Preparing for Plant Medicine Ceremony in Eating Disorder Recovery: 8 Intention Setting Questions

Psychedelics

Aug 4

For many of us going into 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 paves the way for a new way of feeling, thinking, and being.

In preparation for your ceremony, I have put together eight questions that you are welcome to spend time journaling on, share with a friend, bring into a session with your therapist, or even email me what came up for you. These questions can also be brought into your microdosing practice, or into a challenging moment of transition when you need some guidance on where to focus.

‍A note before we begin: plant medicine is not a substitute for eating disorder treatment, and preparation includes being honest about whether this path is right for you, right now. If you are in recovery, I encourage you to work with facilitators who screen carefully, and to keep your therapist or support team in the loop — these questions can travel with you into those conversations too. For a fuller orientation to preparing for, journeying through and integrating a ceremony, you can read my ceremony preparation articleor download my free course on how to safely prepare for a microdosing container.

Begin with Desire

To get the 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 like somatically to desire freely, without the baggage and narratives that stop you in your tracks from 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. If desire feels far away right now, Soul Sustenance holds this exploration in a group container, weaving intentional microdosing with somatic healing.

Paying Attention to What You're Paying Attention To

Preparation for ceremony is as important as the journey itself. The more space we give to preparation, the more we can start paying attention to what it is that we are paying attention to. With this meta-awareness, something shifts in what we can notice. Attention is not neutral—it is shaped by what we have decided matters. The insula, a region deeply involved in interoception, sits at the centre of what neuroscientists call the salience network: the system that helps determine which signals rise into awareness out of everything happening within and around us. Bodily sensation is not separate from this. It is one of the ways importance announces itself. When we take time to clarify what we are moving toward, we are not summoning opportunity out of the air. We are becoming more available to what was already there.

Eight Preparation Questions to Ask Yourself Before Ceremony

These questions can also support you 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, they may be helpful in reorienting you back onto the recovery path.

What do you want to transform within yourself?
What do you want to achieve? Where do you want to go in your life?
What needs to fall away to make this happen, and how does it feel to let go of parts of yourself that need to be released to achieve it?
What do you want to recover within yourself, in your life, and in relationships?
How do you envision your life after this main chapter of transformation? What is your ideal day?
How does it feel in your body to embody this higher vision?
How can you show up for this future vision in this present moment?
In what ways can you express gratitude to your past self and to all the support—human or otherwise—you have received up to this moment? Can you express gratitude for the future support that is yet to be discovered, right now?

Hold It All Lightly

Preparation really can help us move toward what we desire. A simple example is visualizing and mentally rehearsing giving a speech in our minds before we deliver it. 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, so you have to adapt your speech and presentation to work 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.

I bless you on your journey.

Let me know what came up for you 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

If you are preparing for a journey and would like companionship in the process, I offer 1:1 psychedelic preparation and integration support