Walls & Ladders
Psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers. That’s a fancy way of saying they can and will stir up big things you likely cannot predict. Unexpected powerful feelings that range from the euphoric to the horrific are routinely generated or intensified in psychedelic journeys. But this isn’t a bad thing. With sufficient attention to set/setting/sitting before and during a journey, and then with necessary commitments to integration afterwards, the big stuff received in non-ordinary states of consciousness—even the hard stuff experienced in so-called “bad trips”—can lead to transformational insights about one’s life and place in the universe. The lesson here is pretty simple: If something’s being amplified, it wants to be heard.
Most of us, however, are rarely well prepared to do the kind of listening that’s required after a psychedelic journey. We’re busy. We have jobs and family and responsibilities and chores, plus there’s a whole world of temptations and distractions to prevent us from tending the things that have stirred our consciousness. Nuance, complexity, subtlety, and ineffability don’t lend themselves to tasklists, so they often get neglected. That’s why, to truly hear the things that psychedelics amplify, you gotta put in the work. And like anything, you’ll get out of it what you put into it. Sidenote: coaches can be game-changers here!
The exercises below are designed to name and overcome some key barriers people often experience in their attempts to integrate powerful psychedelic experiences into their day-to-day. They’re not intended to be exhaustive, and they are certainly not designed to address serious psychosocial problems that can arise post-journey (which require psychotherapy from a licensed mental health professional); instead they are offered as a sort of starter list of relatively minor barriers to integration. These barriers, or “walls” as I am calling them here, are the blockages people often confront when faced with big, amplified experiences that don’t lend themselves to easy application in our regular waking hours. And the “ladders” are specific ways to surmount those walls to sustain momentum, prioritize learning and being, and facilitate personal transformation. Each wall is presented in condensed form as a thing you might have said to yourself or someone else, followed by a brief description and then some ladders. The thing to remember: where there’s a wall, there’s a ladder.
