What to do after Ayahuasca Retreats
What do you do after Ayahuasca retreats? Well firstly, if you can at all help it, it’s advisable to stay at the retreat center for a few extra days after the retreat, which will give you more time to ponder and integrate the lessons you received.
In the process, you can take this time to nourish your body with nutritious food and lots of sleep, as the whole process can be rather intense – both mentally and physically.
Shamans have said before that the medicine continues to work with you even after the ceremony is over, which is why some recommend that you maintain the dieta for some time after the ceremony.
To be honest, I’ve never personally felt any difference in the amount of integration or processing that I could do after a ceremony if I broke the dieta the next morning, but that’s of course up to you to test on your own.
Speaking of integration, whichever retreat center you’ve attended – if worth their salt – will surely have highlighted the importance of this because what good are the lessons if you aren’t able to integrate them into your day-to-day life, right?
And if you’re like I was after my first Ayahuasca retreat, with limited time off and literally getting off the plane in my home State and then driving directly to work, I can tell you firsthand that it can be disorienting to say the least.
On the other hand though, it might just highlight for you how toxic your work environment might be, like mine was. And it took that stark contrast for me to be able to see it clearly.
You might consider enlisting the services of an integration coach to help you with the integration process. In theory, any mental health professional could assist with this, but realistically, it’s likely that many simply aren’t going to understand plant medicines or have any concept of the spirit world or any sort of ‘far out’ topics. So if that’s the case, their assistance might be limited, if not contradictory.
So if you enlist the aid of a professional, it would be ideal for them to not only be open to the idea of plant medicines, but also have some experience with the plant medicines themselves so that they know what they’re talking about.
If that’s not an option to you – or even if it is – you might consider keeping in close contact with your fellow retreat participants. They might not be experts, but they shared the experience with you; they won’t judge you for it; they will provide someone to talk to and connect with; and they might even have helpful advice to offer you too.
You might even find yourself walking way from your corporate job and volunteering at a retreat center like I did, which not only helped to surround myself with many like-minded people, but also gave me the very satisfying feeling of returning the kindness that was given to me by volunteers when I was the guest. Quite honestly, that was 6 of the best months of my life, and I don’t say that lightly!
In any case, the important part is to put your lessons into motion and not fall victim to sliding back into your day-to-day life and letting the momentum carry you in the same direction you were headed before you decided to connect with the plant medicines.
And if all else fails, you might consider seeking out other people from the ever-growing plant medicine community, whether that be a Facebook group like this one or a Reddit forum like this one.
I hope this is helpful to you, and if you have any other suggestions for things people might want to be doing after their own Ayahuasca retreats, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.
Until next time,
Tim G.
AyaAdvisors.org
