My journey home to myself

TLDR: Earlier this year I went on a psilocybin retreat with Beckley Retreats that changed my life. A brief summary of my experience is below - please reach out if you’re curious to learn more!

My life changed on almost every dimension in the last 2 years. There were a lot of factors, many of them interrelated, so while it’s impossible to perfectly attribute cause and effect, the impact of one experience in particular is undoubted. 

In February I went on a psilocybin retreat in beautiful Jamaica hosted by Beckley Retreats. While it’s still very difficult to put it in words, I can say that it was the most beautiful and profound experience of my life - matched only by motherhood.

I was part of a group of 12 people who I had very little in common with at the start. We embarked on a month-long preparation program, followed by a 5 day retreat at the stunning Good Hope (an old sugar plantation in the hilltops of Trelawny). Our days were filled with yoga, meditation, breathwork, journaling, delicious food, and two psilocybin journeys expertly guided by a team of experienced facilitators who weaved together their individual spiritual practices and traditions, music, singing, crystal sound bowls, aromatherapy to create a unique and magical experience. The retreat was followed by a 6-week integration process - a critical part of the overall experience during which the foundations for lasting changes are laid. 

The journeys gave me an opportunity to heal deep wounds that I had spent many years trying to fix cognitively with therapy but could never fully release, to finally meet and accept my real Self, and to realise that the world is a safe and happy place rather than a threat. It also convinced me that at our core, we all want to love and be loved - we are not selfish demons that need to be tamed. This gave me a much stronger sense of connection and compassion for everyone around me.  

Since then, I have completely transformed my career, ditching finance and starting my own coaching business, stopped drinking alcohol altogether (which for those of you who have known me for a while was a big part of my old persona) and have become a better mother, wife, sibling, daughter and friend (at least in my opinion!). But more importantly, I feel a much greater sense of calm, peace, acceptance and love internally that’s not dependent on anyone or anything else. I have come home to myself. 

The best analogy I have come up with is this: imagine your life like a jigsaw puzzle. Therapy and other similar modalities allow you to work with a few pieces at a time, gently nudging them to a different place, or slowly learning to accept them where they are. Psychedelics throw all the pieces up in the air, revealing the core - and you then go through the process of figuring out what picture you want to make next - which pieces you don’t need or want at all, and where you want to put the ones that you do. But before you do, you accept and embrace the chaos - which is possibly the most difficult part. Overall, It’s hard work, but immensely transformative. 

If you’re considering working with psychedelics, my top tips would be:

1. Get to know yourself: Do a good amount of self-reflection beforehand (eg therapy, coaching, meditation) - you need to have awareness of the things that might come up and some capacity to be with them 

2. Do your homework: research the different psychedelics and choose a reputable guide or group for the ceremonies. This experience can go very wrong in the wrong hands. And to tackle the elephant in the room, psychedelics are not legal in most jurisdictions though this is changing rapidly. Psilocybin is currently legal in the Netherlands and Jamaica, which is where Beckley Retreats operates.

3. Don’t force it: you’ll know when the time is right 

4. Over-invest in preparation and integration: without them, you will likely feel very overwhelmed, and get much less of a benefit. Using the puzzle analogy, you’ll try to stick the pieces back where they were but with much greater awareness of the fact that they aren’t working, and more pain as a result. I am now offering psychedelic preparation and integration as a coach, so please get in touch if you want to learn more 

Why am I sharing this publicly? A few reasons:

1. I want to help de-stigmatise psychedelics and open up more conversations about their immense healing potential

2. After sharing my experience 1:1 with lots of people this year, I felt it might be beneficial to share it more broadly as there seems to be a lot of curiosity but still not that many points of reference

3. In addition to psychedelics in general, I also wanted to publicly highlight the work that Beckley Retreats is doing in particular - they are a fantastic group and if you’re considering going on their retreat, I would be happy to share a discount code

If you want to learn more about any aspect of my experience, please reach out on katya@katyaconstant.com and I would be very happy to talk!