Journaling

How to Use Journaling in Entheogen Integration

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Journaling can help you extract the essence from your plant medicine integration.

Journaling is a great way to reflect on your thoughts and feelings. Writing helps you dive deeper into your thoughts, organize them and reflect upon them. It also serves as a track record and a source of inspiration. That’s why journaling is one of the best practices in your integration process. 

How to start 

There are a few methods to choose from and the best one is the one that you can keep up long-term. Handwriting can be a very soothing process and most people find that this method makes it easier to connect with your thoughts on a deeper level.

If your mind works faster or your writing isn’t neat, you can try typing into your computer or recording voice notes. Recording your thoughts is a great way to capture streams of consciousness when you can’t be bothered to write. You can transcribe your thoughts later if you like.

Make it a regular thing

Don’t think about perfect grammar or style – just let your thoughts flow. It’s the process that matters, not the end product. You can read your entries when you’re done or just leave it and come back later. Don’t forget to date all your entries.

Make journaling a routine practice. You can block time in your calendar. You may find that sometimes, nothing will come to mind. To help unblock your thoughts, come up with a random sentence to start each entry.

How to apply it in psychedelic integration

In entheogen integration, journaling can be a great tool to interpret the information revealed during ceremonies and apply it in your life. Here’s how to make the most of it in entheogen integration:

Keep a trip log

Entheogen experiences leave you with a lot to process so it’s easy to forget all the details. Plan a journaling session as soon as possible (ideally, the morning after the ceremony). Write everything you remember: your intentions, emotions, insights and how you felt before, during, and after.

Writing helps ground and understand your feelings and creates a record for the future. We forget feelings easily so rereading your trip entries can take you back to your learnings. 

Keep a few guiding questions at hand

A pre-made set of questions makes the writing process smoother. Keep a list of questions handy. You don’t have to answer all of them each time. Here are some examples:

• What are your key messages/learnings/realizations? 
• What emotions did you experience? How intense were they?
• Has anything changed after your trip? How?
• Did you try to fight the medicine at any point? Why do you think it happened? 
• What are you grateful for?
• Was your intention addressed in the ceremony? How?
• What were your biggest challenges and how can you overcome them?

Make journaling yours

Journaling doesn’t need rules. You can write, type, sketch or insert pictures. You can read some of your entries but leave others be and return to them a few months later if you like. Whenever you feel stuck, change things up a bit or talk to someone who can help you break through. 

Think of journaling as a tool that helps you make sense of your experiences and connect with your thoughts. Don’t take it too seriously so that it becomes a chore – the more freely you write, the better the result.

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Inspired by Kerry Moran, MA, LPC