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Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast
The Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast offers insight into the world of the Highly Sensitive Person, and helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts.
Highly Sensitive Humans Podcast
Unlocking your Authentic Self as a Highly Sensitive Person: Psychedelic Integration and Psychosynthesis with Clara Parati
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In this episode on Unlocking your Authentic Self as a Highly Sensitive Person: Psychedelic Integration and Psychosynthesis I speak to Clara Parati. Clara is a qualified Psychedelic Integration Specialist, Psychosynthesis Coach, and Holistic Practitioner. Her client-centred approach incorporates transpersonal psychology, mind-body repatterning, and ancient principles to facilitate profound transformation through personal integration journeys. She empowers individuals to break old patterns of behaviour, cultivate emotional regulation, and reconnect more deeply with their authentic selves.
In the episode, we discuss the importance of integration as a process for creating long-lasting transformation rather than temporary 'peak experiences'. We talk about the specific needs of HSP and how, as Highly Sensitive People, we might navigate the psycho-spiritual journey, particularly in the context of plant medicine experiences. Clara discusses the unique benefits of the transpersonal approach of psychosynthesis as a powerful modality for supporting integration. We also explore the importance of connecting more deeply with the authentic Self.
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About the Host: Jules De Vitto is a transpersonal coach, trainer and experienced educator for Highly Sensitive People. She helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to navigate emotional overwhelm, step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. She is a published author and wrote one of a series of books on Resilience, Navigating Loss in a time of Crisis. Her research has also been published in the Transpersonal Coaching Psychology Journal and Journal of Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology.
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The Highly Sensitive Human Academy™ - join our 3-month professional training: coaching Highly Sensitive People
Welcome, I'm your host, George DeVito, and you're listening to the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast, the show that offers an insight into the world of the highly sensitive person. It helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts. So welcome to today's episode, and today I'm talking with Clara Pirati, who is a qualified psychedelic integration specialist, psychosynthesis coach, and holistic practitioner. Her client-centred approach incorporates transpersonal psychology, mind-body repatterning, and ancient principles to facilitate profound transformation through personal integration journeys. She empowers individuals to break old patterns of behavior, cultivate emotional regulation, and reconnect more deeply with their authentic selves. So welcome, Clara. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you for having me on the podcast, Jules. It's so good to be here. I'm really glad that we're going to have this opportunity to talk.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome. So I'd love to start just by asking you so, what's your journey with being a highly sensitive person? And how did it bring you to the work that you do today? And obviously, we'll go more into your work. But yeah, I'm just curious about your story to begin with.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. Thank you for asking. And again, thank you for inviting me. And uh yeah, so my journey with it, it's been interesting. And I wasn't always aware of the fact that it was highly sensitive until a little bit later on. I always knew that it was quite sensitive to energy and uh always been very empathic. And um not knowing that I was highly sensitive meant um in the past that I made other people's responses mine, as in, you know, or their state of being, I kind of made it mine rather than setting a clear boundary and realizing what was mine and what was not mine, you know, energetically and emotionally when I walked into a room. And I'm talking about yes, family, but also friendships and and circles in general. You know, I was taking on a lot of energy that wasn't mine when I was going to places and environments, and uh and I was also very sensitive to just generally, you know, sound I've always been very sensitive to. And another thing that, you know, in time I realized that's part of being highly sensitive, and that's really um central for me, is um that kind of deep processing. I I don't really connect the dots in a necessarily in a linear way all the time, you know. Sometimes when I'm I'm forced to, I will do that, you know. But I my tendency is to be is a bit more holistic, and and so it takes me longer sometimes to process something. Um, although then, you know, in the end, it's processed in a very kind of quite deep way. And so it takes me longer to take decisions sometimes and make up my mind about things or come to terms because I'm taking into consideration a lot of other things. That meant that um in certain kind of work environments where I was in, you know, in in the past, I could excel at certain things, but other things where I was required to be more logical and on the go, it would be harder for me. So that's been my my journey to first really realize that that was part of my blueprint and then honor it, and that was also a journey within itself. And I guess uh the work with uh psychedelic medicine and integration has really helped that, has really supported the honoring the way I am and really you know bringing in talking about integration all those aspects of myself that perhaps before I I didn't like or I found challenging and really finding the gifts in them, you know, what does the highly sensitivity offer that you know other people don't have? And and through also the work with Black Medicine, all those things have bubbled up and come to the surface. So that's you know, I guess my sensitivity has brought me to uh wanting to explore you know a way of being that felt more authentic to me, that felt kind of more relaxed, and also, you know, just discovering how I could feel more whole within myself. That's why I went into it for my own healing and really because I want was after a sense of wholeness and authenticity that wasn't there in the past for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you for sharing, and I can really relate to that. I think that those of us who are drawn to this kind of work, and like I said, we'll go on to talk more about your work in a moment, but I think when we are highly sensitive, like you said, we process so deeply and we really feel drawn towards doing this uh coaching work and the integration work and really helping other people with that as well, because it's so integral to who we are as yeah, highly sensitive people. So I'd love to hear more about you know the psychedelic integration work that you do and your work as a psychosynthesis coach. So, what does that involve and how does the work you do help with integration? Because I know that's a big part of what you do.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so we touched on it, I touched on it just you know, um a minute ago, and a lot of the work with well, basically during psychedelic journeys, what tends to happen a lot is that um different aspects of our life and our personality pop up, and a lot of the time the aspects that might be challenging as well that we might find challenging, or even just challenging uh experiences or challenging situations might pop up because they want to be looked at and resolved and processed in a different way. What the medicine helps to do is to expand your awareness around it. So rather than revisiting certain things with the same viewpoint that you had before, that potentially was quite narrow, it helps you shift your perspective and expand the way you look at it so that you might be able to process and embrace certain aspects that uh of your personality, of your life, of your past, they were very difficult to hold before and they were maybe rejected or put on the side before. So, in terms of integration, that's what integration really helps with. So these things pop up, and there's a level of healing that's done during the ceremony. And I'm not gonna go into the details of how much healing is done in ceremony or not, it's all individual. We all, every ceremony is very different. And um, but what is really helped me personally as well, also as you know, with my uh heightened sensitivity, is to then take the material that has emerged during the journey and during the ceremony and do some really deep work on it afterwards to integrate in integrate it, meaning revisiting even the challenging aspects that have popped up and moments that have you know uh emerged during your your experience and uh going to going into like a deep inquiry about it. Now, I use a coaching approach which is uh more focused on how things are impacting you now and moving forward, but of course, you're gonna be addressing someone's history when you're working with someone, there's always it's gonna come out, especially in plan medicine journeys. So, what happens a lot of the time is that uh there are aspects of ourselves that emerge. Say, for example, you I have a tendency to procrastination, or my inner critic might pop up. Well, we go into an inquiry, as I was saying, um in a dialogue with this part of the self, so seeing as an aspect, uh after having centered in a much deeper space within yourself. So and that's psychosynthesis. There's this like a soul-based transpersonal psychology where you first need to have the resources to look at the challenge. So, first you really ground within yourself and within within your soul's wisdom and the different techniques of doing that, and then you can bring to your awareness the challenging aspect, and you kind of like um uh in solid dialogue with that aspect of yourself so that you can start relating to it, understanding it, and by doing that, you integrate it more. So that aspect might always be there in your life, but you just change your relationship towards it, or towards a difficult experience that you've had in your life, so that you can reframe it, get the teaching from it, what you've learned, you know, really hard how hard it might have been, for example, or also how much of an impact this aspect of yourself has has on you, and then also get the teaching from it, so you can work as a you know, be cooperative with it and work with it. That's part of integration. There's a lot more to integration than aspects, but that's the main framework, and that's the psychosynthesis model that I use for it, framework for it, is soul-based. So it's very much about resourcing and recentering first, so that you can do that work, and that you really do that work not just to do the work with the challenge, but so that you can more and more connect with your source calling as well. And then that's the other aspect of it. There's always a balance between the light and dark and the challenge and the purpose, and then you reconnect to working with purpose and what you're here for as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, beautiful. I really like what you're saying because I've experienced that so many Holly Sensor people really do feel a sense of having a soul calling. I think that we all do, but personally, those of us who are more sensitive, we seem to be more connected with that sense of having a soul or a or a core self, however you want to define it, but a sense of trying to find meaning in life and um living more in alignment with that soul calling. So the framework you're describing in psychosynthesis, it really resonates with me, and it feels that probably a lot of highly sensitive people will also resonate with that idea. And then what you were saying about working with the parts as well. So just to give an example, with a lot of people I've worked with, they often come to me because they say that they am anxious or overwhelmed. And I always try to differentiate between being highly sensitive and then having parts of them which are feeling anxiety or feeling overwhelmed. So realizing that that's not the core of who they are, they're not born into this world anxious, but they might have had an experience that creates that anxiety that a part of them is holding on to. So I'm just wondering, does that resonate with what you're describing? And also that would be something that you could potentially work with in the plant journeys or with psychosynthesis. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it totally, it totally kind of resonates. And yes, as you were saying, in psychosynthesis, we call this part subpersonalities. Is it there's an age as you're saying is very much about it's really important when working with someone to clarify that you're not your subpersonality, you're much more than just that part. There's a part of you, and it's also that, but you are much more than that, and then when we that's where we go to the soul kind of wisdom and connecting to your higher self, that actually there's a much deeper part, there's a deeper self that you can connect to daily if you want. And part of the work that I do with integration is learning how to connect with it as well, with that authentic, eternal part that's within you that connects you to your soul purpose, that's connected to collective purpose, by the way, so interconnected, and that part that's that's there, you're much more than just that, but you are also that. So there's a um there's a quote from uh Roberto Sajoli, who's the founder of psychosynthesis, which I love, and it's a quote that says, All is welcome. Right. So that's the foundation of integration, whether it's psychedelic integration, whether it's psychospiritual integration, they're very interlinked, you know. That's why psychospiritual integration is what you I use for plan medicine, and it's about really learning how to embrace every aspect. That doesn't mean that you're gonna be living from that aspect for the rest of your life, and then you don't see the way it might be sabotaging you. You see it, but you just learn how to relate to it in a different way. And also, I find what's key, and I was saying this in another conversation the other day, that, and that's the the challenging part potentially, to learn how to embrace it is to learn to have self-compassion for oneself for having that part in the first place. Because as you were saying, that's emerged, you've learned that you were not born with that. And that's a defense mechanism, some kind of copy mechanism that's um that you've created at some point in your life to survive the situation that you were in in a way that felt safe for you. So your psyche has created that something and um and you know having self-compassion for the fact that you needed that in that moment, you no longer need it, but you need it to create that part that acts in that way, and then once that you have self-compassion, it's easier to look at it, and then it helps you shift in it as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I also agree, I think that self-compassion or the compassion for the parts is so crucial, isn't it? And I also know how difficult that can be. I've experienced personally working with my parts or subpersonalities. Um, you know, it can be really difficult to extend that compassion. And so I was wondering, you know, with the plant medicine and uh the psychedelic integration work that you do, have you experienced that that supports the ability to cultivate that compassion and and help people to work with the parts? And and yeah, maybe you could talk a bit more about that and and how that works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean, that's been my experience over you know quite a few years of doing plant medicine. What happens if you embrace the plant medicine journey? Because if you have resistance to it, there might be you know challenges that come along during the journey. But once that you've connected to the plant spirit, that's how I see it, and you embrace it and you welcome it as a connector to yourself because the plant is not going to do the work for you. It's just as I see plant medicine is a connecting tool to connect to something deeper that's already inside of you, so everything's already in, and um, what it does as well, it's an amplifier. So, and the experience that I've had many times is that a lot of unconditional love um emerges in this right, which is love that you already have inside, is intrinsic. So it just connects you, he opens it up and he opens this like your heart chakra often, and it connects to this beautiful sense of like sacred love, unconditional love that's already there. That supports you during the journey, usually in looking at things that might be challenging otherwise, you know, and you're always confronted with something that you can deal with. Your sake wouldn't really necessarily put something there that you're not ready to look at, you know, unless again, you know, you're not prepared properly, it's not the right time for you to do it. There are different things, it's not for everyone. This work is not for everyone, and I want to highlight that, you know, and preparing is very, very important, especially for highly sensitive people, not to rush it and to we can get that in a moment. But so the my experience that I've had is that you have an experience of that compassion, self-compassion, unconditional love during the journey. The work of integration is to tap back into it afterwards and really keep on building from it as well. So, and the way you also do it is to bring a deeper understanding, as I was saying, of why those parts are there and why they behave the way they do. A lot of the time they're connected to your inner child as well. So, very often, you know, issues like conditioning comes up and and and past experiences come up. And then really to actually give yourself like a you know a bit of a high-five. Well done that actually, I was so smart to create that at that time to survive whatever I was going through, or you know, and now I know that I've done it for that. Now I can start letting it go as well. So the experience in plant medicine is that you do tap into the real sense of unconditional love. What can happen often, unfortunately, when people don't integrate, is that they think the plant is giving them that. The plant is only connecting them to something that's already in. And that's really important as well to kind of clarify, because then that's why some people just keep going to plant medicine retreats because they want to re-experience that over and over again, that sense of unconditional love, thinking that it's external, but that's only connecting you to something that's already there inside of you, and that's what integration helps, you know, um, people do to just keep reconnecting to it afterwards as well, and throughout in between the ceremonies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think what you just shared is really um it might be a big breakthrough for a lot of people because I get this sense that a lot of people perceive plant medicine as something external which is offering them that love or that compassion rather than it being something which is being cultivated from within. So, what I hear you saying is the integration is really helping them to realize that they have everything they need within them, and this is something that they can continue forward, so it doesn't just have to be one peak experience that they have, but it's something that becomes more long-lasting and I guess a norm in the sense of how they experience the world and and themselves. Does that sound right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it does, yeah. It's about really self-empowerment as well, and integration has been so important for me. Of course, I went first through that myself before you know deciding that I wanted to kind of offer that to people and train and do my training. And I felt so much more self-empowered when I realized, hold on a second, it's not the medicine is just an amplifier, a connector, a beautiful, you know, especially with the medicines that come from deep in the jungle in the Amazon. There's this connection that I've never experienced before, but they are really connecting me to something that's already inside, and that's the key because then I don't need to keep doing ceremonies. I can do them when I feel called to do them, and then by doing this beautiful inner work in between, I get so much more out of the ceremonies when I do go, decide to go, and then I can do, I can reconnect to that outside. I can keep working with that feeling of unconditional love outside of the ceremony because that's with me all the time. I found that it was the most self-empowering thing, and that's what integration is also designed to do, or at least the way I understand it and I practice it, is to empower the person. You know, again, also integration coach is not gonna do like you know, uh give you the solutions or anything like that. I mainly what I do is asking questions that make you look at yourself potentially in a different way or reflect. And then the person does the work, just like as it happens with plumaricin.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, beautiful. It really makes sense. And you mentioned preparation, the importance of preparation, especially for highly sensitive people, and you mentioned that maybe this work is not for everyone, but preparation is really important. So, yeah, could you speak a bit more about that in terms of the preparation and what that involves, you know, roughly, and uh why it's so important for highly sensitive people to do that that type of work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure, yeah. So I mean, preparation is really important for people that whether they're highly sensitive or not is really important. I know that super important because it will, you know, your whatever is happening in your life in that moment when you decide to take medicine, you're gonna take all of that into the ceremony, and that potential is gonna be heightened and amplified by your consciousness and by the food applants, you know, to visit certain areas of it. So it's important to do preparation anyway. And there are many uh uh aspects of preparation, you know, there is uh mental, emotional, physical, spiritual preparation, and I would say for highly sensitive people, it's uh you know, uh even more important because um. It's good to give yourself plenty of time before you're going to, you know, a a very kind of like a big experience that could be the psychedelic experience for a highly sensitive person. So I, you know, I would recommend give yourself plenty of time to research things, but from good sources, you know, because on YouTube you can see all sorts of and yes, of course, uh inform yourself about harm reduction. That's also why working with a professional before can be really helpful. They can give you all the information, you know, that's needed. And really start connecting. You can actually start connecting with the wisdom of the plants before you even go into the ceremony. And really doing some deep work and connecting to your soul's wisdom, potentially already identifying some areas of a transformation that you want to have in your life, be very honest about why you want to do it, where you're at in your life. So do some deep work around it before you you decide to go into it. To just clarify why you're doing it, um, you know, what you're looking to experience through it, also so that you don't set expectations too high where you have intentions that can be quite fluid and they can they can develop with the work that you're doing, you know, because they say often in plan medicine you don't get what you want, you get what you need. You know, exactly. Um to be open to actually receiving something different that you are as well, sometimes that you were expecting because it's coming from a higher intelligence of your higher self. Um, I would say giving yourself plenty of time to really clarifying all these things and also finding, you know, what's really important for highly sensitive people, grounding practices that you can do when you might feel overstimulated, or you might feel you know, then maybe you're getting a bit fragmented and you're all over the place. So there are grounding practices that you can do before, and also you can prepare yourself with navigation tips, which is what I give to my clients when you know we do the preparation together, having little anchors that you can you know grab onto during the journey, they can make you feel safe. Certain settings are so important. So it's kind of part of whether you select a very safe environment to do it, that you feel very comfortable with the people that you're gonna be taking medicine with. I would say for highly sensitive people, even more for everybody, but for highly sensitive people feeling safe and looked after, number one, when part of the safety, that safety is also up to you by doing all this preparation before, but it's also about how you choose uh what environment you select, what people are gonna be giving it to you because their energy you're gonna be in this soup for you know that amount of time that the ceremony is on with them, energetic soup, where uh bunches are gonna be very blurred, uh and and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna feel each other's energy a lot, even if you're not talking to each other, it doesn't matter. Right. It's very important to um to choose well. And I would say, you know, in terms of as well potentially feeling that you are uh fragmenting yourself, that you're dispersing yourself, there are anchors, there are things that you can do before you go in to um make you feel safer throughout it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate what you're saying and the sense of normalizing that for highly sensitive people as well, because I know that we do like to plan, and of course, everyone wants to feel safe, but because of our sensitivity, many of us have struggled more with finding safety or establishing safety in the nervous system, and you mentioned grounding as well. So I think everything you just said feels like a big relief to hear it because I think a lot of HSPs can feel, oh, maybe I'm overthinking it or I'm overreacting or I'm yeah, planning too much. But what I'm hearing from you is it's actually really important to do those things. And everyone's on a different journey as well, aren't they? So we have to do what's right for us and what feels safe for us.
SPEAKER_00Completely. Yeah, and I think actually, and that's the thing, that's why provision is also important. You mentioned overthinking or other things. That's something that comes up before you go into the plum medicine journey. You can do some parts work on that, the part that feels that it's overthinking. You can already do some integration before you even go in it, so that you can deal with that part, and you can really identify am I over is this kind of healthy concern or am I overthinking and over worrying? Let's let's define that, let's understand this a little bit more, you know, and then because there will be elements, and you know, I'm gonna be totally honest, there will be kind of unpredictable elements in the psychedelic journey, you know, that come along that you cannot plan, you cannot expect, and sometimes they might feel like they overwhelm you. Well, it's also about doing that work where you know that you can do this, that you've chosen to do this, right? You're doing it for a very good reason, and that you can deal with it. So it's also preparing on working, okay, whatever comes along, what could be an anchor that reminds me that I've chosen to do this, I'm doing this for a good reason for my own healing, growth, connection, whatever you want to, you know, whatever is your reason, and then I can I can hold this, you know, even if it might be challenging in the moment, I can hold this, and then I can go back to it afterwards in integration to revisit it. I can just flow with it. I don't have to under also don't have to understand everything that comes along. I can just be a passenger, you know, in this kind of like journey that I'm in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it feels so important what you're saying. And I was just reflecting as you were talking. So, from my experience and with a lot of the HSPs that I've worked with, I found that we tend to have more porous boundaries. So there's a sense that it's more easy for us to enter expanded states of consciousness or have awakening experiences. So I know for myself, um, my journey has been very much through meditation, and um, I've had some quite profound experiences just from meditating. And for that reason, I've always been in a way quite cautious about um how I elicit these expanded states of consciousness because of my tendency to be quite porous, right? So I was wondering, you know, for other HSPs who might have a similar experience, is there anything else you would suggest or recommend in terms of feeling um safe or that ability to integrate these experiences as you as you were talking about?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I would say doing some preparation work first of all, as I was mentioning earlier. And um potentially as well to practice with expanding states before with different kinds of expanded states before taking psychedelics to see how you respond to them. Now, this can be done with breath work, it can be done with even sound healing, it can be done with ecstatic dance and and movement as well as somatics. Um I would I would try, or even I don't know, uh the tanks, the uh sensory kind of like um deprivation tanks where you're just floating. There are quite a few uh uh activities and things that you can try before taking psychedelics to test your response to them, you know, to see what how do I navigate expanded states? How comfortable do I feel if it's so easy for me to just go in fast? Well, it's a way of testing as well your threshold and seeing how you respond to them. Another thing that could be as well, I'm gonna say this, but then it depends because there are debates about it. You could start very slow. That's what I would recommend to someone who's highly sensitive, even in terms of medicine. Now it depends what medicine you take, because if you go and take uh grandmother aya, um, meaning ayahuasca, um you take one drink that I mean sometimes to me lasts me all night. I don't need to take anything else, and that's really quite strong. You know, for me to have done it for years, if you it depends what medicine you want to work with. There are other medicines that you can um take in different ways, for example, with silicigen, you just start with a very small dose and see how you get on with it, just to see how the expanded state um produced by the medicine, how you respond to it as well. But then some people would say, and this is debatable, I don't know, maybe you can tell me what you think about it, that sometimes people to break through those patterns that they've had for years, highly sensitive or not, they just need a good dose, and that it's got what it's gonna do them. So because that's gonna just they're not gonna be able to have much resistance to it, you're just gonna be in the process really intensely. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you think about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So my experience is, especially with HSP, is that it's important to take it slowly and take the more gentle approach. Uh, because I think, yeah, we're often told by society that if we're struggling with something, we just need to blast through it and use this more forceful masculine energy in a way. But I my personal belief system is that it's okay to take things gradually and slowly and yeah, dip your toes in and sense your, yeah, establish that safety and what works for you. So I really like what you suggested about starting small or starting with other experiences like breath work and seeing how that feels and getting used to those kind of states of consciousness as well, navigating them. It really makes sense to me, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And also doing it gradually and slowly, it's what is gonna be most supportive in the end. Because I see integration and change happening like that. You build slowly towards it. You know, I don't believe in like what they say as well about plant medicine with 10 years of therapy in one night, maybe for some people, you know, it wasn't for me, and I think that it can be very misleading to see say that because it it really kind of brings up this quick fix culture that we leave it in, where like, okay, I'm just gonna do two or three ceremonies and then I'm gonna be done. That's not how it works. And I like that idea of like going slowly and gently. That's my inclination as well, you know. And then if you want to have a more intense experience, once you're more experienced with it, and you're gonna want to go very deep once, you can do that because you you already have you know how to deal with it, you know, and you can go and do more profound transformation and more a deeper experience. Totally fine. I've done those and it's great, but to do it straight away can be very overwhelming. And the the um benefit of doing things slowly is that they tend to last. You know, it's the same thing with change, like if you do incremental change, incremental awareness practices where you you expand in your awareness, self-awareness, and you you know increasingly are able to do things differently, that's much more likely to stick around long term.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fantastic. I really resonate with that, and I agree, I don't like the quick fix culture, and I think, yeah, it's not the best way forward to kind of promote this idea that they can, yeah, have this massive transformation in just one experience, as you're saying, there's a need to integrate it, which is why I really value the work you're doing, and I think it's so important, and even important for people who are not engaging in uh psychedelics. So, just your work with psychosynthesis is so important because um there's many different experiences that we need to integrate, isn't there? So let's say someone who goes on a retreat and has a profound experience, and yeah, they come back from that retreat and suddenly they're faced with normal day-to-day activities, and there's a sense of even needing to integrate that. So I'm just imagining the work you do can be applied to many different contexts as well, um, through yeah, that modality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it does. So it's about there's a teaching in every experience, any every life experience, and that's the you know, I do psychedelic integration and psychosynthesis coaching. I emerge them when I work with plum medicine, and then I can also I also work just in psychosynthesis, and I really resonate with what you're saying in terms of it's important to integrate experiences that matter regardless of whether they have psychedelic experiences or not. And there's so much that you when you're doing this consciously, conscious work of integration, there's so much that you can get, say, as you said, you went to a retreat, and you've noticed that you were in a different space quite in quite a few occasions during that retreat where you almost felt like, oh my god, I'm so connected to my higher self and I can feel really free. And some really important aspects came up. It's so important to integrate that as well, and you can keep doing work on that for a very long time, you know. It's all about yeah, recognizing not just patterns, but also recognizing when you're doing things differently and build upon that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So I'm wondering if you have um, you know, perhaps a quote or any other sort of wisdom that you wanted to share with the listeners today about what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I do. There's a Master Prasse quote, and I always I need to read it out because I never remember exactly. I know exactly the the essence of it, but other words. And he says, the real wayage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. I think that quote really summarizes the work of integration as well very well. That is not necessarily keep on seeing new things, but also deeper change, you know, where you really shift your perspective, your inner perspective on yourself and the world. So it's a beautiful quote.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, beautiful. I really like that because it reminds me of you know something else I notice often in let's say the spiritual community or spiritual seekers is lots of people seeking out new experiences. And I think that in itself can become quite addictive. Um, and I'm curious what you think about that. So I know we touched upon it already, but maybe people, yeah, doing um plant medicine every month, let's say, or going on a retreat every week and they're searching for something different. But what I hear in that quote is the importance of staying with one thing or one experience for a longer period of time and kind of going into it more deeply and looking at it from different perspectives, and and that's really where transformation takes place, right? Instead of just jumping from one thing to the next. And yeah, I'm just curious what what you think about that because I'm seeing it a lot in the spiritual community, that kind of seeking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's not, as you said, it's not just the plural medicine world, but it's the whole kind of spiritual community at large or self-help or self-development community at large. And what I'm hearing from you is also moving from consuming to introspecting, you know, because again, quick fix culture and kind of you know, the culture of like consumerism, where you just keep seeking new things, but then you actually postpone it what really needs to happen, which is the introspection and the looking in. So, yeah, no, I agree with what you're saying that it's it's it's got so much in it, you can really unpack it in so many different ways that um that quote to me just speaks to something very deep, where again, it's not about keep on relying on the external for you know rewards or validation or even happiness, and just start looking in for that in a really deep way and really changing the way you're looking at things, you know.
SPEAKER_01So absolutely, and maybe just related to that, I'd like to ask you because I think that is the harder work, it's harder to turn your uh perspective inwards and start looking at those deeper aspects of yourself. So I'm wondering, what's your opinion on people doing this work alone without a guide or a mentor or someone to help them versus doing the work with a guide or someone who can help with that preparation and integration? What would you say, you know, is it okay to do it alone or what are the differences there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't think there's a formula that can say, you know, that's what needs to happen. I would never say that, obviously. I think that transformation and integration can happen in many different ways. And it happens when on your own sometimes, and it can happen in very much in a space with someone. What I found personally, I can only talk from my personal experience, really valuable was to have to work in connection with someone who was a specialist and was there for that reason. So, you know, as human beings, we we heal through connection, whether it's connection to ourselves or others, but you know, we are social beings. We are here on the planet to connect with others as well and not just to be in solitary confinement, obviously. So I wouldn't say that integration only happens with someone else, it happens all the time, but you can certainly um deepen it with someone and really get so much more out of it with someone who creates a safe space. Again, it's about feeling safe, where they become your uh sounding board and you can start hearing yourself and what you're saying because you ultimately you're doing your own healing in this work, right? But it's so important to have someone that creates their space that is as neutral as it can be, because obviously it's also a person, so you know they will bring their own energy in it, but someone who's not giving you advice like a friend maybe would do, who you know is not your family, so there are not kind of ties or is less conditional, someone who's there as neutrally as possible with as much self-compassion, compassion, you know, self-compassion and compassion for you, where they create that space where you can really hear yourself talking in a different way, and where you can, you know, you get asked questions that perhaps you would have never thought of before as well. And I think there's so much value in doing that. And uh, personally for me, everything changed when I started doing that. And then I have someone coaching me, which I think is really important to have, you know, as a as a profession, to have someone coaching you as well, and be someone monitoring you as well is very important. Um, I think because we tend to really thrive through connection, I think the healing is really speeds up when you are doing in connection with someone else, you know. And then it's up to you whether you want to have phases of doing that and then going back to doing it on your own. So I'm not saying that it doesn't happen on your own, but I'm saying that doing it with someone really deepens the process and the level of transformation that you can achieve as well through integration.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So I feel like there's so much to talk about with this topic. I have so many questions, but as we kind of come close to the end today, is there anything you feel that we have missed or anything else that you want to mention about this topic or go back to? Um, yeah, any burning statements that you didn't get to share?
SPEAKER_00I'd just like to say again, so important to research if a highly sensitive person decides to go down this path to really do their own research, not just, you know, from good sources as well, reliable sources, um, in terms of feeling safe if they decide to go down this path, you know, in whatever ceremonial space or you know, circle that they decide to join for this experience. And I would also say it's very important to prepare and do integration afterwards because you can get so much more out of it. So I'm just gonna mention what we talked about in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, thank you. Thank you for saying that. And talking about reliable sources of information, I know that you are an expert in this area, and you obviously have your own um yeah, website and social media. So, where can listeners go if they are really inspired today and want to find out more about your work and how you can support them as well?
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. Yes, so I um offer one-to-one uh sessions, integration sessions and uh integration and preparation. Uh, you can find the links on my website if you want to know more a little bit more about me. The website is call2source.com. Or you can also find more information on my Instagram, which is call.source. And uh I will be launching in a new year a uh mini course, integration course of like eight weeks uh for people to do some kind of integration webinars in community, but it will also include some one-to-one sessions, so it's a whole journey of integration. And I recently launched a podcast about psychedelic integration, it's called the psychedelic integration compass. You can find that online, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on all the main platforms. And you know, I interview people that um use different practices. There's one about psychosynthesis, there's another episode about uh shamanism at the moment, and then another one where I interviewed someone from a uh a retreat in Peru where I've just recently been, and she's a herbalist, and so we talk about she people ceremonies and dietas and plumers in dietas.
SPEAKER_01So amazing. Yeah, thank you so much. And I will put the links to your website and Instagram in the show notes so people can access those easily. And I really like the sounds of the course you're doing in the new year. I think, you know, for myself, when I'm uh new to some kind of work or approach, there's something about maybe going on a journey uh with a group of people that seems really appealing. So yeah, that sounds really fantastic. And so we'll put the link to that as well in the show notes. Thank you so much, Daws, and thank you for having me again. Yeah, thank you for being here today. It's been amazing. Thanks for joining me today on Highly Sensitive Humans. Make sure to visit my website, highly sensitivehumans.com, where I also offer one-to-one coaching for highly sensitive people, and a members area with monthly community meetings. You can also visit the Highly Sensitive Human Academy to find out more about upcoming online trainings, including a three-month professional training on how to coach highly sensitive people, and a three-month professional training on working with highly sensitive children. And if you found value in the show today, I'd really appreciate your rating. And you can also support the show by making a donation. Your donations are what enable the production of the podcast and enable the show to keep running.