can see how trauma events cause a rupture or break in the psyche that can also lead to further physical manifestations like illness or chronic pain. To make sense of the trauma, the psyche did everything it could to cover up the wound. And usually the tools that we had to heal from the trauma time were limited. Often, there wasn't adequate support that was needed in that moment of rupture.

The psyche attempts to cover up the wound as urgently as possible. Protection is #1 priority. Metaphorical scar tissue goes in all directions as quickly possible to cover up the pain for the sake of survival. In the same way that scar tissue works in the body, the eating disorder behaviours cover up the wound (the trauma) and help us move through life even if it’s a disorderly or miscalculated. The eating disorder behaviors get the job done, so to speak. We find a way to get through life with the help of the eating disorder. Who knows where we would have been post-trauma if it weren’t for the food and body strategies that were discovered.

Over time, with the eating disorder behaviors acting as scar tissue, we become rigid and hard to the world; our armour is up for protection. And our flexibility is lost, including our softness, spontaneity and capacity to surrender.

The process of eating disorder recovery is about massaging that scar tissue, so that becomes softer and more malleable. And it's about tending to that old wound, and holding it and placing a hand on it, and acknowledging what it has gone through.

psychedelics help us tend to the hard wound and soften

Psychedelics can help us get to that softer, flexible state as part of the recovery process. People who undergo psychedelic experiences report having their minds opened (not to mention heart and body). Sacred plant medicine like Iboga, psilocybin mushrooms, or Ayahuasca can support us moving from a narrow, rigid focus, to a more open focus.

Often people state that after altering their consciousness with psychedelics, they are more open to believing in the magical form of fate, and in consciousness that connects the universe, weaving us all together across time and space. Individuals move away from a cold, impersonal, scientific narrative of the world and towards one that is filled with greater purpose, meaning and mystery.

Plant medicine can ultimately offer and provide us with a deeper understanding of our place in the world, leading us to feel more at peace with our place in this interconnected web - which is so integral in in the healing and recovery process. Indeed, so the eating disorder can represent a kind of spiritual disconnection.

Reconnecting with a greater purpose, engaging with life in a reciprocal way, and expressing gratitude are fundamental in eating disorder recovery and stepping out of diet culture.

 By connecting with these unifying spiritual principles - that include accepting impermanence - can ease our suffering. The healing process can drive us to reflect upon life’s purpose and the meaning on a personal scale as well as on a universal scale simultaneously.

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psychedelics on the brain: moving from rigidity to flexibility

Dr. Robin Carhartt Harris has proposed the REBUS model (Relaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics) which explains the way in which the brain constructs our world and our sense of identity by building stories, predictions and models. These stories are adaptive because we are taking our past experience and applying it to the present (or future) moment to solve an issue or challenge.

When we have gone through trauma, this past experience starts to inform every waking moment of the present and influences our perception of the future. We get stuck in a self-perpetuating loop, where we are trying to solve problems at the same level that they were created.

Psychedelics are able to affect the process of the brain that creates these stories and making things a lot more malleable and flexible. We're able to make new connections and see things from different lenses, so that we become flexible in how we explore ourselves and our place in the world.

Indeed, trauma is not an experience that we must endure; it can a springboard for conscious choice that has the potential of catapulting us into new perceptions about ourselves, others and the world.

Many of us know how tricky and sticky eating disorders can be; it can feel like sometimes it's completely dominating our lives and sometimes it feels like it’s kept in check. But it never feels like it really gone away.

Psychedelics can support eating disorder recovery because they improve this cognitive flexibility; they open up and soften that stickiness when journeying.

There is a break in the pattern of the ruminating thoughts around the rigid rules of what to eat, not to eat, how to exercise, how to get lose weight, and all the things that go with disordered eating.

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surrendering is the journey of being flexible

During the journey itself there's a huge amount of inner courage and self-compassion that is required, because the medicine may make take us to quite difficult places. And so, in those moments in the journey itself, there is a movement from rigidity to flexibility. Otherwise, as the saying goes “what resists, persists.”

When challenging things come up, we are asked to be flexible, and adapt to what is present instead of holding on and trying to control the situation.

With the support of plant medicine, we see where and how we have become rigid (the patterns are exposed in a new light), and the work to open up to life after a journey is where the practice of flexibility comes.

When we look at depression or PTSD, psychedelics can offer immediate relief. But for eating disorders it does not always go like that. We can sometimes feel worse after a journey. This because the disorder itself is threatened.

We often see a lot of ambivalence in eating disorder recovery; some people don’t want to get better. This is because giving up the disorder means the protection of the scar tissue is gone. It can feel terrifying to give up that one source of control.

Psychedelics show us that opening up that scar issue and looking at the wound is where the healing takes place. And the eating disorder doesn't like that.

However, if we choose to look at the wound (and it can be done in a very slow, titrated way) and start the layered process of healing, we don't really know what will happen, where recovery will lead us, and how our own healing process will affect the collective.

So again, we can't even get too rigid or focused on how the healing process is meant to go. Often the path of recovery will never look how we imagined it, and is perfectly imperfect. And so we are reminded that throughout this journey of recovery we are to remain flexible.

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accessing our innate healing intelligence

Psychedelics and plant medicine can help us with accessing our inner healing intelligence by helping us clear the path. The inner healing intelligence is the soma’s complex and elegant organization that drives us toward wellness, that when the obstacles to healing are removed and favorable conditions are created, our entire soma is influenced and is drawn into wholeness and freedom.

When we change from the inside out, it is not just the physical structure that moves with more ease and grace but also the thoughts, stories, beliefs and emotions that live in, through, and with the body.

Recovery is a freeing up.

Recovery is embodying congruence.

Recovery is being able to adapt to situations; having a flexible nervous system that can respond to the environment, where we have choice, agency and tools to move with whatever is arising before us.

Recovery leads to greater resilience.

Recovery is connecting the body and the brain for fluid, dynamic communication.

Recovery is being able to move with the constant change.

Recovery is recognising the endless possibilities and opportunities in life and being able to go for them.

Recovery is a dance.

Recovery is opening up the pathways for our innate capacity for healing to take place.

Recovery is moving from rigidity to flexibility which is an alchemical process.

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Therapeutic Benefits of Psychedelics for Eating Disorder Recovery

Eating disorders and disordered eating affects more people than we imagine. So much of it goes unacknowledged or unsaid. Much of our normalized, cultural norms around food are rooted in restriction, competition and comparison. Many people are not even aware that they are swimming in this bubble of judgement around food and body. Diet culture is so pervasive that many of us don’t even see the authoritarian reality of how we relate to food and body. For those who are struggling, there is often a lot of shame in speaking out or asking for help. Many people keep their difficulties inside, finding exhaustive ways of hiding from others. And finally, individuals who are engaged in eating disorder treatment often don’t see the results.

An eating disorder is unconsciously employed as an attempt feel protected in the world, and to even give a sense meaning and identity. The internal world is fractured and the eating disorder is a way to try stitch things together even if it’s an unsustainable method.

Eating disorders, disordered eating, and the trance of diet culture are some of the most challenging energetic frequencies to break out from. This is why we need to look at recovery in a new way. Previous methods have just not worked. Plant medicine can be the doorway into breaking free from the trance and help us look inwards in radical ways. Psychedelics could possibly be the way helpful for those who are traversing the complex and curious road of eating disorder recovery.

how can psychedelics be therapeutic and increase wellbeing?

Plant medicine can positively influence psychological and emotional wellbeing and social harmony and cohesion, leading to greater sense of connection to the world, one’s purpose, and trust in the unfolding of one’s life. For people with eating disorder behaviours, this is a biggie because we are moving from rigidity, a narrow vision, gripping, and isolation, into embodying more expanded states.

Psychedelics promote “decentering,” or the ability to observe thoughts and emotions as transitory events of the mind without being trapped by them. We come to realize the impermanence of life, including how the eating disorder is not fixed or part of our identity. We can see things from a different lens and let go of the beliefs we once tightly held onto. In the space of non-grasping, we can lean into trust; trusting the organic, ever-changing spirals of life.

Plant medicine enhances cognitive flexibility, allowing people to contemplate events, situations and relationships from detached perspectives. We get out of our own way and see how our behaviours are influencing our lives. From a new lens, we can view things with greater objectivity and start making changes that are more aligned with our true self. We get cannot help but get radically honest with ourselves when we see our beliefs and actions in a new light. From this place, we can start to see how there is medicine in the eating disorder; that going through the hardships and suffering, we have emerged stronger, more resilient, more sensitive, and transformed. We can express gratitude to all that we’ve moved through. And with the power of gratitude, our perception of reality changes instantly. Gratitude is a master teacher and powerful catalyst for change, healing and transformation.

Psychedelics like psilocybin or Ayahuasca strengthens connections between brain networks resulting in novel and new links. These plant medicines increases the strength of the connections responsible for how we sense the world whilst decreasing connections related to how we understand signals from our environment. How we sense and understand our environment is what may cause these altered states of consciousness.

When we trip, the lines between ourselves and the world break down. This leads to feeling more connected, not separate from the world. This why psychedelics can be so helpful for people with eating disorders where there is usually such a strong sense of separation (from one’s body, purpose, essence, heart, community, and the world).

Plant medicine don’t suppress anything but rather bring up whatever strong emotion that is present to the surface to be looked at. Confronting difficult emotional or psychological content can be transformative and healing. The seeing is the healing. Psychedelics increase our self-awareness, and when coupled with the practice of self-compassion to whatever is arising, we make space for what wants to be heard and seen. We no longer hide from ourselves, including the grief, depression, anger, fear. It is all laid out on the table. By seeing it all we can reclaim the fragmented pieces and return to wholeness.

When journeying with psychedelics and engaging in post-journey integration, people can find they rely less on the eating disorder (or addiction) because there is a general sense of ease in the world and more internal wholeness. We can get in touch with our essence, and connect with our inherent worth, belonging, dignity and divinity. Psychedelics can help us embody pride and self-acceptance. We can connect to love, and feel our capacity to give and receive love.

I really do think psychedelic research and eating disorders are going to continue emerging as a safe, effective and transformative avenue for healing. What do you think?

Image by Leon Zernitsky

How to Heal Generational Trauma with Psychedelics [Eating Disorder-Sensitive]

Psychedelics have a way of connecting us to the timeless. They dissolve any boundaries of how we perceive the world, including time and space. This means we can connect with our ancestors, past lives, and the lives of our ancestors, and living family members. The nature of psychedelics is that they bring up anything that has been suppressed or repressed to come up to be seen and dealt with. Sometimes it’s our own stuff that we have been avoiding, and other times we have to see stuff from previous generations that isn’t ours but may be affecting us regardless.

Working with plant medicine can help work through and process eating disorders by offering us a unique opportunity to go to the root cause. Unlike western medicine and traditional eating disorder treatments that are mainly focused on stopping the eating disorder behaviours, plant medicine can go right to the root, and that root may not have even started in our life.

This is indicative of indigenous cultures that view the interconnectedness of all things, and that what was experienced in a previous generation can still have an impact in the next one. Indigenous wisdom also teaches us mind and body as one, and that illness and health are on one continuum, reflective of the inner and outer worlds in which we flow between. Nothing is separate and it is this precise fragmentation in our culture (especially Western culture) that is causing so many mental and physical challenges in people. Restoring our inner and outer wholeness, including harmony between generational lines are what brings healing.

Turning to plant medicine can help us restore that wholeness and look beyond the external validation and approval of diet culture, and instead turn within. Indeed, on a collective level, those who came before us, blood or not, have been up against the big energetic ball of judgement, expectation, dominance, and patriarchy that is diet culture. Diet culture keeps us from looking within; it demands us to look outside of ourselves, comparing and fighting with each other to look a certain way. We are all swimming in this and it can feel even more intense when we are trying to do our inner healing work.

When we turn inwards, what we see at first may be challenging. However these sacred plants know what’s up and are helpful allies in guiding us to look at our trauma. Plant medicine and psychedelics can help us look at painful experiences with a new perspective or from a slightly different angle. This is because psychedelics help us lower our ego defenses and create new and novel links. We are not constrained by logic or everyday thinking. With more information coming in from all angles, there is a higher resolution of perception. Thus, we can find ourselves engaging in new ways of perceiving and meaning making. Rather than avoiding the trauma or changing the memory, the plants help us redefine its meaning. These allies can help us find meaning in our suffering, see how it has impacted our growth and resulted in inner resilience and tolerance.

Additionally, when we look at the powerful medicine of Iboga, it is possible that random and harsh things can come up in the journey as a way to actually get rid of old, irrelevant thoughts, and thought patterns of the inner critic. It’s like a purging of the mindmap with a feeling of great stillness and spaciousness felt afterwards.

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intergenerational trauma imprinting and somatic organization

That spaciousness could feel like a new felt sensation. This is because trauma often leads to constriction and thus narrow thinking, or what we can call “spotlight consciousness”. Eating disorders reflect this thinking too. One can obsess over the tiniest of details (like how much oil was used to cook with) rather than seeing the whole picture. We see just one tree instead of the whole forest so to speak. On psychedelics, the brain becomes more interconnected, with more input from the whole brain, leading to increased exploration. The mind can go in any direction. Nothing is constrained. This is what we call lantern consciousness. And this is what we can call the process of healing.

With an open mind and perspective that can felt when sitting with psychedelics, it is also important to prepare the body. There are increased body sensations and emotions that may be challenging to deal with, especially if one has been deep in an eating disorder – which is a strategy to quell perceived overwhelming sensations and emotions. It is wise to work somatically before a plant medicine ceremony to understand the body’s habitual patterns.

On that note, these habitual somatic patterns (aka “somatic heirlooms”) are what have been passed down from generations. Indeed, body-to-body experiences passed down and are later remembered not as visual or verbal narratives but in the form of body memories, procedurally learnt emotional, autonomic, motoric, visceral, and meaning-making states, and are reflected in actions and responses. This is what we call memory procedural memory – “what we do with one another” - while declarative memory captures “what we know about one another”. For example, when safe attachments are not available, the body must adapt. Early on, the baby’s body must make an adaptation to the quality of the attachment field, laughing and smiling while crying or collapsing and shutting down emotionally. This then becomes the blueprint for our beliefs about our self and the world. Sometimes the previous generations had some kind of eating disorder and sometimes the sensitivities are passed on which then result in the child developing an eating disorder to try process the world in ways that don’t overwhelm the nervous system.

As preparation it can be helpful to observe how your family moves around the world and engages with others. Notice their body language, how close they get to people, what they do when they get upset, their tone of voice, how they show affection – all of these are clues to what you are carrying, and what you have been imprinted with from birth.

Generational trauma also shows up as a family who are emotionally numb, don’t like speaking about feelings, and/or perceive discussing feelings as a sign of weakness. Generational trauma can show up as a family having trust issues with “outsiders” and/or are anxious or overly protective of their family members, even without signs of danger. Generational trauma can show up as unhealthy relationship boundaries and unhealthy survival behaviours. There are many ways in which generational trauma shows up and affects subsequent generations.

So what can we do to stop generational trauma from continuing?

In the words of Bessel Van der Kolk (who wrote “The Body Keeps the Score”), the ability to feel safe is “probably the most important aspect of mental health”. One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to find places of safety and people who are safe so that we can learn what it feels like. For example, working with a coach is beneficial as it is an empathetic relationship based on the coach’s unconditional acceptance of the individual’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

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embarking on the medicine journey

In preparation for a journey it is useful to start connecting with the body and noticing your patterns of safety and threat. How do you reach out? How do you communicate with your body that you need support or help? How close do you allow people into your space? How do you create boundaries? How does your body tell you when it’s time to rest or get going again? These are generational imprints that you can bring into the ceremony and look at. In this way, you are also setting up a foundation to create and embody new body patterns of pride, compassion, empowerment, strength, and ease. Maybe your ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to embody these somatic patterns. Perhaps they had shapeshift to match society around them, betraying themselves and their unique expression in order to be safe and not hurt by those around them.

Along with observing these somatic holding patterns, one can also link it with an intention. In what ways do you want to connect with your ancestors? You can ask, “Where did my eating disorder come from”, or “What is the root cause of my ED?” You can also ask, “What are the unknown factors at play that contributed to the development of my eating disorder? “What will it take for the eating disorder to let go of me?” And, “What do I need to do to change the narrative of this eating disorder – what are my blind spots?”

It can helpful to call in other trusted allies, like power animals, helping spirits, angels and guides, and other elemental forces to weave a web of support as you dive into these questions in the journey. Singing and dancing is a powerful way to connect with our ancestors as is music making (drumming, drumming on the body). Bring in objects that represent your lineage and have them in the space. Create an environment that is welcoming and supportive for these messages to land. Working with the elements is a powerful way to connect to higher wisdom and the places where our ancestors reveal themselves.

As you continue journeying, state your intention bur release the intent. Release attachment to the outcomes. If you don’t end up receiving any information on the root cause, trust it was not the right time. It took me almost four years to make the connection with the history of my eating root cause.

I just wasn’t ready. To be more clear, I wasn’t ready for the integration that was required of me.

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integrating intergenerational trauma

After receiving a download like this, there is usually some kind of integration that is required (ongoing), in order to end these generational patterns. For some people, it is a conversation with a parent or family member. For some, it is ending certain eating behaviours, no longer going to certain places, or hanging out with people. For some, it is starting a new morning practice or finding a new support system. Changes can be big or small, internal and external. The integration is where the generational pattern is finally broken.

Integration is only as useful as we apply consistency over time, practice over time, and apply mindfulness. The process of change includes, according to the The Transtheoretical Model (TTM):

·       Precontemplation: Unaware of or in denial of a problem(s), not ready to change.

·       Contemplation: Aware of problem, considering a change.

·       Preparation: Ready to change, making a plan to change, motivated.

·       Action: Making changes and seeing results.

·       Maintenance: Living consciously to maintain results and continue changing.

How a person uses, applies, implements, and integrates tools for transformation into their life is what determines the level of impact. Just doing these activities may or may not bring as much value as doing them with consistency, mindfulness, introspection, adjustment (as needed), openness, self-awareness, and commitment to the process.

In my one plant medicine ceremony, it was made clear that this eating disorder and somatic pattern can end with me. It wasn’t stated HOW the pattern could end (the plants don’t do the work for us) but the medicine was certainly clear that I have the capacity to end this cycle. It was after the ceremony what was made clear what I needed to do. If this integration action piece came through any earlier in my recovery path I wouldn’t have been able to do it. This is because I have more capacity and resources now. The plants are working together in revealing pieces of information at the most perfect time. They meet us where we are at. They never overextend us. We can trust in the timing and their highly intelligent ways – which are, of course, reflective of our own growth, work, and higher and intuitive knowing.

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With generational trauma, we can think of it in terms of the identified problem being something we were born into, not necessarily a problem that we have created for ourselves. Somatic therapy and plant medicine have personally been highly impactful in looking at my eating disorder and generational trauma. The plants have shown me time and time again who I am without the layers of trauma and conditioned somatic states of suffering. I remember my wholeness, my gits, my connection, and I am able to have a felt sense and embody it fully. I feel grateful for all that my ancestors have passed down to me, however complicated they may be. Even the most challenging parts are gifts because they opportunities for healing and stepping into my true self. When we are embodying and connected to our true self, the trauma pattern is broken.

And so, how do we want our children and our children’s children to remember us?

Intergenerational Trauma, Eating Disorders and Psychedelics

“The food of your ancestral lands will be the medicine of nourishment.

The songs of the ancestors will guide you back to the home of your heart.

The tradition of the ancestors will take you back to the ancient ways of the earth of your blueprint.

The healing of the ancestors will help you understand the intergenerational cycles and the medicine within.

It is the roots of the ones before us that will guide the clear path one may seek.

Back into the roots,

Into the roots that have brought you life,

That have prayed for you,

That have sang for you,

That hold the divine sacred of the Earth.

Returning to the home within,

Back to the Origin.” -Vianney of @medicinewithinspirit

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Can you imagine your grandmother holding your mother? What is the quality of that holding? Can you see how your grandmother was gazing at your mother? What was reflected in her eyes?

Who we are in the world has been directly passed down through the lines of our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents. We are living out parts of their lives not only because of genes that they have passed down to us, but also from experiences that they have lived through which have left its own kind of mark.

Events in people’s lifetime can change the way their DNA is expressed, and these changes can be passed on to the next generation.

This is the process of epigenetics where the expression of genes is modified without changing the DNA code itself. Tiny chemical tags are added to or removed from our DNA in response to changes in the environment in which we are living. When these tags turn genes on or off, it gives us a way to adapt to changing conditions without inflicting a more permanent shift in our genomes.

This means that experiences during your grandparent’s lifetime – particularly traumatic ones – can impact subsequent generations in the family. However, it is does not have to be just trauma. The idea of epigenetics means that the environment in general very simply influences the way in which genes are expressed.

Epigenetic influencers

There are a growing number of research that now support the idea that the effects of trauma can reverberate down the generations through epigenetics. It is not so much fear of a traumatic event that gets passed down but rather that fear in one generation leads to sensitivity in the next.

Even though epigenetic research is still in its infancy, it seems clear that the consequences of our own actions and experiences could affect the lives of our children – before they might be conceived. With this knowing, it puts a different spin on how we might choose to live.

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Epigenetics and Eating Disorders

Traditional models that have looked at eating disorders have suggested that an individual with an eating disorder usually has “maladaptive personality traits”, including stubbornness, character weakness, or has a superficial concern with appearance. Research is now showing us that trauma in their lifetime as well as trauma from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have an effect on one’s epigenetic susceptibilities that get “switched on” by a lifetime of environmental exposures. Including epigenetics improves caregiver and clinician sensitivity to their patients’ realities, and helps make treatment more palatable and humane.

Epigenetically-informed models of eating disorder development contribute positively to efforts of clinicians and caregivers in various ways:

1. We take the focus off the individual. It is never a single event or action that causes an eating disorder to develop. There are rather a sequence of life events that served to activate inherited susceptibilities toward eating disorder development that stem back into previous generations (e.g. great-grandparents surviving famine or war, the mother experiencing perinatal stress, the child’s school-related stresses etc.). Indeed, chronic exposure to malnutrition and dietary distress amplify psychological tendencies (e.g. compulsivity, anxiety) and metabolic adaptations (e.g. altered lipid metabolism) that help “lock” an eating disorder into place. When one finds it difficult to recover from an eating disorder, it is not about character weakness or stubbornness. Rather we can expand our understanding to include the extend to which epigenetic and biological processes anchor symptoms and behaviors into place based.

2. There is more room for self-acceptance. Some people feel shame or weak for developing or unable to overcome their eating disorder, and guilty for the distress their disorder causes relatives and friends. From an epigenetically-informed understanding, we can see that the eating disorder has been marinating and absorbing for generations, making it very sticky and challenging to “just get over it”. The eating disorder wasn’t something a person choose; it was almost given to them without a choice. Dr Richard Schwartz of Internal Family Systems calls these “legacy burdens” whilst Ruella Frank, founder and director of the Center for Somatic Studies, faculty at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, describes them as “physic heirlooms.”

3. From this viewpoint, it is easier to separate the person from the eating disorder. A epigenetically-informed model implicitly separates individuals from the factors that caused and perpetuate the eating disorder. This lens reminds us that there is an activation or deactivation of tags on certain genes due to real-life experiences. “Externalizing the eating disorder helps people overcome shame, and increases empathy on the part of family members, partners and friends. Additionally, because of the ego-syntonic nature of eating disorders, people sometimes identify positively with their disorder (particularly those with anorexia), or assume it as an identity. An epigenetically-informed perspective helps counteract such tendencies in that it indicates to the individual that they are not “an anorexic”.

Plant Medicine, Trauma and Epigenetics

Beneath all of us is such a complex, rich history. We carry deep wisdom about ourselves. We have vast knowledge about our cultures, and we have immense intergenerational wisdom from our ancestors and those who came before us. This is all carried inside of our bodies. We also carry intergenerational trauma, especially those who are descendants of ancestors who were oppressed and colonized. This is carried in our bodies too. By working through generational trauma, it is important that we do not separate ourselves individually from the larger systems that we are part of. It is important to keep the big picture in focus as those larger systemic factors influence the challenges people experience individually. This kind of healing, with the support of psychedelics, can help us connect more deeply with who we are as individuals and help us explore who we are in relation to one another and the world.

Dr Simon Ruffell and his team are currently epigenetic research on the effects of Ayahuasca and the healing of trauma and mental health disorders. Ayahuasca may impact the genetic expression of our DNA, relieve suffering from depression, and may be able to decrease emotional charge around trauma by helping us rewrite our narratives around what happens. Again, it is not about changing the actual genes but just the way in which the DNA is expressed. They have looked at a gene called Sigma One which is involved in many things, including neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to make new connections- and it is also hypothesized to be involved in traumatic memory recall. This has lead the team to dive into the idea that Ayahuasca might allow people to access their very difficult memories and to frame them in a slightly different way that also decreases or changes the emotional charge attached to the event. Thus, the traumatic memory itself changed, but the perception of the emotional content seems to change.

There is also embodied stress that is part of one’s experience due to living under oppressive systems. Psychedelics can help us see how our bodies hold tension and stress, and help us deepen our capacity to be with what is difficult, and to connect more deeply with ourselves. This can change how we hold ourselves and tend to our bodies, redefining our somatic narrative, and ultimately our reality.

For people with eating disorders, they might view themselves through a lens of compassion for the first time. By processing things in new ways or seeing it from a different perspective, we can find new meaning in our lives, in relationships, with our communities, and with the world. Moving from patterns of avoidance to acknowledgement is the pathway to healing.

We must also remember the process of integration (aka the ceremony after the ceremony). Weaving insights gained from a medicine journey is how we can start engaging with the world in new and soul-supportive ways. After a lifetime or lifetimes of emotional injury, integration that include processing the information, making new actions, releasing of ways of being, and practicing these new patterns are how we can catalyze change in our life and beyond.

What could this mean for people with eating disorders? It seems highly possible that by working with Ayahuasca or other plant medicine, people will be able to access suppressed, repressed or painful memories (from their own life or from the lives of their parents or grandparents) that may have contributed to the development of the eating disorder and find a new perspective and relationship to it, finding empowered avenues of healing.

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How Intergenerational Trauma Affects Child Development

People cannot consciously recall what they “learned” in the first few years of life because the brain structures that store narrative memory are not yet developed. But neuropsychological research has established that human beings have a far more powerful memory system imprinted in their nervous systems called “intrinsic memory”. Intrinsic memory encodes the emotional aspects of early experience. These emotional memories may last a lifetime but without a narrative. Without any recall of the events that originally encoded them, they serve as a template for how we perceive the world and how we react to later occurrences. The procedural (body) memories can result in someone being held hostage to these imprints and stress responses long after the early events have happened. Where there are no memories, we have to work with the body where the trauma is stored and impacts the person’s life unconsciously.

Is the world a friendly and nurturing place, or indifferent or hostile? Can we trust others to honour our needs, or do we have to shut down emotionally to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable? These are fundamental questions that we resolve mainly with our implicit memory system as very young children rather than with our conscious minds. Psychologist and leading memory researcher Daniel Schacter has written that intrinsic memory is active “when people are influenced by past experience without any awareness that they are remembering.”

Despite best parental intentions, it’s not not their intentions that a baby integrates into their world view, but how parents respond to them. We are shaped by recognition or lack thereof by our attachment figures and society. So when a child falls asleep after a period of frustrated cries for help, it is not that they have learnt how to fall asleep, but rather they have escaped the overwhelming pain of abandonment, and the brain shuts down. The baby was expressing their deepest need: emotional and physical contact with the parent. The exhausted parent now has some quiet for the time being, but at the price of potentially harming the child’s long-terms emotional vulnerability, encoding the belief that the universe does not care about them.

For any person to stay emotionally open and resilient, young people must feel connected to adults from a young age. Supporting stable relationships with caring adults from birth through adolescence is a priority for the next generations to redeem their future.

In our Western culture, we tend to see people’s illnesses as isolated, accidental and unfortunate events rather than as the outcomes of lives lived in a psychological and social context. The body expresses our experiences and beliefs relating to self, to the world, and that date back to generations before us which have been somatically passed down. Indeed, it is not just stories and words that are handed down, but non-verbal cues including gaze, prosody, breath, proximity, gestures, facial features and movements. These cues can become habitual and incorporated into a family structure, creating a non-verbal narrative of how to be, act, and relate in the world. If not questioned, these elements get passed down and adopted from one generation to the next.

Indee, we all have thus learnt states of suffering. Habits of posture, expression, movement and gesture all reflect our personal and sociocultural history (trauma, attachment failures, relational strife, privilege/oppression, positive experiences etc.). Body postures prime certain emotions and so the habits of the body form habitual emotions. Even long after environmental conditions have changed, we are still are organized somatically in ways that were adaptive in the past. Once they become automatic tendencies (historically passed down), we no longer use cognitive, top down processes. These somatic blueprints anticipate the future, determine behaviour, communicate with others, and influence sense of self.

Such a holistic understanding informs many indigenous wisdom teachings. Indeed, the use of Ayahuasca arises from a tradition where mind and body are seen as inseparable. The plant spirit puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the factors that drive dysfunctional behaviours and that cause illness. By consciously experiencing, acknowledging and witnessing the pain, it loosens its hold on us. Plant medicine can help us get back in touch with our inherent goodness, wholeness and love. The sacred plant allies help us remember ourselves.

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Viewing Generational Trauma is Energy

Generational trauma is energy that is passed down from generation to generation that builds and builds over time, increasing in size and potency. We are already swirling in collective trauma that is based on separation and so an eating disorder is a strategy or adaptation to try rectify that wound in order to feel like we belong in this fragile world. We can see this huge energetic mass of diet culture that dominates our society which has caused many individual trauma.

Additionally, generational trauma is something that is modeled in the household. What patterns did your parents and grandparents value and engage in around food, exercise and body image that you may have picked up on? There are patterns around food and body that they may have used to manage their own energy which could have been normalized in the household and by society but were actually harmful. There is an energetic signature to obsessive exercise compared to a more neutral approach exercise, and there is an energetic signature attached to healthy to unhealthy body image. These signatures get passed down and through. It is like the eating disorder increases in energetic size, gaining speed and weight over time, demanding to be heard and seen. It then carries over into an individual’s life in such strong ways that it can no longer be ignored, and because the energetic size of it is so large, we have to see it, and so it is then our responsibility to finally look at it in eye. We then have a conscious choice to break the pattern.

The generational trauma indicates enmeshment with a certain energy that gets passed down from one generation to the next, with the past influencing the present moment. Ask yourself, how has the fear of rejection/abandonment/not enoughness been passed down? Somewhere, it was learnt in our ancestral line that we can only be accepted if we are small. That is the injury and the belief that are passed down.

Finally, an eating disorder is also a way to protect and create safety; a way to block out dangerous energy from others and the world. It is a way to avoid judgement, expectation, rejection and betrayal from the world. And so we can also send compassion to the eating disorder that has manifested across time and space, and through generations, as way to numb out overwhelming feelings, soothe pain, and provide relief. The eating disorder can help us create boundaries and be with ourselves, and ourselves only, when the world has felt too much.

Healing from these eating behaviours takes time especially when it has been swirling in familial psyches for generations. Psychedelics and body-based, bottom-up approaches can help us get to the root and travel beyond time to access to wounds that want to be seen and transformed.

Projection, Resistance and Entitlement in Psychedelic Journeys

Plant medicine journeys are ripe with lessons, opportunities and waves to ride. Navigating a ceremony can be a fruitful place to look out our relationship patterns and where we unconsciously project our fears and attractions onto others. Psychedelic ceremonies can show us how we react to challenging experiences and what our tendencies are when in difficult times. It is also important to consider how we relate to the plant medicine we have chosen to journey with and how we can improve our relationship and connection with these sacred plant allies.

Projection vs Ownership

Projection is a control pattern to keep ourselves from fully seeing the parts that are uncomfortable to acknowledge. Anything repressed or disowned within ourselves are projected onto other people or aspects of nature. This draws the attention outward, away from the inner space where these parts reside, wanting to be seen, and integrated with our core essence. Projections can be repulsing or alluring, sometimes with the projection containing both elements. Ceremony facilitators and group participants can be sites for such projection. However, the process of owning projection can be a powerful way to reclaiming aspects of our soul as we navigate a plant medicine journey. It is an opportunity to both see and own disembodied aspects. When we acknowledge and reconsolidate all that we have projected to others, we heal, by becoming more whole, more human.

Notice what in others (or in nature) repulses and allures you, and can you identify these qualities inside yourself? Projection is part of the path of growth. And it happens in ceremony all the time. We can start with this integration work whilst the ceremony is happening if we can stay aware of our triggers. We are asked to befriend these moments as best we can can.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” - Carl Jung

Resistance vs Acceptance

It can be helpful to look at what is going on in these expanded states of consciousness as energy rather than labeling an experience as “good” or “bad”, and giving it a story. When we drop the story and connect with the energetic frequency and body sensations, there is less space for judgement. Thus, it can be helpful to regard whatever is going on internally as “light” or “dense” in energy. Both dense and light emotions are essential along the journey of healing and transformation. However, we have become accustomed to avoiding dense emotions. The healing journey is always characterized by the presence of dense, difficult and uncomfortable emotions, as well as with the light. Remember the story of the Hero’s Journey? When we avoid or deny our true feelings, we end up with psycho-emotional issues including depression, anxiety, disordered eating behaviours/adaptations, over-exercise, hyper-focus on how the body looks, or any other form of control pattern, addiction or distraction that cause numbing or disassociation. When difficult emotions are avoided for a long period of time, physical illness can arise.

In a psychedelic journey, difficult emotions and memories often emerge. In these moments, as challenging as it can be, we are asked to do what we have been conditioned against: to turn towards the emotions, instead of running away from them. In order to heal these wounds, that come with the denser emotions, we have to face them, and see them as teachers that have medicine and messages for our growth. Indeed, “healing is about better feeling, not feeling better.”

By allowing ourselves to face and integrate difficult emotions, we are able to live more fully and deeply and experience more joy, pleasure, and ease that are also part of being a human. By embracing this process in ceremony and outside of the journey space, reactions to life’s challenges will have less of a grip on us. Things will feel more manageable, as there is a knowing how to handle difficult situations more effectively and a trust that the dense will eventually and ultimately move into light. As a result, self-love, presence, compassion, harmony, connection, trust and self-honour become more frequent in daily life.

Reciprocity vs Entitlement

Honour for self, the body, the ceremony space, and the medicine is a key guide in the journey space. When we observe our language, notice if the words “taking the medicine” vs “receiving the medicine” are used. Language carries meaning, and a history of meaning, orienting us towards certain implications and consequences. “Taking” may imply overt or covert entitlement - a belief that one has an inherent right to something. “Taking” is not a sacred act. “Taking” is treating the substance and its spirit like something consumed for pleasure and recreational use. In this instance, “taking” does not leave room to establish and develop a relationship with the plant ally.

When we call plant medicines “tools” we are inferring that they are extensions and creations from humans, with the human as the source of its use, and value (usefulness). When we use “tool” to describe a living being, we are subjecting it beneath humans in value. How we language something reflects our relational orientation to it. Possibly we don’t even intend to do this. Perhaps we have simply picked up this language from those around us, people who also want to help other people have meaningful experience with psychedelics. So let us observe our words, the energy attached to the words we choose, and if there is room for change - with self-compassion, patience and forgiveness.

Experiences with psychedelics are beyond what we can control, whereas tools are things we can control, manipulate, improve, and use. Often our attempts to control psychedelics can lead to resistance and more pain. Psychedelics then are not tools.

Rather than “using” or “taking” how does “being in communion with” or “working with” change our relationship to the plant teacher, how we learn and relate, and how we engage with the world around us?

“Working with” these medicines is like an apprenticeship, that is, the act of learning from a master. “Working with [insert medicine of choice]” is a different approach where there is interaction, and where the sacred plant ally is a master and soul guide, and is well-equipped to guide us through this soul encounter experience. From this perspective, the plant spirit is recognized as a conscious being and highly evolved, and from whom we each have our unique lessons to learn during and after the ceremony.

“Working with” also points to reciprocity. Reciprocity is a worldview that connects us within the web of life, within living energy. A beautiful example of this are trees who inhale our carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, whilst us humans do the opposite. Reciprocity is about cooperation, mutuality and interconnection. The orientation is circular rather than linear. There is an ongoing flow of energy and maintaining balance rather than being goal-oriented, power-over, scorekeeping, competition, focused on tangible outcomes that we are so used to in Western cultures.

Let us also consider the indigenous tribes who pioneered and paved the way for psychedelic medicine, and whose practices provided frameworks for set, setting, integration and spirituality. For psychedelic companies, reciprocity and partnership should be built into their foundations, ideally it should be the intention, along with serving consciousness expansion and healing. If these companies take without giving back, there may be consequences due to a lack of balance.

How can we do better? How can we give back without really know how we will benefit? Reciprocity is about energetic giving and receiving without expectations extending between humans, all beings, amongst the natural world, and beyond. What is given is less important to how it is given. Reciprocity is of the heart. Reciprocity is true kinship.

Plant Medicine Navigation For Eating Disorder Recovery: The Hero's Journey

We sit in ceremony to remember that all of life is ceremony. We sit in ceremony to remember the sacredness of all things. We sit in ceremony to remember we are the medicine. We sit in ceremony to practice how to live the teachings of the medicine. We sit in ceremony to reclaim, reconstitute and restore. We sit in ceremony to repattern and rewire ways of thinking, feeling and being, rather than suppressing, dampening or avoiding. We sit in ceremony to truly see, to truly hear, to truly feel. We sit in ceremony to be with the confusion, the trepidation, the discomfort, the awkwardness, the grief, and the anger. We sit in ceremony to learn how to breathe through it. We sit in ceremony to feel our feet on the Earth, our bones stacked, our hearts rhythmically beating. We sit in ceremony to remember the miracle of being alive, and the gift to be moving through it all in this body.

Navigating a plant medicine or psychedelic journey, like life, comes with its ebbs and flows of challenge and ease. Each psychedelic journey is different and some may be more challenging to navigate than others. However some of our most challenging moments can also be our greatest catalyst for growth and transformation.

The parts that feel the most challenging are where the medicines are pointing us to, amplifying an emotion, a thought, a sensation, or a memory that has been begging for our attention for all this time.

For the moments that feel difficult, it can be helpful to remember that there is something to be gained by sticking with it. When these moments bubble or erupt to the surface, you can remind yourself that they are expected, they are normal, and you are and will be ok. By welcoming in these chapters within the larger journey arch, and exploring how the challenge is rather a gift, there is an opportunity to deepen the healing process in profound ways. Spoiler alert: The gift is that there is something to be learnt.

the plant medicine hero’s journey

The psychedelic journey is akin to Joseph Campbell’s famous “Hero’s Journey”: a challenging portal through which we claim our authentic selves and share our soul gifts with the world. It is a journey meant to help us come to our full, true human selves and to take our place as world servers.

We are called to this journey when we feel something is off in our lives. There is discord, dissonance or distress. And so we hear the call to adventure, and so begins a process of change, sometimes with reluctance, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with fear. As we begin this journey, a mentor appears to support us, or we find the resources within - and with this support, we leave the known and enter the unknow territory. Along we trek, we reach the underworld where our greatest challenge - our ultimate fear - awaits. Here we are tested in the depths of the descent. Out of this moment of death there is a rebirth and a soul gift is granted. We then leave the underworld, bringing the treasure back with us but just as we are about to reach final completion, we are faced with one final moment of death-rebirth, taking us to an even higher level of transformation. The discord at the beginning of the journey is resolved. Purification, healing, and whole-ing have taken place. We return - transformed - bearing gifts of service that have the power to transform the world.

When we enter the underworld, of which we have agreed to do upon committing to journeying through this Hero’s Journey passage, we may experience:

• Any and all emotions, including fear, anger, grief, and hopelessness.

• Our eating disorders for what they are, including the ED thoughts, how the eating disorder manifests, and how it affects our life, and our souls.

• Our addictions and obsessions, related to food, body and anything else, both obvious and subtle.

• Facing deeply-held fears and work through the barriers that have kept us from being our true self.

• Releasing anything that does not serve our soul’s purpose and our path.

• Healing aspects that have been shamed, hidden, abandoned or mistreated.

• Claiming our soul gifts in service to something greater than ourselves.

Diving into these depth, we are investigating what fears have held us back from pursuing our most valued, yet unrealized dreams, as well which aspects of ourselves need to be retrieved and integrated. Within your own personal healing context and within the framework of eating disorders in general, you know all about what this means.

Eating disorders are smart survival adaptations to help an individual feel safe in the world. They are strategies that are unconsciously adopted, learnt and refined as protective behaviours. Often the individual with the eating disorder is carrying and manifesting the trauma of the family, such as attachment wounds, through unsustainable food behaviours. The process of healing from an eating disorder (which I do believe is possible despite it having one of the lowest recovery rates of any “mental” condition), requires the individual to recognize something is out of balance and that something needs to change. With this intention and awareness, so begins the journey. sometimes with the help of psychedelics. A plant medicine journey can sometimes feel like years of eating disorder therapy in a single session. Of course, the work thereafter to integrate these changes is where the meat lies. Possibly the integration phase after a psychedelic experience for eating disorder recovery is the phase in the classic Hero’s Journey where we are leaving the underworld, and we are faced with tests to prove to ourselves and the world that the changes have indeed been consolidated. Eating disorder recovery can be a beast at times. But the journey is worth it.

Eating disorder recovery is indeed a long Hero’s Journey, with multiple adventures along the way. The more we commit to our recovery, the more initiations we will face… that result in transformations beyond our wildest imaginations. Are we willing to take the next step?

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Below are a few tips you can practice whilst navigating a psychedelic journey:

1. Focus on the breath. Follow each inhale and exhale, noticing the pauses. Allow the breath to fill the belly, chest, back, front and sides of the lungs, and nose. If possible, lengthen the exhale or make an audible sigh for a calming effect on the nervous system. Count your breath. Make this your single point of focus.

2. Place a hand on your heart and your belly. Feel the contact of the hands resting your body. It can be helpful to lightly palpate, push, tap with the fingertips, stroke, rub, or massage the heart space, arms, belly, head, or legs as ways to ground, and make contact with the realness of the body.

3. Center your attention to your heart. Focus on feelings of love and compassion. Breathe in and out from the heart space, envisioning white light. Meditate on all the beings who may be suffering right now, feeling the same pain, fear and anxiety you may be feeling. Send them your love. Connecting with positive emotions can be a powerful way to break through fear and anxiety.

4. If you feel physically sick or in pain, see if you can explore it. What is its source (where is its origin, how deep does it go, and in what direction does it want to move to)? What is it here to show you? Can you embrace it exactly where it is? What is the medicine for you in the discomfort?

5. Move the energy. If you are laying or sitting down, get up slowly and gently move your body to release stuck energy. Moving the spine, light shaking, forward folds, legs up in the air, or child’s pose can be useful. Stick to simple poses.

6. Drop the storyline. If you are mentally spiraling, try let go of the narrative or story and just focus on the sensations and feelings in your body. Release what is bad or wrong about what is happening, and be with the body. Allow the sensations to be there as you let go of trying to control or change what is happening.

7. Surrender and trust. Whatever you are experiencing will pass. Believe in this. Where in your body can you relax more? Can the eyes, tongue, jaw and belly soften? How much more can you let go into the experience? Slip into the moment.

8. Be curious. Replace judgement with curiosity. Blend the contrasts, releasing the labels of what is good or bad, and be curious as to what you are experiencing.

9. Pray. Focusing your mind on prayer can also help shift the experience of overwhelm. Your prayer can also summon the assistance of your spiritual allies to support you as you navigate the journey.

10. Ask for help. If you feel like you are unable to ride out your experience and make it through the intensity, call for a facilitator to assist you. The shaman may perform a blessing or purification ritual over you, to support you in healing process.

11. Trust the wisdom of the medicine.

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This process is a resurrection of our truest essence. Along the winding road, there will be opportunities to meet, learn from, and embrace our deepest and most authentic selves as we look at aspects of our lives that we may have been avoiding, consciously or unconsciously, including limiting beliefs and patterns. It requires courageous vulnerability and self-compassion. Navigating the path of healing unlocks unconditional acceptance and love. It is a stepping into our own skin. It is embodiment.

For more on Journey Navigation, head to my #4 Podcast Talk.

Photo by Anastasia Petrova on Unsplash

Microdosing for Eating Disorders

After a ceremony of jaguars, holding onto another female participant for motherly support (I didn’t know about transference then), lots of tears, even more laughter, and heart-opening sensations, I had a sense that after my first hero’s dose of psilocybin in 2017, a lot of work was needed. After that journey, I started microdosing with psilocybin. The intention behind it was wanting to continue working with the medicine in a slow, steady, sustainable way after the huge opening I experienced in the ceremony, specifically to continue integrating and nurturing these new, wide-open spaces within my heart, body and mind in the name of my eating disorder recovery.

Over many journeys with plant medicine, and with the most profound teacher - time - I have come to understand an eating disorder as process one goes through in order to understand oneself in the world. An eating disorder is the body’s smart survival adaptation to regulate one’s nervous system. It is a solution for the now-moment, and is an attempt at restoring balance by relying on something external (i.e., food or exercise) rather than turning inside. Of course when we look inside, there is often a lot of pain and discomfort, and so it makes sense that we look away.

As psychologist, eating disorder specialist, and psychedelic researcher, Adele Lafrance says about eating disorder behaviours, “Starving can numb distress, binge eating can soothe, and purging can provide relief.” People with eating disorder (or eating adaptations as I like to refer them to) often struggle with low self-esteem, self-judgement, guilt, shame, disconnection, and disembodiment, which often stem from trauma to the attachment or defense system.

Trauma is somatic contraction resulting from anything that overwhelms a person, usually where there is inadequate or no support, causing fixed reactive sate in the mind and body. It becomes like an inflexible wound with a lot of scar tissue and is sensitive to touch, meaning that the past is constantly tainting and influencing, informing the present moment from that wounded place.

Trauma impacts us as a whole, including our minds, bodies, behaviour, self-identity (who we think we are), spirits, relationships and communities. Because trauma impacts us holistically, we must heal holistically. We are living a traumatized society – and diet culture reflects that. Trauma is not an individual experience; it impacts and is reflective of the greater society in which we live. Collective survival strategies “shape” communities and are passed down through generations.

When I think about eating disorder recovery and think about the many forces that are in opposition to healing, it can feel overwhelming. But the plants remind that it just needs to start with me. One person can and does make a difference. Microdosing with the generous, benevolent, kind mushrooms over the years have assisted me returning back to myself. To be present with my body, its sensations, its rhythms. To look within and observe what wants to be seen, heard and brought to the surface. To open up my heart and clear my mind so that I can see and feel more clearly, with perspective, and with grace. Raising the vibration within my own temple. This is where it starts.

It has taken some time for me to find my groove with my microdosing practice. It started out with little understanding - I would pop it like a pill, very much still stuck in the Western medicine mentality, that is, taking something and putting all my trust in it, thus disempowering myself, separating myself from my body’s wisdom and not taking responsibility for my health. Nonetheless, it was a start. And my microdosing practice had to start somewhere.

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Over time (and I have huge thanks to give to Laura Dawn, my microdosing mentor), I have a flow that took me beyond the medicine. I realised like everything, it is not about the medicine. It is about intention, and presence. The medicine are tools in helping us sit, pray, set intentions, cultivate presence, become clear on values, and the person we want to become. Important to sitting down with the mushrooms is asking them how I can be of service to them - these ancient elders of the land - and represent them in ways that serve this Earth. And seeking how to be in right relationship with the medicine and the Earth, I realised I am serving myself. This has been the biggest insight (as simple as it sounds) through my microdosing practice: the interconnected web of service, and the more that I show up for myself, I give permission for others to do the same.

My microdosing practice is a daily practice of presence, setting intentions, and working with the nervous system. Through somatic process, I am train myself to hold bigger or challenging sensations and develop capacity and tolerance to be with them rather than starving, binging or purging them away. In this way, I am building resilience and practicing holding awareness. These are inherent within each other us and we can cultivate it.

Microdosing amplifies whatever is going on inside the body, and so for me working with mushrooms on a regular basis is essentially just the practice of learning how to be in my body. It’s an opportunity to return back home to the body, to be embodied.

Just to switch gears, I would like to talk about this question that comes up in the microdosing communities…

Can microdosing help me with weight loss?

Mushrooms are literally decomposers and so when we ingest psilocybin, we end up decomposing limiting thought patterns that tell us that in order to feel happy, in control, valued, appreciated, successful we need to lose weight to be validated and loved. Again, this is another act of looking outside of ourselves to feel worthy. The mushrooms however are here to support us in our expansion of consciousness, liberating us from external crutches and attachments that we hold onto so tightly. And in my journeys one thing has been clear: in that high vibration state where the plants are helping me see and feel clearer, that there is no space for shrinking and controlling our bodies to feel safe. So rather than trying to suppress the food, try find out what is the suppressing belief. How is it suppressing you? Where does it come from? Does this belief serve you in your growth and purpose in this lifetime, and how do you want to live your life?  

When we try suppress our food, we fall into the restrict-binge-purge pendulum. Not only are we suppressing our food but also thoughts and emotions. When we lean too far to one side, the body has to rebound back to balance. This is where binging comes in.

Binging is the body’s smart and adaptive way of quickly getting nutrients in after a period of restriction. This is the body just doing its thing. It’s survival-based. When the body starts to notice a pattern of restriction, it will do whatever it can to get food in. The “overeating” comes in because the body doesn’t know when it will get its next meal. So when you are in a binge period, recongise that what your body is doing is extremely adaptive and smart.

To get off this pendulum is to start listening to the body and become aware of what your hunger cues are. For me, recovery is an additive process, so it’s not about stopping a behaviour and rather adding to what is already here. And what we are adding in is simply more awareness.

The mushrooms take us into our own bodies, and it becomes harder to ignore the moments where we betray ourselves and attempt to override the body by ignoring signs of hunger. Through this process of working with the mushrooms, and becoming more aware, we actually start to notice WHY we are trying to suppress our food in the first place. What are we trying to run away from, numb, suppress, soothe, get relief from, or cover up?

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I have some relief through the plants offering insight, reflections, shining light on the shadows and encouraging me to let go of the controlling, dense, heavy layers that kept me small, inauthentic, suppressed, oppressed by the many limiting thoughts – which have been absorbed through my family network, generations, our culture, historical forces, and social norms, institutions, and media. Indeed, the kind of change we are after is cellular as well as institutional, is personal and intimate, is collective as well as cultural.

This work is multi-layered – it’s individual and collective and transcends time. As with the nature of healing, it is not linear and so through all of these layers, we move in circles of continuum. As we reach a level of natural maturation, there is a letting go which can be painful, and so this cycle goes on and on.

This is what I have been learning from the mushrooms – really see what is here, train up the nervous system to hold the challenging, contrasting waves that come with this work, and then hold the big vision: a world that is embodied, where all bodies are valued and loved and welcomed, where people are connected to their bodies and thus with the land, where food and our bodies no longer dictate our lives, a world we can be our full expression.

And let us remember that we are living in a diet culture world where there are very real pressures of looking a certain way and eating a certain way. It is a courageous radical act to go against these hefty systems.

The more we are able to step out of diet culture, tune in ourselves, our heart and see what is needing to be looked at – what is the pain about and how is it trying to make itself know, and can we tend to it, see it, hold it – that is the way we find calm, joy and peace with food and our bodies. And the mushrooms are supporting us in our awakening, and in our paths to reclaiming our inherent freedom and liberation.

Image by by Hailey E Herrera

What Plant Medicine Taught Me About Eating Disorders And Attachment

In all of my medicine journeys, I have never been shamed by a plant. But have they given me the honest truth? Yes. Whilst I’ve never been punished or shunned by a sacred plant ally (which is something I am often on the lookout for… a deep conditioning), I have been brought to my knees at the amount of work that still needs to be done and that the work must be done; and I have been reminded that this work is the most rewarding work there is - and that the plants are there cheering me on.

Fun fact: I have gone into many psychedelic journeys thinking I would be punished for not doing my integration “homework”, or for showing up unwelcomed.

Fun fact: I have never been put into the naughty corner or told to leave.

The plant world is filled with beings who are pure. And with this purity, they are of course honest. So they have shown me the hard facts of how I am living, but always delivered with unconditional love. I have learnt so much through plant medicine about attachment, bonding and boundaries. I am grateful for these beings for sharing this wisdom so generously in the name of consciousness expansion.

When working with the plants, I almost always come up against some part of my eating disorder behaviours that needs to be examined. I used to think that since I often am working with eating disorder-related stuff, I would be punished for “not having done my homework.” This pattern is based on fear, specifically fear of not being good enough, and that in order to be loved, and in a safe attachment, I have to perform in a certain way - otherwise I am not loveable.

This is a classic trauma response: we have to adapt, suppress, reject a part of ourselves in order to comply with what we perceive our caregivers to deem important. And so, throughout my life, I have morphed myself to perform in an acceptable way - even if it went against what I valued, cared about, or felt I had the energy for - in order to stay connected to loved ones.

Attachment style lives in our nervous system. It’s not something that can always be rationalized. It is development through a co-regulation feedback loop with our caregiver. Based on the feedback we receive, we develop secure attachment (like an anchor), or become an island (aka avoidant), rejecting connection out of fear of being swallowed, or we become the wave that easily and ambivalently merges, fears being abandoned, and does not know where they stand (thank you to Kimberly Ann Johnson for imparting this metaphor).

When with the plants however, I have shown that however I show up, I do not have to fear punishment for not being perfect. The plants can see that I have been putting in the work, because they see the smallest of steps, including the big ones. Whilst the urge me on, they are content to go along at my pace and meeting me where I am at.

These experiences have been powerful in helping me reevaluate how I am in relationship, and how the conditioning from my parents and the environment around me have shaped how I am when connecting with others, especially in those more intimate spaces.

The connections we have with our caregiving attachment figures shape the structure of our brain in ways that can free us or imprison us. Indeed, the emotional quality of our earliest attachment experience is perhaps the single most important influence on human development.

There is enough empirical support now that early childhood experience is powerful in shaping and impacting development. Infants are attached to their caregivers not because caregivers feed them (whilst that is of course nb), but because caregivers trigger the unfolding of infants' inborn disposition to seek closeness with a protective other. We are wired for connection. According to leading neuroscientist and mindfulness teacher, Dan Siegel, he says that before we even had language and conceptual tools to process what we were experiencing as children, patterns of interaction were incorporated in the brain. These patterns - positive, negative or traumatic - impacted our psyches and even the molecules that control the expression of genes. He continues to say people can get "lost in familiar places" as they continually recreate their earliest patterns of interactions across the lifespan.

Indeed, these early relationships provide the foundation for personality development, but they do so by affecting the child's capacity for emotional regulation and the formation of mental representations of self and others, impacting one’s worldview and beliefs. For example, a child who has been rejected is likely to interpret the behavior of others as rejecting and behave in ways that lead to further rejection, continuing the pattern. It also seems that people end up treating those with secure attachment with warmth, whilst those with avoidant attachment are treated with more hostility and those with avoidant are controlled more and unduly nurturance. It seems then that the reflections happen in many directions.

I have come to understand that when working with psychedelics, we are able to change these structures through neuroplasticity. Psychedelics have the possibility to bring awareness to these patterns and alongside an integration coach, create new pathways for people to take as they unlearn long-established habits.

Research now is also telling us that the brain isn’t fixed after a certain age. It is remodeling itself in response to experiences throughout our lives. There is in fact huge capacity for change across our lifetimes and as such, it is possible to develop a secure state of mind as an adults even after a challenging childhood. Psychedelics and integration support can help with that by shining light on what these patterns are, and what steps can be useful in forging a new way forward. With the plant medicine teachers modelling that unconditional, loving, secure attachment, with the support from an integration coach who is sensitive, paying attention, tuning in, and responding in a timely and effective manner, a healthier attachment state of being can be investigated, practiced and embodied. This speaks to the what attachment theory calls “attunement”, or sensitivity, which is the caregiver’s ability to perceive, or make sense of, and respond in a timely and effective manner, to the actual moment-to-moment signals sent by the child.

Indeed, practice and embodiment is key. The brain is open to responding to experiences with change in its structure and function, however it’s not just a one-off event. Just like how reading this article won’t magically change your brain, we need to practice this new knowing 300x and up to 3000x for embodiment - this is according somatic practitioner, Staci K Haines, specializing in intersecting personal and social change.

Dr Dan Siegel shares that neuroplasticity is showing us that relationships can “stimulate neuronal activation and even remove the synaptic legacy of early social experience.” It is possible that “islands” of positive relational experience can grow and expand until they become larger landscapes or even continents, until our whole experience of relating is one that is positive, whilst the largely negative histories have less influence over the present moment.

Psychedelics are aware that who are is influenced by genetically-shaped temperament and the experiences we’ve had (especially those early ones), and are willing to work with us in changing our genetic expression (yes, Ayahuasca is showing capacity to have influence on our epigenetics!), deconstruct no-longer-helpful attachment patterns, and help us build new neural networks of connection - literally.

Looking at attachment studies, interpersonal neurobiology, and psychedelic research, what emerges is a fascinating Venn Diagram of how relationships, the brain and plant medicine shape who we are.

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For more reading, check out the following articles:

PSYCHEDELICS AND EATING DISORDERS: WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BRAIN

HOW PLANT MEDICINE CAN TREAT EATING DISORDERS: NEUROSCIENCE, PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALING

PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH AND TREATMENT FOR EATING DISORDER RECOVERY

The Verdict Is In - Dr Dan Siegel

What Psychedelics Have Taught Me About My Eating Disorder

It's becoming more and more imperative to share our authentic presence. Each one of us has unique and important gifts based on our internal make up and experiences that life has bestowed upon us. From my own dark journey with eating disorders to stepping into the light of recovery, I recognize how much of myself I have dimmed, hid, masked and suppressed. Over the years, I have started to question and reflect on my unique expression and how can I make space for it, without shame, doubt, or fear.

As this is just a deep process for me, I too am fascinated witnessing people come more into their true self, expressing themselves creatively, identifying their triggers and dearmoring the layers that previously held them back. At the same time, seeing other people free themselves and be unapologetically themselves, has triggered me. These triggers just directed me back to my own self that so badly wanted to express too! Indeed, I used to feel fear when those around me would step into their light. I would feel judgement and comparison and resentment. For my astrologer friends, can you guess my Chiron is in Leo in the 7th house?!

In one of my plant medicine journeys, I was able to look at and deconstruct a pattern that pertains to this particular layer that was holding me back. I compassionately call this pattern "hide-and-seek". This pattern would show up whenever I needed some form of validation or approval from another person - which was all the time. In my quest to express, I was constantly looking outside of myself to ensure that others still approved and accepted me. Through this psychedelic experience, I came to see how deep I did not trust my authentic expression. I was quite flabbergasted at how deep and automatic this reaction was.

In this medicine journey, I realized this habitual pattern and quick-to-judge reaction was projection onto others for I so badly wanted to step into my own power as well, but was afraid of perceived backlash, rejection and criticism that I would receive if I took the leap.

This particular pattern showed up in the ceremony as a younger version of myself (probably five years old) who just wanted to be seen, accepted and loved. I have compassion for this part of me who was only trying to look out for me and to protect me. This part wanted me to be safe, encouraging me to play small, for in stepping out, I would be too big, too much, over-spilling, disrupting others and causing harm.

This innocent younger self wanted to be held and soothed so I spent a large chunk of the journey tending to her, and the other part of the journey observing all the times she would show up like a shadow, evaluating if anyone around me had given me the stamp of approval. We ended up playing a game of hide-and-seek. I would carry out an action and *boom* she would show up, looking around to the environment for a pat on the back. I had to laugh.

She showed up. all. the. time.

Somatically, she showed up as an anxious, wide-eyed scan around the room, quick head turns, contraction in the belly and jaw, and slumping of the shoulders in towards the core.

This pattern was very deep. The guidance from the medicine was to just compassionately observe and be aware when she would pop up, essentially bringing the unconscious to the conscious.

And this is of course the essential first step in healing.

I sometimes like to ponder when the eating disorder triggered within me. This hide-and-seek pattern is linked to food as I have used eating disorder behaviours to try to stay small (in all senses of the word), for my expression to be not too much, and to hide my authenticity. In addition, by trying to fit into the idealized thin body type, the external focus on my body was another way of looking outside of myself for that same kind of approval. Indeed, individuals with eating disorders often struggle with self-worth and lack of self-love, low self-esteem, self-rumination and self-judgment, and the eating disorder behaviours can numb, soothe and provide relief to what is going on internally.

If I consider this little girl who showed up in my psychedelic journey, it is possible it began when I was five years old. But maybe even earlier. Perhaps that was when the eating disorder behaviours began.

After that ceremony, I had to find ways to integrate this new understanding. It is through the practice of joining with this habituated shaping, rather than trying to break it up or unlock it. This little girl is inherently intelligent in the protective patterning that she performs. The integration work is further inquiring in what has this somatic pattern been taking care of? What has it served? When did it get established, or how long has it been around? How does it work? In supporting the contraction—physically and verbally—the soma will begin to tell its story. We can discover how the somatic pattern works and what its key purpose has been. This then leads to authentic movement, speaking and being.

Image by Andrea Strongwater

Why I am Training as a Psychospiritual Integration and Addiction Recovery Coach

I must have been around ten years old when I wanted to become a child psychologist. I had a deep desire to work with children through healing play and creative therapy. I believe that this was my own inner child seeking healing at an already young age. Through my eating disorder, I have journeyed far away from my inner child and have slowly, over the years, come back to her. She was buried deep underneath harsh, critical, punishing orders from my eating disorder voice. There was no colour, no laughter, no carefree play. Play meant following a spontaneous impulse, a creative strike, a surprising improv, and that was too risky. I would risk making mistakes, loosing control, not getting it right, or having “too much” fun. All of these fears kept my inner child repressed and ignored.

As I grew older, I became disillusioned and believed I wasn't good enough to be a psychologist. Additionally, as my ED became stronger and stronger, I had no more passion or life inside of me. I didn't know what I enjoyed doing or what my talents were. I also couldn't envision a future for myself for all I could think about was food. So, I willy-nilly I decided I would be good at something in advertising. I didn't really know what exactly but I gave it go for a few years only to leave the industry completely empty and further soul-sucked.

Now after all these years, it is interesting to hear reflections from people I meet who often say I bring lightness and play into the dynamic. I notice too that I have been a catalyst for people to touch back into their innocent inner child or their creative side. I can see the inner child in people and love encouraging the child within to come out to express and play.

The inner child theme comes up a lot in eating disorders and addiction and in psychedelic and plant medicine journeys. Since leaving the world of advertising and corporate, and stepping more fully into the role of supporting others through eating disorder, I have been searching for a training that will assist me holding space for all parts of my clients, including their inner child.

And I managed to find a training that ticks those boxes, which is Addiction Recovery and Psychospiritual Coaching program by Being True To You, which begins September 2021. Note: this is not a paid post nor was I asked to share this program. This is me just wanting to share resources.

In the last few years, the media has been all over psychedelics and plant medicines, like 5-MeO-DMT, Ibogaine, Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, and MDMA. This has led to a tidal wave of interest in these substances for supporting and improving mental health. Side note, I sometimes wonder where we would be if these substance didn’t become illegal in the 60s.

This is great news that there is this resurgence. However, after reading story after story about how effective and transformative a guided session with a trained psychedelic therapist is, people want to experience this medicine themselves. There is an issue with this: the only legal psychedelic therapy available, other than ketamine, are occurring inside small clinical trials in select parts of the world, with a limit on the amount of participants able to join. This leaves thousands of people either waiting for who knows how long for these psychedelic therapies to legal, traveling to a foreign country where they are legal (like Jamaica), or seeking out these substances underground. Which option do you think is the most likely?

So many people all over the world are in urgent need for healing from addition, depression, eating disorders, and trauma, and are not in the position to wait around for x amount of years, or invest in a significant amount of time and money into an overseas retreat. So what happens is that people seek out these medicines themselves, with no guide or sitter, little information on what to expect, and are not adequately prepared or have the integration support; the integration is as important as the journey itself.

Even as psychedelic clinics emerge, there will be challenges for certain communities and income groups, as well as difference in choice of how people want to receive support. I know many people who prefer working with coaches over therapists, and some people who enjoy groups instead of 1:1. This is why integration coaching can be a pivotal antidote to the mental health system, and when you layer that with affordable coaches who specialise in addiction recovery and psychedelic preparation, navigation, and integration, their experience has high potential to be safe, positive, and transformational.

Integration coaching can also work in conjunction with psychedelic therapy or traditional ceremonies for those who are able to find it. Indeed, healing takes a village and so having full-spectrum support leading up to a journey, and having the support in the weeks or months after the session, can help someone really get the most out of their experience and give people the fortitude to make lasting change.

Transformational experiences that psychedelics can offer help people heal from past traumas on a core level, and see the world with fresh eyes. With the proper support to integrate these experiences with a coach who specialises in this kind of process, they can release the rigid patterns of behaviour that hold them back (aka addictions), and open up and free channels of energy that allow them to reconnect with their whole self, their play and creativity, and rediscover their passions… their light.

The number of people who are turning to psychedelics right now exceeds the number of therapists and clinical trials. This is where psychospiritual coaches come in who are dedicated to the preparation and integration, and who aim to make this work accessible and sustainable for all involved.

And to further drive this point by tying in eating disorders, which is a form of addiction, an article in The Guardian has recently stated that there is a record number of young people with life-threatening eating disorders, waiting for treatment as psychiatrists, psychologists and in-patient clinics are overwhelmed with how many they can help. Since the Covid pandemic, more people are needing treatment than ever before. As quoted by Agnes Ayton, chair of the faculty of eating disorders psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, “Delays to treatment can put lives at risk. Services are struggling with soaring demand, fewer beds because of social distancing, and an ongoing shortage of specialist doctors.”

We need more people who can support others. There may not be time to studying six years before being able to officially work with people. I believe it is time we relook at the medical and mental health care model and adapt to the needs of the time, which are urgent. Those of us who are far along in our own journey, not only have the personal life experience to authentically relate with others, but there are many relevant courses out there that do not take years to complete, so that we can be of service immediately. If I look at my own healing journey, it is a rich tapestry of modalities from talk therapy, to in-patient treatment, art therapy, mindfulness, plant medicine, dance, CBT, breathwork and more. As supporters and healers, that means we too can have a number of tools that we can offer our clients. There is no one way to help someone. If there is intention, presence, compassion, and integrity, along with practical skills that you are genuinely interested in and have experienced yourself, you can show up to any session. My approach is to hold the person I am working with in the Highest light, the belief that they have the power to heal themselves and that they have something to teach me. With this attitude, healing for all involved (and beyond) is possible.

I am excited to continue supporting people psychedelic healing experiences and eating disorder/addiction recovery over the years to come.

Photo by Elia Pellegrini on Unsplash

Psychedelics and Eating Disorders: What Happens in the Brain

How do psychedelics or sacred plant medicines wok on the brain with individuals with eating disorders? The more I learn about the underlying mechanisms of the brain and psychedelics, the more and more I believe that it is possible to heal from an eating disorder (or eating adaption as I like to call it, but more on that in this post).

My eating disorder developed as my body’s smart and helpful survival adaptation to help my nervous system feel safe. That was in 2007, and over time the adaptation became more rigid, limiting, and oppressive. For a long time I believed these behaviours, that took over all aspects of my life, would control me forever. Indeed, I believed there was simply no recovery. I thought I would be living with it for the rest of my life. I held onto this belief tightly and it actually restricted my recovery process. The belief led to me think “well what’s the point in trying to recover if I never will” which led me to carry out certain actions that weren’t oriented towards recovery and kept me stuck.

However, number of times I have been completely and utterly free from my eating disorder - and I have the sacred plant medicines to thank for this. It were the plants medicine teachers, many guides and special human souls over the years who showed me it is possible for full recovery. And with this new belief, I think and act differently in line with recovery. Boom * new reality made *

Plant medicines and psychedelics lower my ego defenses, showing me that just as these behaviours were adopted, learnt and refined, they can be let released, unlearned and replaced. These powerful plant teachers have shone the light on anything that isn’t true or part of my essence. The addictive habits, the self-imposed limiting patterns, the rejection of emotions, and the repressed root traumas are revealed with the help of these powerful teachers.

Additionally, plant medicines have revealed time and time again the illusion of separation; it’s all connected, including my own body-heart-mind, and in this space of Divine connection, there is simply no place for my ED to exist, for it is something that wants me to stay separate and disconnected from the world. In that dark eating disorder space, the world is scary, dangerous and cut-throat, and so I withdraw and go into shutdown.

Being in my body without an eating disorder after so many years, even for a few seconds during these journeys, have felt liberating - and at times scary. In this space of expansion, surrender and openness, I have been shown that life is flowing through me and for me, a co-creative dance that pulsating with my unique rhythm.

So how does it all work?

Psychedelics and plant medicine, like psilocybin and Ayahuasca, have the potential to regulate serotonin functioning, enhance cognitive flexibility, and increase connection between neuronal networks creating opportunities to move beyond the rigid patterns - which is key for people who are dealing with any kind of eating disorder, or addiction for that matter.

Why serotonin functioning is important is that it helps moderate anxiety and stress, and promote patience and coping as well open a window of plasticity for greater adaptation through the 5-HT1AR and 5-HT2AR. Together, they mediate stress moderation and neuroplasticity-mediated adaptability in response to different levels of stress and adversity. The 5-HT2AR (aka serotonin 2A receptor) in particular is involved in increasing the connection between neurons, expanding synaptic connections. One could say that this particular receptor switches on plasticity, creating changes in neuronal properties and connections.

This results in a brain state that is “entropic” which means that it is more complex, chaotic, and unpredictable, specifically in the brain region of the prefrontal cortex (where all the mind chatter and monkey mind goes down). In this shaken up state, new connections are made, and the overly-refined and habitual thoughts are relaxed so they can become more amenable to change.

Psychedelics go beyond the symptom and dive into the root cause. They lower ego defenses (which are held in the cortex part of the brain), allowing anything repressed or unnoticed to come to the surface. Many eating disorder treatments try get rid of the symptoms (e.g. stop exercising) rather than investigating what caused these behaviours/adaptations/strategies to develop in the first place.

Individuals with who have been living with the oppressive eating disorder commands finally have space between themselves and the ED voice, allowing them a chance to consciously create a reality that isn’t dictated by the eating disorder’s rules, regulations, thoughts and urges.

Alongside complementary healing modalities like somatic practices, family therapy, nutrition support, art therapy, mindfulness, breathwork, and integration coaching, psychedelics and plant medicines are showing promise for eating disorder recovery support and treatment.

Of course we also have to acknowledge that we are also swimming in a culture that does not support this kind of work and transformation - we are living in diet culture after all. And so we have to be like the salmon: We have to go against the gluten-free, sugar-free grain and empower ourselves! Each day I have to remind myself to not fall into the trap of keeping myself small in someone else’s expectations of what I’m meant to look like, be like, achieve, speak, behave… rather, expand expand expand.

Healing is possible with the right support, and support comes in many shapes, sizes, forms and frequencies. And this takes time. So we take one step at a time and feel into it slowly, with support, with the breath, with guidance, and find our flow.

Some questions that you can journal about to get this flow going:

• Is “my” eating disorder ready to let go of me?

• What will it take for my eating disorder to let me go?

• What is my eating disorder giving me?

• What is it not giving me?

• How do I feel towards my eating disorder?

Healing is a process, just like an eating disorder. Through it all, we are simply finding our way through life, learning how to be in and relate to the world, and finding and accepting our unique expression - our special energetic signature. I can celebrate the journey with my eating disorder as a smart and adaptive strategy for survival. While painful, it has led me back to myself, whole, mind-body-heart connected, and on this fascinating and curious journey with my plant allies.

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How Plant Medicine Can Treat Eating Disorders: Neuroscience, Psychedelic Science and the Science of Healing

We need a new way of treating eating disorders. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that we need a way of treating eating disorders, full stop. At present, there is no agreed-upon way of treating EDs, although there is usually some combination of biological, pharmacological, and psychological interventions that include nutrition, medication and some kind of talk therapy with or without the family or primary caregiver.

Eating disorders are also sometimes laced with other mental health conditions like anxiety, OCD, depression, and other forms of addiction (such as substances, exercise, or work). Additionally, when we consider the impact of cultural pressures, media messages, suppressing gender norms, sexism, ageism, ableism, racism, fatphobia and weight discrimination, we see that what we are swimming in is super complicated, complex, nuanced, and tender. It is important to consider the intersectionality of all these factors on an individual and collective level that fuels internalised and externalised oppression. Oh, how about adding in a dose of intergenerational trauma too. What a stew we have!

Recovery is thus a multi-layered journey that calls for a multi-disciplinary team to work through the many threads that have woven together as the reality of an eating disorder.

With the highest death rate of any mental disorder, and around 50% of people never fully recovering, we must ask, what now?

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Phew, ok there’s a lot going on! Let’s take a breath together. It’s going to be fine, and we will get through this together. And it all starts with giving ourselves permission to acknowledge the grief, the anger, the confusion, the hopelessness, the fight, the flight, the freeze. By acknowledging the feels, we give them space, and with this extra breathing room, we give the feeeelz room to move. But there’s one thing about those of us with eating disorders: we don’t like to feel. We don’t like to feel our emotions and sometimes we can’t even recognize or name them (tip: start developing a language of these sensations. You can literally search “body sensations” on the web, find a list and start incorporating them in your day).

Being out of touch from our feelings keeps us floating outside of our bodies – a kind of dissociation, or disembodiment. This is quite convenient for the eating disorder as this is exactly what it wants. Yet, by walking the road of recovery, there is the inevitable moment where one has to come face-to-face with the body. There is a point where the talk therapy ends and the meeting of the body begins on a very raw, somatic, tangible “this is my body” kinda way. Starting to feel somatic sensations of emotion can be one of the hardest parts of recovery because feeling the emotions can be scary and overwhelming - like everything is spilling over. And this is sometimes messy but rewarding phase of embodiment.

There are many ways to start this process of re-embodying. You can read my article on Embodied Eating Disorder Recovery here where I go into greater depth on this subject. For now, I would like to talk about one of my favourite topics: the intersection of ED recovery, plant medicines (or psychedelics) and embodiment as a way of approaching eating disorder treatment.

Psychedelics and eating disorder recovery are still very much in the early days, however what we know about psychedelic therapy is that it shows a promise to address a broad range of mental health conditions, indicative of psychedelics’ transdiagnostic action. Curiously, psychedelics and plant medicines seem to go beyond focusing on the symptoms and go straight to the root cause through their abilities of relax higher-level beliefs and liberate bottom-up wisdom to flow. Literal ninja magic!

This provides beautiful relief for individuals with eating disorders. More on this in a second, so hang in there, and let’s keep exploring.

Let’s cue in some neuroscience basics for this next section. I found that understanding “what is under the hood” (aka the underlying mechanisms) I feel more empowered to take inspired, educated actions towards my recovery, along with feeling confident to choose which healing tools would be best suited for me based on my current circumstances.

Brain scans show those with EDs have decreased neural activity in ventral reward regions and increased neural activity in prefrontal control regions. These imbalances may speak to the rigid, controlling diet and exercise regimes that we see in individuals with eating disorders, that is excessive behavioural control and diminished cognitive flexibility (this seems to be prevalent for those with anorexia nervosa).

Studies done on the reward centers in the brain in people with anorexia shows both hyporesponsiveness to reward and different ways of relating to reward, for example: positive stimuli become aversive and vice versa, such that the feeling of hunger becomes rewarding. This speaks to the chemical, dopamine, that if disturbed causes repetition of behaviour (eg. food restriction), hyperactivity (eg. excessive exercise), and anhedonia (aka decreased sense of pleasure).

There also seems to be links between people with EDs and abnormal serotonin levels which is associated with anxiety, depression, impulsivity, insomnia, low self-esteem, and poor appetite. For people with bulimia, there is a tendency for lower levels of serotonin while people with anorexia, there may be higher serotonin levels resulting in anxiety. This is why some people actually experience a sense of calmness when they starve: as one reduces calorie intake, serotonin levels decrease too.

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Phew again! Let’s take another breath as we acknowledge all of the complexities that make us the humans we are, just trying our best to navigate this psychedelic experience we call life.

Recent clinical trials are showing us how psychedelics, like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) have a therapeutic potential for many mental health conditions. With ED’s neurobiological and behavioural signature of modified serotonergic signaling and cognitive inflexibility, it positions eating disorders well to be impacted by the healing effects of psilocybin mushrooms.

Psychedelics, like psilocybin, may help people with eating disorders by alleviating symptoms that relate to serotonergic signaling and cognitive inflexibility and help lay a foundation of desirable brain states that assist in accelerating the healing process. Exciting!

Plant medicines like psilocybin and ayahuasca, along with with the other cool kids, LSD, MDMA and ketamine, are all showing their therapeutic benefits in their own ways. One of the ways that psychedelics lend a helping hand is that they interrupt the default mode network (DMN), which is a network of interacting brain regions that is active when a person is not focused on the outside world. We can view it as the part of the brain that runs the show when we are on autopilot, or the “ego” in the brain. It governs our self-image, deeply ingrained beliefs and thought patterns. These patterns are so deep that we can’t even see them, hence they are automatic and form the foundation of our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. When the DMN takes a break and is downregulated, thanks to psychedelics, there is a pause. The eating disorder behaviours can be seen in a new light. All of the rumination over food, calories, food rules, exercise, and body checking are shaken up, leaving a blank slate for new patterns to be laid down. There is a chance for new neural networks to connect, creating potential for a new reality, quite literally.

Additionally, sacred plant medicines and psychedelics can heighten our emotional state. Our near and far senses are increased, and we can feel so much more. Why is this a good thing? Well, our brain remembers experiences that have a higher emotional quotient. This is why traumatic events have such high stickiness in our brain and our body. In psychedelic experiences we can leverage this higher emotional state along with visualisation techniques to embody the person, free of an eating disorder. We can visualise ourselves as healed and transformed in our mind’s eye and feel it in our body too; that is, embodying the felt sensations of someone who is completely free of an eating disorder. Holding that vision in a journey is a powerful healing technique. This is a superpower, promise. Practice this in your meditation or journal practices so that when the time comes to journey or sit in ceremony, you have practiced these visualisation and mental rehearsal skills. This type of focus requires practice (I’m currently working on this myself in my daily practice and microdosing morning flows), so practice, practice, practice!

All of this is super exciting for me. Knowing that there is hope for one of the hardest mental disorders to treat inspires me to keep walking on my own path of recovery. For many, many years, I believed there was simply no full recovery from an ED. I thought I would be living with it for the rest of my life. I held onto this belief tightly and it actually restricted my recovery process. The belief led to me think “well what’s the point in trying to recover if I never will” which led me to carry out certain actions that weren’t oriented towards recovery. It were the plants who showed me otherwise. I now believe it is possible for full recovery. And with this new belief, I think and act differently. Boom. New reality made.

Psychedelics are showing us that there is hope for eating disorder recovery. Wooohooo! While we are still in the early days of research for eating disorders specifically, there is a large amount of evidence from other studies as well as thousands upon thousands of personal anecdotes of how this medicine has improved the quality of people’s well-being and psychological health. I am so excited for what is it come.

Big thanks to researchers Adele LaFrance and Meg Spriggs who I am honoured to have met personally and whose work is trailblazing the way forward with ED and psychedelic therapy and research.

Photo by Daniel Öberg on Unsplash

Questions To Ask Before A Plant Medicine Ceremony [eating-disorder sensitive]

For many of us going in ceremony or working with plant medicines or psychedelics, there is usually something linked to desire: a desire to heal something, a desire to gain clarity on an aspect of life, a desire to connect in a certain way. Plant medicines offer us an opportunity to open our hearts and light up something in our minds that pave a new way of feeling, thinking and being.

To get most out of our medicine journey, we need to consciously carve out time and space to reflect on what it is that we desire. Maybe you desire to desire! Especially for people with eating disorders there are often feelings related to low self-worth which can manifest as guilt, shame and doubt around having desires, feeling desires and reaching out for those desires.

If this is something you relate to, it could be worth exploring what it feels somatically to desire freely, without the baggage and narratives that stop you in your tracks for going after what it is that you want. Take some time to reflect on this topic through journaling, meditating or moving with it in a dance practice.

Preparation for ceremony is as important as the journey itself. The more space we give ourselves to the preparation, we can start paying more attention to what it is that we are paying attention to: the preparation. We notice the thoughts and the felt sensations around how we feel about being in ceremony. How do you feel when you think about yourself in the space with the medicine, and in the circle with your fellow journeyers? What sensations come up in your body? We notice the patterns and common themes that we choose to believe, the expectations, the doubts, fears and fantasies.

With this meta-awareness, we are also priming the brain to look for clues and cues within and around us to support us in our preparation process. It’s like we are training the body, heart and mind to align with frequencies around us so we can take hold of all opportunities that maximize our efforts in preparation.

And we know that preparation can greatly help us in achieving what we desire. A simple example is visualizing and mentally rehearsing giving a speech in our mind before we deliver it irl. Importantly alongside this preparation process, we must also remember to hold onto it all lightly. The practice of surrendering, letting go, and trusting allows us to flow and adapt with the energies of the moment. So while we can practice the speech in our mind, we do not truly know how things will be on the day. Maybe the crowd turns out to be different to how you imagined and so you have to now adapt your speech and presentation so it works with and for the audience.

So while we hold it all lightly, we can still practice, prime and process so that we are as adaptable and responsive as can be in the moment. In preparation for your ceremony, I have put together eight questions that you are welcome to spend time journaling on, sharing with a friend, or even emailing me what came up for you. These questions can also be brought into your microdosing practice, or if you find yourself in a challenging moment of transition and possibly need some guidance on where to focus.

Finally, I would like to mention that questions are great for people in eating disorder recovery whether you are planning on going into a plant medicine ceremony or not. If you find yourself in a tough time right now with your eating disorder, these questions may be helpful in reorienting you back on the recovery path.

I bless you on your journey.

8 preparation questions to ask yourself before ceremony

1. What do you want to transform and convert within yourself?

2. What do you want to achieve? Where do you want to go?

3. How does it feel to let go of some parts of yourself that need to be released in order to achieve this? Can you give yourself space to grieve? How can you hold yourself through this liminal space?

4. What do you want recover within yourself, in your life, and in relationships?

5. How do you envision your life after this main chapter of transformation? What is your ideal day?

6. How does it feel in your body to embody this higher vision?

7. How can you show up for this future vision in this present moment?

8. In what ways can you give thanks, or offer gratitude, to your past self and all of the support - in human form or otherwise - that you have received up until this moment? Can you express gratitude for the future support that are yet to be discovered, right now?

If you want to dive deeper into medicine orientation, feel free to read my ceremony preparation article that dives into how to prepare for, journey and integrate a psychedelic or plant medicine ceremony.

Let me know what came up for you in through this reflection process if you are called to share. I would be honoured to connect with you on some of these topics. Thank you for walking this brave and beautiful path of healing, transformation and wholeness.

With gratitude

Francesca

Photo by Yaniv Knobel on Unsplash