Ayahuasca is an amazing and transformative plant medicine, and it’s helped countless people heal, grow and become better versions of themselves. However, it is not an easy path.

The medicine challenges us on many levels by its very nature. The intensity of the visionary state can be overstimulating on a raw sensory level. Purging is often a difficult and physically painful process. Revisiting traumatic memories can be emotionally overwhelming. Facing parts of ourselves that we don’t like and don’t want to see can be psychologically challenging. And ego-dissolution experiences with Ayahuasca can be terrifying. 

I have spent the better part of the last 20 years exploring different approaches to psycho-emotional healing and personal transformation. While I initially trained as a psychotherapist with a mental health orientation, I eventually came to see the need for deeper and more holistic approaches that address the body, mind, heart and spirit.

Integrating an experience with ayahuasca starts way before the ceremony itself. It starts when you first decide you want to work with ayahuasca. The motivation that leads you to make that decision is the first step of integration.

A recently published study that administered ayahuasca to participants with treatment-resistant depression sheds new light on how ayahuasca affects mood and brain chemistry.

Integration is a much talked-about term among users of psychedelics these days, but I have found that for many it is still an abstract or vague concept. It can be hard to wrap one’s head around a process that is multi-dimensional and so deeply personal.

There has been a lot of attention on the Amazonian plant medicine Ayahuasca over the last few years, especially for its therapeutic potential. But, frankly, there has also been a lot of hype. Statements such as “its 10 years of therapy in 1 night” get bandied about a lot.

This article explains how to nurture a deeper relationship with psychedelic plant medicines such as ayahuasca.