Greetings Dear Friends!

I hope this newsletter finds you tuning into a strong heart center amidst quite the storm of happenings in our country and world.  Today I have written a reflection below for you about how psychedelics when paired with mindfulness can be a supportive ally in that quest for balance and peace despite whatever transpires on the external landscape.  This newsletter also features a podcast on the importance of nervous system regulation with psychedelics, research findings on the efficacy of psychedelics when used for relationship healing, how to move through recalled trauma that arises in a journey experience, and wisdom from one of my favorite teachers Freya from Norway on the messy reality of genuine healing.  I hope you find it all supportive! And once again, thank you for joining me on this journey of the heart. 

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The path of psychedelic medicine is not about fixing what is broken – it’s about embracing the innate wholeness that has always been there inside of you.  It’s about recognizing the inherent goodness, worthiness, power and agency that rests at the heart of your essential nature – through the compassionate healing of inner wounds created through trauma – while integrating fragments of self that have been splintered along the way.  These fragments are what the late Carl Jung often referred to as shadow.  Defined as: Repressed emotions, impulses and aspects of personality that have been denied or disowned, including both negative and positive qualities.  When these aspects of the psyche remain in the unconscious, and aren’t consciously brought into the light of awareness through intention and support, they hold immense power to hijack our mindset in dramatic ways sabotaging progress and creating disruption in many key aspects of life and relationship.

Yet its important to recognize the medicine is only a powerful catalyst and ally toward unearthing these subconscious wounds and shadows. Not the whole of the work itself. It supports insight, clarity and choice oriented shifts through the power of revelation, deep intuitive knowing, somatic experiencing and other powerful mechanisms of healing. It also creates a plastic (fluid) inner ecosystem where enduring changes can be made with greater support.  But ultimately it is up to you – the journeyer – to say YES to life and choose the wholeness that is your inherent birthright to integrate as a lifestyle.  This is why my programs, whether group or individual, spend a lot of time building positive habits, tools and devotional practices to heal and grow before and after the Rites of Passage immersive experience.  So the agency is held by you who then courageously decides to move into alliance with the ancient plant/fungi technology toward the embodiment of your true SELF. This is the great gift of the medicine when paired with an intentional mindfulness path. You can use the medicine to shine a light on the beauty that is already there while then using tools & practices to support both the letting go and integration of aspects of psyche splintered along the way that no longer serve your deepest truth.

Right now, every facet of our civilization is undergoing a state of unprecedented change.  It doesn’t take long when watching the news, scrolling social media or even just having a casual conversation with a friend or family member that the each one of us is getting challenged at a fundamental level as to how we choose to show up in Life while dealing with a seemingly endless onslaught of disruptive circumstances.  Finding solid ground is elusive at best, and navigating using the same old problem solving techniques the mind so steadily relied on in the past often feels woefully inadequate.  If you are feeling this way right now, like a ship out in a stormy sea knowing that turning back “to the way things were” is not an option but also feeling unsure where you’re going or when you may arrive at a new shore – you are not alone.  This liminal space, albeit it an often deeply uncomfortable one, is an essential part of the self-realization and healing process.  Finding true peace with a fully resourced center amidst the storm is the greatest means to empower the life you came here to live no matter what the outside world has in store. This path can be daunting to say the least, especially to a mind built to resist radical change. But it is more harrowing than living within the same fear based wounded patterns that have created so much suffering and confusion in the first place?

So I invite you to say yes to the mystery.  Yes to the unknown depths of the self.  Yes to your inherent right to live and thrive in a wholeness that cannot be given or taken away, only chosen again and again within.  The path is not easy, but in my humble opinion walking this journey for most of my life, it is the only way toward lasting joy, contentment and sense of deeper meaning.  For why else would we be here save becoming the most dynamic, sovereign, authentic expressions of our true creative nature?  If you feel the call to step onto this path of wholeness, or deepen an arc you have already begun, I am here with an open heart to serve as an ally, mentor, facilitator or friend.  There comes a time where living halfway no longer feels tolerable. When the suffering that comes from feeling a victim of life or realizing you were never really in control in the first place leads one to the altar of the inner heart.  And it is at this point when the hands are thrown up and the mind releases the reigns that true lasting change becomes possible.  This is the way home; and integration begins by saying yes to all that has been hidden, wounded or lost along the great odyssey of life. Yes to paradox. Yes to the beauty of both the light and shadow.  And Yes to choosing to LIVE with a loving heart filled with childlike wonder no matter what lessons this unfathomably powerful Earth School holds.  A willingness with intention is the first step.  The second step is letting go of who you think you are to discover who you truly are.

Sincerely, 
Ehren

Art By Jay Coby