Tips on Navigating a “Bad Trip” on Plant Medicines and Psychedelics
There is nothing quite like a dark night of the soul on a mind-numbingly powerful psychotropic medicine. These are the nights most folks fear, so much so many refuse to alter their consciousness to avoid such sordid tales. And oh, are there ever an endless supply of “psychedelics sent me to hell” stories teeming on the interwebs.
Yes, these wild stories of nights that felt like lifetimes brimming with physical pain, purging, sweating, screaming, oozing, and all-out terrifying occurrences are all true, or at the very least possible. But they only tell one teeny tiny part of the story. The scary part, no less.
So let’s demystify these so-called “bad trips” and empower ourselves to know that we are not only able to survive a harrowing experience with Plant Medicines, but we can even learn to drive, work with, and lean in to these journeys as well. We are powerful little beings, we humans, but sometimes we forget how true this is.
This is a reminder, and a list of tools and modalities to use in your next trip through the cosmos.
Why Plant Medicines Take Us to the Darkside
Before we discuss the key ways to handle a romp through celestial chaos, it’s helpful to know why medicines that we tout as healers seem to insist on the occasional trip to hell. It is certainly not the fault of medicines like Ayahuasca and Psilocybin Mushrooms that rough psychedelic experiences exist; if you need to blame someone for the darkness, blame consciousness itself. The ever-intelligent entheogens know that to expand us, we must travel in all directions. Our fragile ego-minds would much prefer we only expand into more love and sing-songy joy, but alas, duality is what it is, and if we want the secrets of the universe, we must intimately know the shadows too.
Plant Medicines take us through this intensity purely out of love and respect. Whether we know it or not, we are asking for these lessons. Just by choosing – on a soul level – to be here in Earth School, we are in essence asking to learn through both suffering, and the purity of grace and love. Since it’s all available, it’s all here to teach us, and our souls don’t care about ease, they care about growth. Expansion. Experience.
You’ve probably heard it said a million times that dark journeys on Ayahuasca, Huachuma, Iboga and crew are in actuality the best ones. That’s a hard concept for our fragile and easy-loving egos to navigate, but that doesn’t stop the profound truth of this reality. Dark nights are such incredible teachers. They stretch us, teach us what we’re made of, and expose parts of our psyches and consciousness that were previously inaccessible. The rough nights are also the most healing ones because the only way we alchemize toxicity and blockages is by going there…full throttle, into our pain bodies, into our primal fears – that’s where the magic happens. So if you’re lucky enough to have a devastatingly difficult journey with Plant Medicines, put your whole being into integrating the confusion, suffering, and lessons, and I promise your life will be vastly improved.
Notice the emphasis on integration; it’s literally the make or break aspect of this work. The harder a journey is, the more crucial integration becomes. If we do not commit ourselves to embodying and grounding in the experience, we might actually relate to it as traumatic instead of healing and enlightening, and that is a tragedy and wasted opportunity. The mind is so tempted to take what is hard and write a victim story around it. Yet when we understand why these events were for our benefit, we can find gratitude and even awe instead. That in itself is profoundly healing. So don’t let yourself spiral out in negativity with a hard night in the astral realms; work with someone who can help you see the divinity of it, the magic, and the blessings. There are few things in our lives that bring more insight and expansion.
How to Turn Hell into Heaven
It’s impossible to know what it’s really going to feel like if a Plant Medicine like Ayahuasca decides it’s your turn to experience your very own version of hell. The mind is always protecting itself, and so the denial that this can ever occur can be staggeringly convincing; until, of course, we find ourselves there. Others are equally convinced that hell awaits in any altered space, but feel powerless about how to do anything but white-knuckle their way through the journey.
Let’s dismiss denial and the self-punishment ideology that prevents us from preparing to visit our shadows. We are powerful enough to make our way through the darkest nights – we do not have to deny they are possible nor succumb to the inevitable. Education and preparation are possible if we just lean-in and commit.
From a personal perspective, I legitimately feel like I have a PhD in handling wildly intense altered spaces. My soul is the type to call them in by the boatload, and it’s been part of my journey to learn how to consciously manifest easy and graceful experiences, as my default mode is balls-to-the-wall. So I humbly and happily share some tips and modalities developed over 20+ years of cosmic travels.
1) Smile at the Darkness
This is the simplest and most potent secret weapon I have. A smile is a game-changer because the body is listening to every subtle response, and a big fat grin is light years better than a crunched down scowl. If we tell ourselves we asked for this experience, the resistance can lighten. You don’t have to fully mean it either. Just plaster one on and fake it till you make it.
2) Posture Matters
Isn’t it interesting that when suffering hits, our instinct is often to fold into fetal, contracting all our muscles and wrapping ourselves into a pretzel. This is literally the worst position we can assume, because this contraction traps the energies and prolongs our misery. Instead, sit up with your spine straight, put your chest out and open your heart. This natural meditation positions allows the energy to move freely, and it will ensure your journey back to the light happens in a much more turbo fashion.
3) Happy Heart Meditation
Derived from the wisdom of the folks that created HeartMath, this is my go-to meditation when I’m in any form of distress and I can’t feel my heart. First, I imagine that my heart has nostrils; that she can literally breathe. I place my hand on my heart and breathe deeply for five counts in, hold for two, and five counts out, hold for two. This brings more of my awareness to my heart, and less focused on the mind that is spinning out in fear. Next, I will call to mind a person, place or experience that brings me a sense of pure love. Quite often, I recall my favorite hammock along the Amazon in the jungle lodge where I first drank Ayahuasca. That feeling of safety and love and joy reignites my heart, and gives me life force to work with as I manage the spike of intensity that the altered space I am in has triggered. I do this when my body is in pain, or when the severe tinnitus I work with spikes, and it helps to soothe and calm my nervous system and open my heart. It’s incredibly, wonderfully powerful.
4) Remember Your Intentions
It is a sacred part of any Plant Medicine ritual to come with sincere, heart-spaced intentions. These don’t just help build a foundation for the medicines themselves to work with, but they are anchors for us as participants if things start to feel out of control. I like to remind folks that if they start to feel that intensity of fear, and that their brains feel tossed into a blender, come back to center by remembering why it is you are having this experience. What is the prayer that brought you to the altar to begin with? Feeling these intentions deeply can help us feel grounded in the midst of a wild ride. It also helps us stay committed to moving through the experience because we desire healing, expansion, insights, etc. And we know the only way out is through.
5) Breathe Baby Breathe
If you’re like me, sometimes the reminder of using my breath to navigate stressful situations ignites an eyeroll, because it seems both too obvious and too simple. And while that is applicable, the truth is, nothing is more powerful than our breath. It’s the one function of the body that is both conscious AND unconscious, in that breathing can be autonomous, or intentional. When we connect with the breath and focus on taking it deep into our core, feeling the support and expansion that happens in our bodies and minds, it is indeed a steering wheel that can takes us back to the present moment. Furthermore, breathwork as a spiritual modality is as equally powerful as Plant Medicine, but often it can feel much safer because we have access to both the accelerator and the break in the altered portal that it creates. So if you’re trying to make your way through a dark night on psychedelics, having a deep connection with your breath can literally steer you right back into comfort, acceptance, and joy. I like to put my hands on my belly as a reminder to bring my breath alllllll the way down into my body. It feels comforting, grounding, and safe. And that is why it’s one of the best ways to make it through a rough ride.
6) Connect with Your Tribe
I’m not talking about phoning a friend on this one, although that is most welcome too; the tribe I’m referring to is the spiritual family we all have but rarely know how to connect with. If there’s one thing I wish everyone could see and know it’s that we are all profoundly supported on the other side. In every ceremony I’ve been blessed to take part in, it’s literally standing room only – the space positively spills over with our ancestors, loved ones, animal spirits, guardian angels, plant friends, and spiritual guides. If each of us spent just a little time each day calling in a conscious connection to our celestial family, we would have easy access to that love and support when the curveballs of life come slamming into our fields. Spiritual support is profoundly real, and equally important. There’s a million ways we can connect with them on the regular, but simply holding this as an intention and communicating with these beings in order to let them in is always the foundation. I don’t ever want to traverse another Dark Night without feeling held by my spiritual tribe. And I don’t want you to feel alone again, either.
7) Access Your Toolkit
It’s a fascinating symptom of anxiety and stress that it often completely disconnects us from the myriad of ways we have to calm ourselves down. Visualizations, meditations, breathing techniques, mindfulness modalities; many of us actually have a myriad of potent tools to pacify an overstimulated nervous system, but fear creates resistance, which in turn hypnotizes us into thinking we are powerless. I watch most folks in a difficult altered journey simply white knuckle their way through, counting the seconds in the hopes that things will lift and they will once again feel OK. In fact, part of the divine teachings of a dark night on Plant Medicines is to discover what we’re made of, and how capable we are to navigate difficulties in a graceful and grounded way. But to do this successfully, we need to be committed to two key points:
#1 – When life is flowing in a pleasing way, we must dedicate ourselves to building our toolkit, in whatever way we are called. Whether it’s deep relationships with plant spirits, crystals, mantras, spirit tribe, breathing techniques, visualizations, animal totem connections – the list is endless! – it’s best to deepen the intimacy of these relationships and the potency they carry when we are not in the paralysis of fear. If we wait until the dark night swoops in, we won’t have much gusto nor a strong foundation to rely upon. So taking the time to empower ourselves with the tools and beings we resonate with is essential before the darkness descends.
#2 – We also must fundamentally trust that the darkness is there to teach us, to shape us, and to empower us; not to destroy us. If we approach any challenge with the perspective that we are victims, and powerless at that, we have a way of making that true. Of course, if we approach a dark ride with optimism and curiosity, and a toolkit full of modalities, a romp through hell can become a heavenly experience too. We really are powerful beings, we humans, we just have to realize what lies within.
The Bad Trips are Actually The Best Trips
There really are no “bad” trips on psychotropic medicines, only difficult ones. But my goodness do we all have the capacity to navigate these curveballs with oodles of grace and empowerment! It just takes time to develop these relationships and skills, so that when it’s our turn to visit the dark side, we’ve got techniques, allies, and a big bursting toolkit just waiting to support us in the journey. Dedicate yourself to deepening any practice of grounded protection, and you’ll be exceedingly grateful to your past self when these ninja skills are needed.
Go forth and have joyful and empowering journeys!
About the Author
Tina “Kat” Courtney is an 18 year veteran of Plant Medicines, and a traditionally trained Ayahuasquera and Huachumera, and the author of Plant Medicine Mystery School Vol 1: The Superhero Healing Powers of Psychotropic Plants. Kat is a pioneer in the Psychedelic Integration space. Her coaching expertise includes existential and spiritual crises, interpretation of plant communications, navigating the darkness and a dark night of the soul, and the integration of all major plant medicines and psychedelics. Kat is also a certified Death Doula honored to help people make peace with the inevitable and beautiful transition into the afterlife. She has spent her adult life cultivating a bonded and trusting relationship with the darkness, and she’d love to help you do the same.
