A Mindful Approach To Psychedelics - A Mindful Approach to Dementia & Psychedelics
If you have been reading the blog entries over the last month or so, you know what a roller coaster of a ride it has been, especially this past month. Henry’s Alzheimer’s may no longer be early-stage. This past month has been filled with deep pain and sorrow, unexpected situations, lack of preparation, and I would even say cognitive dissonance. You could even add in a certain degree of shock and trauma. Yes, it’s been quite a month as the continuing journey of dementia, mindfulness, and psychedelics is shared.
I arrived from Mexico last night (cutting short Henry’s second month in assisted living to bring him back to Vermont) and I am now sitting in my Vermont home. It is cold and rainy outside. I have a fire in the wood stove as I sit down to write. I am glad Henry chose to stay in Mexico for at least another month so he can enjoy pleasant weather and daily swims. He is also getting the assistance he needs. Knowing he is safe and happy helps me be more at ease. I can focus on taking care of responsibilities that require travel. Even just letting this newer situation get integrated into my heart and mind has some soft space and quiet time for the adjustment. I wouldn’t call it R&R but at least it is not burnout.
In the midst of the chaotic last month, I had a big boost seeing the article I wrote, A Mindfulness Approach to Psychedelics, published in The Psychedelic Pulse. I thank Arsalan Shah for believing in this work, potentially integrating a framework for mindfulness into the psychedelic community including psychedelic research and clinical trials. Another recent initiative that lifted my spirits has been the launch of the podcast AMADELICS, available on Spotify. I interviewed Hein Pijnnaken from the Microdosing Institute as my first guest. He gave several examples of how mindfulness and microdosing support each other. I hope the podcast elevates A Mindfulness Approach to Psychedelics while also de-stigmatizing the use of psychedelics.
Since entering the psychedelic space just a few years back, I noticed that mindfulness was a word being thrown around, or practices included in many offerings, but I did not detect a clear or explicit way mindfulness was being integrated into an overall approach or understanding of a psychedelic experience.
My educator mind wanted some kind of guidance, like pillars of understanding as guideposts during Preparation, Journey, and Integration. With nothing tangible out there, I began designing a useful pedagogical tool that integrated mindfulness for anyone interested in psychedelics—from a microdose to a high dose; for a person who is curious, someone ingesting, a practicing therapist in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, or a space holder working with plant medicine. Last year Mindful Microdosing: A Guidebook and Journal was published. It was my major contribution to bringing mindfulness into the psychedelic space. Now, this framework as A Mindful Approach to Psychedelics is the next big contribution.
The article looks at specific mindfulness qualities as pillars that can enhance any psychedelic experience. At the same time, any psychedelic experience can enhance the cultivation of mindfulness. Cultivating mindfulness qualities in Preparation, Journey, Integration provides a grounding force of intentions and focus. The mindfulness qualities are pillars throughout the process and can be something to cultivate and also to lean on if needed. These pillars become guideposts for the experience as well as sources of support and strength. The three pillars for each area are as follows:
Preparation: Beginner’s Mind, Discernment, Intention
Journey (micro or macro): Equanimity, Calm-Abiding, Mindful Awareness
Integration: Interconnection, Wisdom & Compassion, Gratitude
In the article, I encourage people to discover which mindfulness qualities call to them. In so doing, they create their own mindfulness pillars. The mindfulness pillars I name are influenced by Buddhism; however, I do not claim to be a Buddhist teacher or scholar. Simply, I just share what has emerged based on my own life experiences. At the same time, I am a long-time educator. Perhaps it is this perspective that catapulted me into writing about and lending my voice to the frontiers of new understanding around psychedelics to everyday people like me.
As an alum and former adjunct professor of SIT Graduate Institute, part of the global organization, World Learning, I designed learning tools and frameworks that help look at commonly held beliefs. By digging deep to articulate one’s own values, ethics, and beliefs, a fresh start or approach may emerge. Wherever I lived in the world (mostly Latin America and the Indian subcontinent), I continually brought this lens to my work. Over the years, it became clear that by cultivating these pedagogical tools—digging deep into values, thoughts, ideas, beliefs—hmm, it was sounding more and more like mindfulness practice!
I often joke that I truly began practicing mindfulness at 16, during my first learning experience with the Experiment in International Living in the 1970s, which was part of World Learning. In terms of a meditation practice, I was initiated into TM as a 12-year-old, but I actually think I learned mindfulness after an accident when I was 9 years old. I taught myself to divert my focus of attention away from painful procedures that required extensive dental surgery over many years. I would stay focused on my breath rather than the pain—a skill my now 9-year-old granddaughter used last week during a dental visit. Breath practice is a mainstay within mindfulness practices, so however one starts, the ability to use the power of the mind is a great tool. However, I have come to believe that mindfulness, ideally, results in connecting to and opening the heart—not just staying focused, on purpose, in the present moment.
Henry and I met and married in 1981 in Ecuador. We actually met through a local meditation group in Cuenca that followed the teachings of the great yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda. Thus ensued 25 years of dedicated kriya practice on my part; Henry continues to this day. Then, with a move to India in 1997 and immersion into the Tibetan refugee community, Buddhism seeped into my very being.
Living on the Indian subcontinent for nearly twenty years has brought innumerable opportunities to, as they say, sit at the feet of the “Great Ones.” Many of these people are world-renowned. They have inspired me and have literally changed the course of my life. I will be forever grateful. Equally inspiring are the many laypeople who live without recognition but are motivated by an internal flame that I can best describe as faith, devotion, or spiritual practice. I humbly bow to them.
I sometimes get nostalgic reminiscing about my childhood being brought up in the Unitarian church. You may be sitting at service and the person next to you may hold different beliefs; for instance, one may believe in Christ, the other may not. This freedom of thought and belief felt very natural to me as a child. We were encouraged to find what resonated within ourselves, in a deeply personal way. Perhaps that was another seed to mindfulness. It helped me bring deep contemplation and mindful inquiry into my inner life. It helped me to embrace my own knowing when a teaching or meditative experience resonated deeply in me or I experienced something in an embodied way.
This openness and acceptance invited me to integrate other practices and ways of being as an adult. When I look back, I still hold dear one of the covenants I learned in Sunday school: that we can join together and share in the mystery that is this life. Your mystery is different and unique to mine, but it is in the connecting to each other that we can move through life. I find that very beautiful and deeply inspiring. It is a deep way I walk through life. I find it is even a mindful way—indeed, it is a way that connects us heart to heart in this mystery of unknowing.
You could say that mindfulness has been woven into my life since an early age. It does not always fall into the category of a traditional mindfulness practice or strict religious focus. What mindfulness has done consistently though, no matter the form it takes, has been to cultivate a greater spaciousness of mind and expansiveness of heart, connecting me to the sacred.
This is still true even during this difficult part of my life’s journey. Mindfulness is like a sacred key that can connect heart and mind to something greater. It is my hope that as a mindfulness practitioner, educator, and writer, my contributions can help connect people in the psychedelic space and beyond to this greater sense of well-being.
