Annihilation and Healing: Where Do We Draw the Line?

“When pain and discomfort arise, it’s because they are required. They are valid because they are forms of communication that have a necessary and valuable function.”

– Michael Brown, The Presence Process

There is an idea many of us have inherited on the path of awakening: that ego death is an essential part of remembering who we are.

And while it is true that healing asks us to move beyond the confines of our human identity, I believe we need to look more closely at the methods we are using and the intention behind them.

If we believe we must kill off a part of ourselves in order to become enlightened or spiritually aware, we are already creating war within. We are beginning from the assumption that the ego is something to destroy, rather than something to understand, soften, and bring into healthy relationship.

Healing asks us to recognize the paradox of being human. We are Spirit in physical form, living inside the mystery of not fully knowing who we are.

So many of us are afraid we are not enough. We believe we need to be more. We believe our healing must be hard in order to work. But what does this do to the nervous system?

In the contemporary psychedelic field, I see a growing focus on stacking: combining more than one plant medicine or substance to support a person’s experience. Sometimes this is done to make the coming up easier, soften the coming down, or ease the fear and grief that can arise.

But after 35 years of experience with psychedelics, 20 of those in ceremonial practice, I have become increasingly aware that more is not always better – and is often harmful.

People need enough space to feel what is here. They need enough space to be uncomfortable and discover their own regulation.

When a person leaves ceremony feeling annihilated or deeply confused, integration becomes difficult because there may be very little ground to return to. The experience may have been powerful, but power alone does not mean it was healing. Healthy integration begins with an intention that is not rooted in blowing ourselves away, escaping the body, or killing off what we have decided is deplorable within us. It begins with the willingness to meet what is here and come into relationship with it – before the ceremony.

This requires enough inner coherence to recognize what was revealed and bring it into daily life. It can be simple and embodied. It might look like noticing that a deep grief surfaced in ceremony, then allowing yourself to cry without making it wrong, placing a hand on your heart when the feeling returns, speaking more honestly with someone you trust, or choosing rest instead of pushing through. Integration is not about explaining everything that happened. It is about allowing what was revealed to slowly change how you relate to yourself.

The goal is not to annihilate parts of ourselves.

The goal is balance.

The goal is relationship.

The goal is to meet all of who we are, including the parts we do not like, and learn how to walk with them in a new way.

Psychedelics can help us feel where grief, trauma, fear, and pain are held in the body. They can reveal the patterns that no longer align with who we truly are. But this requires engagement. It requires participation. It requires a felt relationship with the medicine, the body, and the mystery.

After ceremony, we are learning how to map the space between the mythic and the mundane. We need something tangible to bring home. Something we can apply to who we are, how we live, and how we walk forward now. This becomes the foundation that supports our awakening in the simple, ordinary journey of being human, outside of the psychedelic space.