It is important to understand psychological patterns and functions in your own life-running system. How do you operate? How do you choose to behave? Is there an autopilot? When do you act out of past wounds? When are you projecting? What are your filters of perception in certain moments in life? Which are your limiting beliefs and where do they come from? How are you conditioned by family/society etc.? How are you in relationships? Which tendencies of attachment categories do you have?
Having a basic idea about your own psychological map I think is important to take responsibility for your own healing and growth.
Holding in awareness your own psychological setup is necessary to take responsibility for your behavior. If you have an understanding you can create space to choose to change patterns and responses.
Not to forget that you can learn to create a truly compassionate relationship towards yourself and with all the parts in you supported by a deep understanding of why you are as you are.
At the same time, I want to make a clear point that I don´t want to psychologize the work and processes we experience with Plant Medicine!!
These days more and more people are interested in plant medicine. Many of them see the work just only through the lens of therapy and psychology.
This is very limiting and harmful in my way of seeing.
A few years ago there was a big topic about "spiritual bypassing", so it made sense for me to bring psychological understanding into the spiritual work. Yes for sure!!
It all belongs together in understanding the unlimitedness of the universe within and out there.
Nowadays it seems there is this wave of "I´m a therapist and for this reason, I can hold space for people who go through deep processes with strong Plant Teachers".
Or even: I can serve plant medicine because I studied psychology or other therapeutic tools.
For me, this is very limiting. It hurts and it is a clear sign how much knowledge is missing if this is the way where the movement with Plant medicine goes.
Having psychological knowledge is important and there is much more to know about energies, other dimensions, forces, spirits, certain energy movements, and how plant intelligences and consciousness might offer healing or might offer new perspectives to expand. There is a knowing you need to experience in long training with the Plant Energies and certain Teachers, you can not read in books or listen to a lecture. There is knowing beyond thinking.
Pressing all through therapeutic approaches or the lens of psychology is not possible if we are fully aware of the unknown hugeness of the universal fields.
There is a danger that we weave into our learning and healing processes with Plant Medicine all the time our Western understanding of psychology. This can be very limiting if we don´t allow ourselves to be swiped out into the unknown limitless experiences with Sacred Plant Wisdom.
We use mostly these plants because we want to learn a more expansive view of life. If we try to hold all the time a psychological straw and do not want to let go of that, this might limit our results. This could get a painful experience if we are trying to put all below the psychological umbrella, as it just doesn´t fit.
We need to check with ourselves if trying to understand all through the reference of psychology is maybe a resistance because we are scared to let go and to be swept out into the unknown limitless field.
Understanding everything through the psychological lens might have an underlying controlling issue or a fear of not knowing and understanding what is happening right now.
Being and experiencing something without a frame of reference might deliver a big healing power. Not being able to structure an experience, just allowing self to experience can be something very liberating and at the same time for some people maybe something scary.
Being in the unknown, being swallowed by fears, experiencing nothingness, not being able to grasp any structure, feeling lost as never before, being in a chaotic field of no reverence or understanding, etc. This can be the most challenging experience and there is medicine and opportunity to learn something that is far more developed than anything you ever have read in any book.
These moments are important to experience and it is important to observe, feel, and see what does this bring up in you???
There is often a clear connection with our psychological patterns and there is much more... The "and there is much more" needs space too!!
I refer in my writings always to the fact that you chose a place where people work with integrity and knowledge to offer you trustworthy guidance.
I would always recommend to you to choose a place where people have psychological knowledge AND extremely important people who have many years experience of dieting plants!!
Someone who offers guidance with strong plant teachers needs to have access to different worlds of understanding to offer you wide guidance that does not leave you with only one open lens.
Choosing to drink Plant medicine means being open and fully accepting that there might be uncomfortable moments. Maybe the whole experience will bring up huge discomfort.
You need to welcome that and you need to understand that this is part of expanding, growing, and learning...
We can not prevent that we have uncomfortable experiences just by being clear about our psychological structure. We can not prepare that we always will feel safe.
The plants often show us death, let us experience our limits, or might make us feel overwhelmed. Transformation can be connected to darkness and light, it can be connected to death experiences and it can go deep into something that creates huge discomfort for us.
Going through the "dark night of the soul" can be a rebirth into something new, when we allow that to be fully experienced.
Will this take one night? Or one week? Or many years? No one can tell you.
All this is part of connecting with these visionary plant teachers.
If you chose to drink this medicine, you also need to be aware that some very difficult thing might happen and you are the one who needs to deal with that after. You are the one who is responsible to learn with that and to integrate that in your ways.
Because these difficult things can happen, it plays an important role that you choose a place where people work who have experience and are skilled. People who are familiar with the whole process, not only with the "therapeutic approach they learned reading books".
For me, Psychology and Spirituality are not separated. For me, the physical and the subtle is one. The dimensions of higher intelligence and our common human life experience are connected, everything is connected.
Darkness and Light can exist at the same time.
It is all about integration and how we can experience oneness on all layers - at some point there is no separation at all.
Can we stay in that space all the time? I don´t know if someone can do that or BE there all the time.
Keeping our lenses of perception open for all possibilities and noticing when we limit the flow of all what is is a huge learning. It needs time and integration into our being(ness).
Noticing when we limit our experience because we try to just use one lens of understanding to feel safe or to be someone "who knows".
Practicing being totally open for wholeness and learning to distinguish if there are moments where it is helpful to focus just on one lens.
There are moments in my experience where it is life-supporting if we use just one lens with having the awareness there is much more to it. But it might be too overwhelming at a certain moment. Sometimes seeing ALL at the same time might be too much. So it is good to navigate and choose depending on the moment.
The difference is: not to be forced by someone only to see the "psychological lens".
Having the choice to choose the lens or the window we want to approach is a skill too. Knowing where to put the focus in which situation or playing with different lenses to experience the connection.
All this is a learning process and it is so much more fun if we can share this path with people who we trust. All is happening in relation, and for this reason, certain things we only can learn in relation.
Since 2015 I´m learning with Shipibo Maestros, for me it is, again and again, fascinating how there is a connection for me between "Demonic energy" which could be the shamanic view, and "childhood trauma" which could be the psychological understanding. How the dark air or darker energies (spirits) are connected to certain programs received in growing up/inherited/conditioned, etc... All that I see clearly connected. Could I write that down to make it understandable? No, I could not and I don´t have the need.
How we create wholeness or not, is up to each one and is an individual and collective process. Let´s learn together and help each other.
When you are open while learning in a SAMA and connecting to Shipibo Medicine (with good Maestros) there is a huge scope of universal unlimited wisdom that can flow through you.
We are powerful beings, even if we sometimes feel powerless or overwhelmed.
If you go through a period where you feel overwhelmed by all the impressions and expansions, this is a sign to slow down, do some practice, and show up for some self-nourishment.
I feel we live in a very demanding world if we want to stay centered and aligned with our true values and all that is. Learning about different energies, dimensions, our humanness, psychological and ancestral awareness, and all that we experience is a lot to hold. If you resonate with what I´m talking about you know how big this task sometimes can be.
It needs time, space, love, and compassion. BE GOOD to you.
Let´s remind each other of our powers and empower each other to live the life we truly want to create.
Let´s remind each other when we use just one lens and cling to one straw just to feel safe, but actually, we limit our path in life.
Let´s be supportive of each other.
Sending love and compassion,
Ute