An expanded state of consciousness can be beautiful, terrifying and bewildering. It’s likely that much of the mystery will remain, but there are seeds of wisdom that gentle cultivation can nurture into flowering. An integration coach can help you to unravel the insights hiding in the tangle of psychedelic experience and weave them into the tapestry of your life. Every journey is unique but there are ways of being with the experience that can help feed your growth.

This quote from the Mazatec wisdom keeper Grandmother Julieta Casimiro expresses a philosophy that many Indigenous cultures share. Nature and psychedelics are a perfect match, and I’ve combined my experience of working both medicines to create a unique approach. I will offer nature based exercises and we may invite the more-than-human world to guide your process. But above all this is your journey, and my foundation in accompanying you is client centered: You are the expert on your own experience.

For the time being, at least, psychedelics are illegal in the UK, so I can’t facilitate a journey for you. However, if you are planning a psychedelic experience, I can help with preparation. Careful preparation can be hugely beneficial. Not only is it likely to make your psychedelic session more rewarding, but it can also be seen as a vital part of the bigger journey. As Tim Crespi, a colleague of mine at Synthesis, says, “The medicine is only part of the medicine”: Healing comes from mindful preparation, a properly facilitated session and respectful integration.

Expanded states first took me with a spontaneous mystical experience in my early twenties. Soon after I came across psychedelics and later meditation. I did a PhD in Religious Studies to deepen my understanding, and I’m still working with what I learnt from that. I became professionally involved with psychedelics in 2020 when I joined The Synthesis Institute as Director of Ecopsychology. In 2021 I became a Learning Mentor for the first cohort of students in the Synthesis Psychedelic Practitioner Training. I accompanied the students on their ten-day psychedelic retreat in the Summer of 2022 and then joined the Synthesis Retreat Team as a Co-lead Facilitator. I remained in this job until the final retreat in Spring 2023. I was awarded the Synthesis Psychedelic Practitioner Training Certificate in 2023. I'm a member of the Institute of Psychedelic Therapy, a guest lecturer on the PGCert Psychedelics: Mind, Medicine, and Culture at the University of Exeter and work on psychedelic research trials.

If I sound like someone who can help you prepare for or integrate your experience of an expanded state of consciousness - whether that came through a psychedelic journey, meditation practice or a spontaneous bolt from the blue - get in touch for a chat.