The market is very lopsided. There is a lot of supply and thus a plethora of possibilities to make psychedelic experiences but very little qualified people that help to integrate those peak experiences. Also, the market is pretty opaque and tilted towards offering almost anything you can imagine but often those consuming the medicine can’t handle the impact it creates.
In as much as we both are strong proponents of the inherent wisdom of psychedelics and both are very grateful for the impact the work with these plants has made in our own healing journeys, in this podcast we want to shed a critical light on quite a couple of things we recognize often not being reflected in the market.
Enjoy a critical yet appreciate ride through psychedelic assisted psychotherapy:
- Why medicine is not the answer!
- More medicine is not the answer!
- There’s a lot of different medicines out there. Choose wisely!
- The medicine is but a catalyst. You need to do the work.
- Be aware – set, setting, dose make a huge difference.
- It’s all about the integration in your everyday life.
- How can we ensure peak experiences not leading to hyper narcissistic inflated egos?
Alexander is Founder of wellbeing start-up ESSENTIA Retreats and host of German-English podcast Journeys, sharing weekly discussions on the renaissance of psychedelics, their potential for mental health and holistic wellbeing alongside other important modalities, the frontiers along which science and spirituality meet and the bio-psycho-social mechanisms underpinning trauma.
Prior to this, Alexander spent over a decade building a career in the highly pressurised corporate world of IT sales with global players like IBM and Informatica, before quitting at the height of his success, unfulfilled and feeling that something fundamental was missing.
A year out to reflect ended in Peru at an ayahuasca retreat, which forced him to turn and face emotional pain he’d suppressed for years. It marked the beginning of his journey towards connection with self, truth and purpose.
Why didn’t more people know about these powerful healing tools, especially in his home country, Germany? And why are they so stigmatised? He left the retreat with a clear mission: to bring information about these medicines to as wide a German audience as he could reach and, hopefully, many more beyond. His Journeys podcast was born less than a year later, and his guests now include scientists, psychotherapists, bodyworkers, CEOs, spiritual teachers, retreat facilitators and others like him working with plant medicines.
ESSENTIA was founded on the belief that every guest committed to their own healing will, in turn, heal families and communities, ultimately effecting wider healing in the collective.
https://psychedelische-retreats.com/
