The Three Stages of the Journey to Wholeness

A powerful spiritual or life experience, such as a psychedelic journey or ceremony creates an opportunity for powerful integration of new ideas, feelings, and self-understanding. A deliberate approach to this integration process can be quite impactful for those of us looking to evolve by bringing our pre and post experience selves together into wholeness.

You have just gone through a powerful experience, such as a psychedelic ceremony or journey. Holy shit, right? If you’re anything like me, you’re feeling, asking, and thinking about things that you’ve never felt, questioned, or thought before. It’s a lot. 

In my own integration process, I am working to help myself accept the magnitude of what I went through while also having compassion for myself by trying to simplify how to work through it all. What I have learned is that balance and alignment doesn’t just happen. It takes a deliberate effort. Much like anything in life, we don’t learn from experiences; we learn from evaluating experiences. 

What I have been able to come up with, for myself, is three stages of what I am calling “The Journey to Wholeness.” This framework has helped me both prepare my mind and soul for what was to come, but also set my own expectations, as best as possible, for the mindset needed to process my experience. It has allowed me to bring together spiritual learnings with my emotional understanding and physical existence. 

I hope it may do the same for you.

Wake Up

Acceptance

Stage one is simple, yet certainly not easy. Waking up to the beauty of new perspectives and being ready to do some work. For me, at first, this was quite difficult. I was overwhelmed with new information, didn’t want to squander the opportunity to learn, and also didn’t know where to start. Like many others, I felt so many different things, all at once. It was beautiful and illuminating, but also confusing and bewildering to discern between what I had known and what I now knew.

Waking up is my directive to a mindset that aims to remove my fears and doubts and come to a place of acceptance. This would mean deliberately slowing down for an examination of my belief systems and programming. It is in this acceptance of self, of experience, and of possibility, that creates the foundation for the work to come.

Commitment

With the potential of expanded awareness and consciousness, following a psychedelic experience, commitment to revering this gift with deliberate work to integrate is essential. This is the journey to wholeness, after all, and this commitment to ourselves the first step on the path of integrity. The path to growth.

Psychedelics have the potential to provide profound insights and epiphanies about oneself, relationships, and the nature of reality. After the experience, we may carry these insights with us, leading to a shift in perspective, values, and priorities. This shift can only happen deliberately, even with the powerful increased sense of curiosity and openness that is possible after a psychedelic journey. 

We may find ourselves questioning conventional norms, seeking new knowledge, and exploring alternative perspectives. This mindset can foster personal growth and a deeper exploration of life’s many wisdoms and mysteries, if done deliberately.

Show Up

Now that we are committed, it’s time to show up and do the work. In this stage, we begin with engaging in reflection and deliberate practices to make sense of the experience and its impact on our lives. Reflect on the insights, emotions, and perceptions that arose during the journey, and consider how they relate to your beliefs, values, and goals. We can look for ways to apply the wisdom gained from the experience to your daily life and relationships.

Intention

First, it is important we set aside dedicated time for contemplation and self-inquiry. Here, we ask questions about the meaning and implications of the experience, explore how these experiences align with our values, beliefs, and personal goals. Allow yourself to dive deeper into the insights and revelations that arose during the journey. 

From here, we can begin to set an intention for what we want to see happen on our wholeness journey. Do we want to use the experience to foster better relationships with important people in our lives? Do we want to start working on a more fulfilling vocational or career path? What about building healthier connections to ourselves or our environment?

We can begin to hone on on our intentions using meditation or mindfulness practices to cultivate a state of present-moment awareness. It is here we can identify the most powerful emotions and insights for a better understanding of self and immediate thought patterns. Mindfulness practices can also help us stay grounded and centered during the integration process, while we process the overwhelming information from the waking up process.

Tools

The most common way to hone in on intention is by using a journal. I don’t know where I would have been without my journal in the 12 hours following my experience, and then in the weeks to follow as I worked to show up. We write down our thoughts, feelings, and observations about the psychedelic experience to best reflect on the things we felt, saw, and realized during the journey. On these pages, we can identify any recurring themes or patterns that emerged, as a tool for self-reflection and self-discovery.

It will also be important to get out of mind and into body, during our showing up process. Embodiment is a vital element in the grounding process, to integrate the wisdom and create the space necessary for integrating our intentions. 

To do this, we can use creative outlets, such as art, music, dance, or writing, to express and explore your experiences. Creativity and the free expression of finding flow can provide a means for processing emotions, capturing the essence of our journey, and integrating the insights into tangible forms. 

Exercise and movement practices can also be powerful ways of being in our bodies during the wholeness process. This isn’t something I advise in the first day or two after ceremony, as your body and mind have some recovering to do. However, sooner rather than later, we can start incorporating walks or comfortable forms of movement back into our integration routines. Movement is critical to the way we ground and find healthy ways of getting out of our mind and into a state of embodiment of our experience. 

Support

In addition to the practices we take on for ourselves, it can also be beneficial to connect with others as a part of the journey to wholeness. As the community of plant medicine supporters and spiritual practitioners grows, integration circles and support groups, where you can share your experiences with others who have had similar journeys, are becoming more available. These groups can provide a safe and supportive environment for discussing your insights, challenges, and questions. They offer the opportunity to receive feedback, gain new perspectives, and feel connected with a community.

Within these groups, we typically encounter people who have dedicated their lives to helping others along their wholeness journey. Whether a therapist, coach, or counselor, these professionals can provide guidance, support, and a structured framework for the integration process (see above for example). They can help us navigate challenges, explore the deeper meanings of your experiences, and develop strategies for incorporating the insights into our lives.

Remember that the integration process is unique to each individual, and there is no right or wrong way to approach it. It is a personal journey of self-discovery and growth. The key is to stay patient and compassionate with ourselves, allow the process to unfold naturally, and honor our own timing and needs.

Rise Up

The last stage of the Journey to Wholeness is rising up to what we’ve committed to and begun to practice with action. Implementing lifestyle changes enables us to use the insights and lessons from the psychedelic experience into your daily life by taking conscious action within our lives. This can involve adjustments in areas such as self-care, relationships, habits, and personal goals. 

We use this stage to combine our new awakened self (Wake up) with the practices of our post-experience intentions (Show up) to make the necessary changes in our life. This is how we honor the way the experience has influenced our values, priorities, and sense of purpose. We align our actions and choices with the newfound awareness and intentions that emerged during and after the journey to create the balance we seek.

Growth

We now have the intention and tools to embrace a mindset of lifelong learning and personal growth. Deliberately engaging in activities that expand our knowledge, skills, and perspectives can lead us to the purpose and meaning-filled lives we seek. We can continue to learn by exploring topics of interest, read books, attend workshops, or participate in courses that align with curiosity and personal development goals.

As we experienced in the immediate work after the psychedelic journey, the ability to reflect on the values and sense of purpose that emerged is a skill that can be continuously powerful in every day life as well. The work is to seek wholeness and integrity by continuously asking, “How can I align my life choices, career, and daily actions with these values?” 

With the question being asked frequently, it becomes much easier to identify and come across opportunities to engage in meaningful work, volunteer activities, or projects that align to that integral way of being.

Self-Care 

With the tools and support in hand, self-care activities that nurture our well-being, such as more deliberately getting enough sleep, eating nutritious foods, engaging in regular exercise, and practicing relaxation techniques, can now become a valued part of life. This would also include a more regular dedication to mindfulness practices, journaling, or meditation into our daily routine to support mental and emotional well-being.

Connection

Finally, part of the rising up process will be to find ways to deepen our connection with nature, the environments we live in, and the people who matter to us. With all of this reflection work, relationships, and how they align with your values and intentions, will be a popular topic for lifestyle adjustment. How are we being complicit in the circumstances we say we don’t want? Are we deliberately working on our own nervous system to improve how we communicate and listen?

This is an opportunity to add gratitude and empathy into daily practice. It is in this time we can more deliberately seek to cultivate meaningful connections and surround ourselves with individuals who support our growth and well-being.

Naturally, these powerful experiences with medicine that comes from nature will inspire desire to spend time in natural settings, practice environmental stewardship, and develop a sense of appreciation for the natural world. 

We typically reflect more deeply on our consumption habits and how they align with your values. These may include conscious choices regarding the products you purchase, the food you eat, and the media you engage with, but it also applies to the energy being spent in other connections and activities. In this time, we can ask ourselves, “What activities or connections give me energy?” “What might I be doing that is taking my energy away?” 

It is in these “faucets” and “drains” of our life that we can begin to engage more deeply or set more boundaries, where necessary. This is a topic we will explore more in a future post.

The Lifelong Journey

It’s important to note that the Journey to Wholeness is an ongoing process that will extend well beyond the immediate period following the psychedelic experience. Waking up, showing up, and rising up is a way to honor the sacred journey you experienced by reciprocating with the work necessary to incorporate nature’s most beautiful tools.

Be patient and allow time for the results of this process to unfold. Remember to approach the integration process with self-compassion, curiosity, and an open mind. Implementing lifestyle changes is a gradual process and there are many people out there who love to help these journeys along in a powerful and informed way. 

Patience, compassion, presence, and acceptance with ourselves will be the greatest allies as we navigate this journey of wholeness and integrity to a place of meaning, purpose, and connection.