Resistance and the Psychedelic Experience

Psychedelic therapy is often related to 10 years of therapy in 10 hours. Indeed, we've seen the profound metamorphosis that unfolds, transcending the boundaries of personal growth our participants have been working on for years, all achieved in a handful of transformative sessions. With such remarkable power, however, comes an awesome responsibility.

What is often missed in the psychedelic community is the attention given to the amplification of anything one is feeling before going into the psychedelic experience. Something that we track is resistance to what is. In the early days of Ceremonia, we had a workshop that was derived from well-known anger release practices. In one of these, we asked the participant to tune into the energy of anger and then start to yell or hit pillows to express that anger in a healthier way than suppressing or projecting resentment or stories in the body.

What we quickly discovered is that the mere suggestion to feel anger when it was not already present invited a state change that was inorganic. We unknowingly facilitated resistance in many of the participants. Now, this state is very subtle. In a therapeutic context, there could still be value to this experience. After a few rounds of hitting a pillow or yelling into one's hands, that anger can be felt. But the performative nature subtly hints to the individual that whatever it is they are feeling at that moment is not the right thing to feel. Instead, they're asked to feel something different–in this case, anger.

In a sense, this resistance to what is is no different than childhood where our parents would say, "don't cry" or "don't be angry." We would learn to mute our emotions in service of presenting to the world something that we are currently not. We are asked to suppress whatever we are feeling. In other words, to not allow what is and to feel something totally differently.

The fascinating issue here is that resistance is resistance. Unlike the many permutations of emotions–from anger to joy to love to sadness–resistance is a quality that generates a "no." It's not a quality; resistance is a category in which other emotions or bodily sensations fall. Resistance can be felt as contraction or pressure or heat or dissociation in the body. Emotionally, resistance is effectively a state of non-peace and non-surrender.

When this is taken into the psychedelic experience, that resistance can manifest as resistance to what the medicine is attempting to show us. This resistance to what is can be amplified, leading participants to resist their present experience instead of surrendering into it. In other words, what our mind is attempting to show ourselves. When our protective layers are relaxed in a psychedelic experience, that resistance can then generate additional protectors, thus creating a barrier. It is the foundation of what many call a “bad trip” or what can often lead to bypassing–the ignorance of what we are feeling and the disempowerment of ourselves to be with our own feelings.

Unfortunately, this paradigm is present in many types of facilitation in many types of plant medicine ceremonies and organizations. There is often the suggestion that choosing love and feeling grateful is the answer to life's problems. While we agree that this is the appropriate endpoint, the speed and process at which we arrive at love is really the determinant of whether we are naturally allowing, accepting, and transmuting our challenges to love or merely negating what we are feeling in the form of spiritual bypassing. If one is feeling guilt, or anger, or fear and immediately jumps to choosing love, the act of quickly engaging a higher state of consciousness that is actually based in falsehood. We are subtly avoiding the underlying emotion.

For example, we have seen many facilitators walk participants through a forgiveness exercise, often in the form of a meditation of envisioning someone who has hurt us and then forgiving them in our mind’s eye. In fact, in our early days, we did the same thing. But sometimes, before we forgive somebody, we need to allow ourselves to feel angry first. Maybe we need to feel the shame of our own actions in order to forgive ourselves. We need to give ourselves the permission to allow the emotions that we've hidden underneath our protective layers that we've suppressed, avoided, and projected to come forth. Otherwise, they continue to be lodged in our body, causing illness and resentment.

This work is extraordinarily delicate and requires a fine level of attunement. Especially in groups, the task becomes even more delicate because a facilitator needs to have the capacity to attune not only to an individual's level of resistance, but also to group coherence. This is a topic we will explore in a future Sunday service newsletter.

Ultimately, the solution is to allow for whatever it is we are feeling and invite a state change informed by the latest research in healing trauma: to voluntarily relive an experience while choosing a different outcome. In other words, for an individual to experience the trigger in their full agency, then respond consciously instead of react. We use exercises like trigger sculpting where an individual puts themselves in a triggering situation and then notices in their body what they are experiencing. This workshop includes two people: one who is the sculptor and one who is the clay.

The sculptor shapes the clay into their trigger, demonstrating the body language, the tone of voice, the words, the actions that their trigger might say. For example, an individual's trigger might be a parent who interrupts them and judges them for how they lead their lives. Once the sculptor puts themselves in this situation and the clay does the action, 100% of the time the individual feels something in their body, usually some sensation of anger or grief. There's always some level of resistance to what is actually being engaged in.

At this stage, they are voluntarily reliving the experience. But the choice that they get to make is to feel the anger or grief or whatever it is they are feeling, then release or express it in a healthier way. This very same action that we facilitated in an early journey was performative; now, it is voluntary and organic.

This methodology is core to Ceremonia's program to facilitate a greater capacity and attunement to what is. It demands of our facilitators to have the same embodiment and attunement to ensure that participants are not forced into something that they would not otherwise choose themselves. Only in this way can we train our psyche to meet challenges with consciousness, rather than resistance.