Engagement — the Missing Component in Psychedelic Therapy
At 7:00 am on July 4, 2023, Olympic runner Senbere Teferi started the Peachtree Road 10-kilometer Race.
Teferi had prepared for the race. This wasn’t her first. Teferri won the Peachtree Road 10-kilometer Race in 2022. She knew how to train. The road race followed the same route that she conquered the previous year. She was prepared.
Teferi has integrated racing. She was (and is) a professional runner: a two-time Olympian, two-time world championship silver medalist, and the 5K world record holder for a women-only race. Racing was integrated.
Yet, Teferi lost the 2023 Peachtree 10K. How? Only meters away from the finish line, Teferi became confused and followed a police motorcycle when it turned off the course. She told CBS News that it was a “mental mistake.” Teferi lost her focus and made a wrong turn. Her lack of engagement cost her. She lost.
You don’t want to pour all this effort into preparation only to make a wrong turn on the day of your psychedelic experience.
You need a clear, focused roadmap: an engagement plan.
Four Factors that Increase Engagement with Psychedelic Experiences
Intention is about the “why.” Engagement is about the “how.” The first two factors, environment and knowledge, are preparation concepts that psychedelic coaches or therapists talk about. However, most coaches and therapists completely overlook the last two other factors. Preparation is key in each area:
1. Environment — not just by minimizing distractions but making sure that the environment is conducive to deep exploration of a psychedelic experience
2. Knowledge — the more you know about psychedelics and therapeutic psychedelic experiences, the greater your engagement
3. Equanimity (psychological flexibility) — maintaining balance during the psychedelic experience — not chasing an expectation and not fighting the experience as it unfolds
4. “Race Day” strategies — remind and support you of your intention, your focus, and your goal
My upcoming publication, the “Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty-Days to Engagement,” is loaded with journal prompts to help you increase your equanimity / psychological flexibility. It also details a meditation practice that will help you not get distracted and possibly hijacked by thoughts that pop into your mind (and hence become more psychologically flexible). You will also design a plan for educating yourself about psychedelics and create a Safety Plan focused on the environment that addresses both your physical and mental well-being.
What is left is a “Race Day” strategy to help you stay focused on your intention and avoid making any wrong turns. The rest of this post focuses on race day strategies.
Race Day Strategies
🗹 Memorize your intention: make it a mantra. Your goal is to create a rote familiarity, like knowing the alphabet or the lyrics to a song.
🗹 Accountable support from your Trip Sitter: ask your Trip Sitter to remind you of your intention throughout your psychedelic experience. They can ask you to restate your intention.
🗹 Visual reminders of your intention: create a vision board, an inspirational focal point with pictures — less than five pictures. More pictures could end up being distracting.
🗹 Environmental Cues: use objects in your environment (e.g., a specific plant; a statue; a tchotchke — a small, cheap, ornamental trinket or souvenir; a knickknack) as a reminder.
🗹 Wearable reminders: a new-to-you bracelet or ring that you get specifically for your psychedelic experience.
Wearable reminders work best because they are always with you. The difficulty with vision/inspiration boards and environmental cues is that they are static — if you get up and leave that space, you leave that reminder.
Combining a wearable reminder with an effort to memorize your intention “charges” that item.
Here is how to “charge” a bracelet or ring:
1. Hold the bracelet or a ring in your fingers / hand, look at it then and say out loud:
● “This (ITEM) represents my intention to X,” OR
● “This (ITEM) reminds me to focus on X.”
Endeavor to experience the feeling / emotion associated with successfully aligning with your intention. Imagine your success as you hold and look at the item.
2. Do this 3–5 times a day for 10 days, and the item will begin to take on significance.
✰✰✰ Combining a wearable reminder that is charged with accountability support from your Trip Sitter takes engagement one step further (all your Trip Sitter needs to ask is, “What is the significance of the (ITEM) you are wearing?”
Don’t make a mental mistake during your therapeutic psychedelic experience. Develop your equanimity / psychological flexibility and use a Race Day Strategy.
