How guided psychedelic treatments aid in personal growth and self-discovery
Mar 28, 2024
Psychedelics, or plant medicine, for healing trauma are all the buzz these days, yet they remain a mystery to so many of us.
I had my first psychedelic experience (a guided ceremony with a healer) at the age of 52 (if you don’t count that “unbeknownst to me” experience in university where I drank “tea” at a party and spent the whole night hiding in the bedroom under all the coats).
Fast-forward three decades, and my life was upside down. I felt out of alignment with who I was as a person and what I was meant to be doing—nothing felt good anymore. I was working all the time, and all the joy and happiness were zapped out of me despite “having it all” on paper.
I was invited to a retreat in Costa Rica by a client who raved about her experience with Ayahuasca. I had no idea what Ayahuasca was, even after spending time googling it. My client showed me pictures of barf buckets and mattresses, and somehow, I still didn’t connect the dots—probably a good thing. But I trusted her, so I went anyway, saying to myself, “How bad can it be?”
That week changed my entire life! I left that retreat feeling, for the first time in years, whole and complete. I felt good in my own skin, with a deep sense of joy, zero anxiety about the future and a renewed sense of self.
Those feelings manifested in me many months afterward and spread to my work, my family, my kids...and I often heard: "Odette, you seem different, happier...what did you do?"
Having many experiences since then with various plant medicines for my own healing, I have a deep gratitude and respect for the plants. It's a relationship that is being cultivated between us; they work in layers and have an innate knowing of where you are, what you need and what you can handle.
What are the healing benefits of plant medicines?
In our culture and day-to-day living, when something comes up (fears, doubts, challenging memories, grief, sadness, etc.), we tend to suppress and repress those feelings or try to distract ourselves from them because we don’t want to feel them. And why is that? Because those feelings hurt and don’t feel good. Sometimes we even numb these emotions with anti-depressants, alcohol or drugs.
But here’s the thing—the more we try to avoid these feelings, the longer they stick around…and live in our bodies. They show up as stress, anxiety or disease.
For us to be free of these challenges and traumas, we need to be with them (not relive them by any means, but not suppress them either).
Plant medicine in a guided session allowed for the processing of these emotions at the core level, not with our thinking mind, and that's where the healing occurs. They say a day with plant medicines in a guided ceremony is like a decade or two of talk therapy.
During these guided ceremonies, we are held in a loving and supported container and can more easily process those feelings. In the plant-medicine world when something is coming up, it’s because it’s ready to be healed. The trauma emotions are processed out of our bodies and released...and healed.
What are the healing benefits of psilocybin?
Indigenous tribes have used mushrooms for centuries for healing. They provide very powerful insights and messages by teaming up with our inner healer and working in our psyche, beyond our thinking mind.
Most of us rely so heavily on our thinking mind that we forget we have our intuition, our heart and our soul to help us process and heal trauma or challenges. We have become a “heady” overthinking, overanalyzing, need-to-be-in-control society and largely an under-feeling, numbed-out society.
Mushrooms show us what is ready to be healed and released and never give you more than you can handle. They can be firm, giving you what you need and not always what you want. They provide valuable insight and shares it with you—kind of like an honest friend who loves you dearly and wants nothing more than to see you happy but knows you need to hear the truth.
Despite all this beauty, I only recommend that someone do this work with a trained facilitator in a guided ceremony. You want to embark on this journey in a safe and loving container with someone who is both experienced in doing their own healing work using medicine as well as trained in holding space for others.
If you’re interested in joining me (and Alana) on a soul journey retreat in Costa Rica this spring, click here for more information. If you want some more information about the work that I do, you can check out my website.
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Odette Peek is a psychedelic integration coach and guide. She holds a degree in Clinical and Social Psychology, and a diploma in Social Service work, with a varied scope of experience. In her work at Spiritual Alliance, Odette draws on integrative, holistic approaches such as mind-body therapy, relational and family counselling and mindfulness, and she has extensive experience in guiding and supporting her clients with challenging circumstances such as interpersonal conflict, trauma, grief, anxiety and depression.
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