Insights from the Journey
Research, reflections, and the deeper why behind our work with psilocybin, breathwork, and body-oriented practices
What to Do With the Open Window After a Psychedelic Journey
One researcher's experiment with PSYCH-K® — and what the neuroscience of psilocybin suggests about why it worked
This post follows directly from the Tuesday integration post. It opens with a personal story: a difficult post-ceremony period in which an old pattern — fear-driven exhaustion and brain fog linked to burnout — escalated into a ten-day cycle of coffee, disrupted sleep, and more fog. A chance meeting with PSYCH-K® trainer Evelien Janson leads to a session that shifts the underlying belief driving the pattern. The post then connects this experience to the neuroscience of the post-ceremony window — psilocybin-induced neuroplasticity — and introduces a hypothesis: that body-based approaches working directly on subconscious belief structures (PSYCH-K®, EMDR, somatic therapy, parts work) may be particularly effective during this window precisely because the brain is temporarily more malleable.
Why Your Psychedelic Ceremony Didn't Change Your Life — And What Actually Does
Why Your Psychedelic Ceremony Didn't Change Your Life — And What Actually Does
This post explores why psilocybin and truffle ceremonies often don't translate into lasting behavioral change — and what the research says actually makes them work. It introduces the concept of the integration gap, presents clinical data on success rates when integration is properly supported (Ross/NYU, Agin-Liebes long-term follow-up), explains why talk therapy alone is insufficient, maps the four dimensions of integration (somatic, spiritual, relational, existential) based on Bathje et al. 2022, and closes with Griffiths 2018 on meditation and spiritual practice as predictors of durable change.
Why Burned-Out Professionals Are Turning to Psychedelics
When the System Needs More Than Rest — Psilocybin, Breathwork, and Burnout Recovery
Burnout doesn't resolve with rest alone because it has reorganised the body's regulatory systems — the autonomic nervous system, the stress response, the brain's capacity for resilience and meaning. This post explores what the research now shows about three approaches that work at the level where burnout actually lives: psilocybin (drawing on two recent randomised controlled trials in clinical populations), slow breathwork and vagal regulation, and body-oriented awareness practice. Part two of two.
Burnout Is Not a Willpower Problem. It's a Biology Problem
What burnout actually does to the body — and why high-performing professionals are the last to see it coming
Burnout is not a mindset problem. It is a physiological state with measurable changes in the autonomic nervous system, the stress hormone system, and the brain's ability to generate meaning. This post traces the stages of burnout — from drive to collapse — explains the biology in plain language, describes the comorbidities that cluster around it, and makes the case that what recovery requires is not insight alone, but recalibration at the level of the body. Part one of two.
Why Psychedelics Reach What Antidepressants Miss
Why Psychedelics Reach What Antidepressants Miss
The brain in depression is not simply sad. It is structurally stuck — caught in self-reinforcing loops that conventional treatment can dampen but rarely dissolves. In this post, behavioral scientist and psychedelic facilitator Ioana goes into the neuroscience: what psychedelics actually do to large-scale brain organisation, why that is fundamentally different from how antidepressants work, and what it means in practice for people who haven't been helped by anything else. Part two of two.
We Are in the Middle of a Depression Epidemic
We Are in the Middle of a Depression Epidemic. And Our Main Tool Is Not Enough
Depression affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide — but the full scale of the epidemic includes a much larger, quieter group who live with significant symptoms without ever receiving a diagnosis. In this post, behavioral scientist and psychedelic facilitator Ioana explores the limits of current antidepressant treatment, the growing evidence for psychedelics as a genuinely different approach, and why the mechanism matters as much as the outcome. Part one of two.
Curious if this path is right for you?