Psychedelics: The Responsibility of Knowing Your Personal Boundaries

I recently saw a post which compared psychedelic journeys to BDSM, and referenced the tripper as a metaphor for the journey of the submissive-- taking the advice of the psychedelic (or the shaman). One thing about me is that I'm no stranger to this type of experience - even if I don't "dabble" much these days.

^[Note: if you think I am referencing your work above, please let me know so that I can check and then tag you or leave a link!]

I'm often thinking about several directions that the 'psychedelic movement' seems to be headed as it gains traction and popularity. Here is a message I've been wanting to share.

When a shaman helps one to undergo a transformative psychological experience, they must act as the medium - someone who incites and catalyzes things to happen. These emotional states which are provoked tend to result in mental soliloquies which therapeutically leave the individual positively and effectively changed. Sometimes the shaman them self, or the healer, must have a ‘psychedelic’ type of personality - almost like a magician. Or, as this might make a little more sense to some who are more familiar with BDSM but not psychedelilcs, perhaps this personality could be compared to that of a psychological dom. The situations that come up can be embarrassing for the individual undergoing the experience, and uncomfortable emotions can be brought up. This type of medicine (psychedelics by themselves included) is NOT for everyone. Not every individual will feel okay with themselves for a while after having dabbled in this type of medicine. States of shame, guilt and embarrassment often come up until the experience(s) are fully integrated. And if the individual goes through it with a shaman, all of it must be done consensually. An individual's idea of what is considered 'consensual', when looking back into their own past, can't just be changed in hindsight and then be re-evaluated in order to assign blame on someone else. Another huge point I'd like to make is that if a person has given consent in the moment and then regrets it later, the explanation for this might be that they put themselves into a situation they weren't ready for, where they were tricked into giving consent. This is where the situation really begins to get hairy. Let’s just say I'd prefer not to have experiences that would be considered true on either one of these ends.

All shamans aside, sometimes the material of a psychedelic experience, or the banter between you and a Psychedelic entity, might make you feel uncomfortable in a way that later shows you that you actually knew nothing about your own boundaries or how to assert them. (“Do Tryptamines care about YOUR boundaries?”) Chances are, you weren’t ready yet to deal with this type of healing which focuses on both the destruction, or the pinpointing, of your own boundaries. It takes practice, and we decide whether we want to keep on participating in it as we go on to learn more about ourselves. Why? Because we probably weren’t prepared for the pure STRANGENESS… let alone entering into a legal grey area where situations are popping up that somebody could potentially get sued for if a person later on decided to withdraw consent. (Why do we hurt one another in the name of money?) It's ideal when we know how to take personal responsibility for the scenarios we put ourselves in. So when undertaking a psychedelic path, because of lack of understanding, it happens often that people do not know what they are getting themselves into -- that is, until they find themselves in the throes of an existential dilemma.

Sometimes the leader in the situation who is doing the offending of the more naive party is asserting most of their own actions through motivation of their own trauma.

Despite all this, it is the job of ‘the submissive’, or the consciousness ‘taken on a journey’ by the experience, to find the story in the scenario. Then, it is through the metaphor we find that we shall figure out what the messages of the Universe are telling us.

People get caught up in the supposed “right way of perceiving things”, or the right way to take part in a ritual-- but there is no right way. Both parties ARE responsible, however, for stating WHAT their boundaries are, and then it’s the other party’s obligation to respect those boundaries in the experiential process.

For instance, being “present in the moment” according to a shaman ought not to constitute a specific type of body language, or appropriate extents of an individual’s need to chant; dance. Being present will simply present differently between individuals. It is a feeling of bliss that ultimately characterizes living in a present moment of acceptance, and nobody else can ever tell you whether or not you are feeling bliss in a moment. Only you can tell yourself that, and you can’t simply lie to yourself about it either. You either know, or you don’t. You hope that you know, if you're planning on being a teacher or a healer . But some teachers and healers have a different method of healing— a more ‘prickly’, and thus controversial, one than most.

Being present can mean many things. It can mean paying attention to the sounds and immediate senses surrounding us that make up our tangible reality. It can mean being so acutely aware of ones own thoughts, that they are even aware of the meta-analysis underneath the usual reasoning. Either of those could be considered useful, but either of them could also end up being huge drains on an individual’s energy (as we are constantly evaluating ourselves).

See? this is why it’s always about boundaries.

I was asked to step into a ceremonial mind state where I could surrender, by a person who led a ceremony for me and my child who was yet to be born - a baby blessing. 

The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was where the person was acting like I had to change some part of how I was responding to the situation; as if I held some sort of a PROBLEM with surrendering— when really, I just did not feel the right energy to surrender in the way they considered as surrendering, in that scenario.

Shamans and healers: do not act like you know what another person’s ability is to do anything like this, when the situation you are in is far-removed from the context that would call for the sort of emotional experience they might be striving for. They will react in the way they are meant to, given the situation and the karma they are working through. Unless it was part of the greater play at hand, and only to some degree (IN MY OOOOOPINION), the only real purpose for pointing out a perceived shortcoming like this (i.e. “you need to get out of this-and-such way of thinking, and learn to instead surrender") to a 'client' or experiencer would be fuel for the ego trip of the shaman. It may have started with the best intentions, and it indeed CAN return back to the best of intentions where the shaman may use psychological tools to help soften the ego of the experiencer... but if the shaman's ego gets involved and keeps getting fed, there's a fair chance it might stick around for more.

We all need to address the blemishes in the mirror between ourselves and our clients in our interactions, and try to find an either creative, or compassionate, way to do it. Just bringing the blemishes up in a form of heckling or hassling is not the ethical or effective way of going about things-- that would be more of a psychological-ops way of performing-- and if this is the way in which you choose to operate, make sure you have clear consent from your client ahead of time.

Chances are, IF you are truly a powerful medium, you won't push or disrespect their boundaries anyway because your intuition will be on point. The way they end up feeling and what they end up getting may be right exactly what they need. But you could also up your game by meeting them halfway and going no further in the sacred dance. No matter what, you’ll channel exactly what you are meant to do - even if it’s a little messy at times. As cliched as it might sound, it’s ALWAYS about prior communication between parties. And with psychedelics, the tricky part is that the healing comes at least partially from pushing the envelope.

Oftentimes people assume that specific social boundaries are always right, or always wrong, and this is far from the truth. Each one of us has a responsibility to explore and understand what ours are.