The Mysterious World of Psychedelic Intentions
One of my teachers, David Newman, said, "Whenever I pray for patience, God gives me traffic." I love this because it's true in daily life and doubly true in our psychedelic intention setting. I love to relay this bit of wisdom to my coaching clients. It tempers expectations. People sometimes expect that when they set an intention, there will be a direct correlation to the experience they have. That if they declare, "I am totally open to give and receive love," that somehow guarantees several hours of ecstatic devotion and communion. I mean, it might. It's Awesome when it turns out that way. But as Mos Def reminds us (below), "Life is not promised". Anything can happen, and it usually does. So where does this put us? Why set intentions at all if the experience is going to unfold in an unpredictable way anyway?
Reorienting the mind to take advantage of our own suggestibility.
Science has confirmed what Patanjali spoke about in the Yoga Sutras. In Sutra 1.14, it's written, "sa tu dīrghakāla nairantarya satkāra-ādara-āsevito dr̥ḍhabhūmiḥ" which means, "Success in yoga occurs when one practices (1) consistently, (2) over a long period of time, (3) with the right attitude." Looking at the research around neuroplastic change, the principles are the same. Whether you're training the body, mind, or spirit (and what's the difference, really), Patanjali's plan works.
When people come to this work, they often want to change their thinking—from fear to confidence, apathy to love, confusion to clarity. (While we're referencing ancient texts, we could note that these desires are basically the lines of the Pavamana Mantra.)
People come to this work because they've recognized that their problems are due to mental habits. For example, Fear is, simply put, the habit of thinking scary thoughts and feeling the response that follows. We're the architects of our own suffering. As such, it's our responsibility to architect our way out of it and into happiness. Intentions help us to do just that. We come up with a potently powerful phrase that affirms how we hope to grow. If we can contemplate it with sincerity, it might just start competing for shelf space with those old nasties that have been whispering in our ears all these years. If that starts to happen, we might even start believing it, and if that starts to happen, we might start defaulting to this newly expanded positivity, both in and out of the ceremony.
We all know that psychedelics make us suggestible, so we might as well use it to our advantage. Our intentions can take us on a wild adventure of self-inception, layers upon layers, and dreams within dreams, and carefully planned out to convince ourselves once and for all that we're worthy of love.
Finding all the barriers
This process will not be without struggle. There might be an epic showdown. The old thoughts might kick and scream. They might get really loud. We might think that it's the molecule yelling at us; people often confuse parts of themselves they'd rather not own with plant teachers. But this is why the intention is so valuable. If we remember it in the moment, we have a chance to push back against criticism or confusion. We have a chance to watch it crumble and dissolve. It reminds me of the mystic poet Rumi, who seems to understand.
He said, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
He makes it sound so beautiful, but it can be very intense work. It's a bit easier if we know to expect it.
Contextualizing for integration
If the journey is hard and confusing, we can recall our intention. It might be the case that our journey has given us a magical mystery tour of all the barriers within us. Realizing this can make it a lot easier to make sense of it all. Even if we don't have the ability to be present with everything that comes at us in the session itself, we can still attend to it with understanding afterward.
If this is how it has played out, we see that the ceremony is just the beginning. Sometimes, the session is just the process of taking inventory. We get a clear picture of where we are, and then we work with that. We steadily, over time, and with a positive attitude, remove the blocks.
We continue, and perhaps, the intention becomes a commitment, it becomes a path.
I love this topic, and I'm going to be discussing this live on Tuesday, June 8th at 8pm Eastern. You can join here.
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Tuesday, June 18th, 8pm
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