Movement is my practice. It is my recreation. My prayer. My coping strategy. My grounding. My release. My connection. And one of my favorite ways to integrate the big experiences in my life, especially psychedelic or entheogenic experiences, is through movement and dance.
The healing and integrative potential of dance and movement is infinite.
I will attempt to share some embodiment practices that could be helpful for you to support your integration process after working with psychedelics.
Quoting the founder of 5 Rhythms movement meditation, Gabrielle Roth says,
“Put your body in motion and your psyche will heal itself.”
There have been countless times where I feel out of sorts, and even just a few minutes of movement puts me back together again, reminds me who I am, gives me a place to start fresh from.
While this is true for anytime I am needing some reconnection, after an expansive experience, it helps me even greater.
Movement gets us out of our heads and into our bodies. It moves fluids around, shifting stagnant energy. Movement can also release what has been stuck from the past, and unlock mysteries that the mind can’t grasp. Conscious movement is a way to contact, communicate, and connect with the divine spirit. It's a healing, a connection, an answer and a release.
And not only after a peak experience, but even sometimes during, this can take us deeper into the healing, and hence begin the embodiment process in real time.
In some psychedelic spaces you may be able to use movement during your experience which can actually begin the integration process.
For safety reasons, standing up and moving may not be a part of the container or context in
some settings; you may be required to be sitting or laying still.
If there is permission or encouragement to move, this act can support taking some of those movements from your meditation into this 3-D reality.
Sometimes when we are feeling stuck in our lives, or in our meditations, we can begin to move the body, even from our seated positions, to help our cells find a different pathway, or to help a purge come, to get ourselves out of a loop, and if we have the capacity to stand and move, even gently, slowly, that can help us bring the healing deeper into the body, having all the cells come join a part of the ride.
And having that concrete feeling of movement, we may be able to call upon that feeling, that muscle memory more easily after the experience to continue the healing.
Once we are no longer in those psychedelic spaces, we can revisit movement to help us in the process.
For example, think about the last psychedelic journey you had. Was there a certain moment or feeling that you can still connect with?
If you have a particular moment that you can recall from your journey that felt poignant and you can recall a posture you were holding at the time.
You can start your dance from that posture and see how it wants to move, what it may have to share with you.
If you can recall that feeling, can you gently move your body while feeling that emotion or feeling. Was there a vision or character you saw? Can you take the shape of who or what you saw, and then begin to move from that place to understand more of what that being was showing you. What this does is help you reconnect so you can continue with the healing or teaching from your meditation journey, and bring it into your experience in this lived reality.
If the experience was big and you’re feeling a sense of overwhelm, try putting on some gentle music to calm and nourish the nervous system, help it to settle.
Turn on a sweet medicine song that was heard in the journey space, or else some piano music or slow ambient music, whatever helps you to feel calm and also moves you, and just begin to sway, allowing yourself to slowly move a limb, a hand, a foot, a leg.
Letting it move to the music.
Moving with any music that feels good to you will be of support, or maybe some of the icaros or medicine songs that brought goodness into your meditations can be utilized.
Before a journey, a similar type of movement may help to open your body to the experience, letting go of anxiety, or nervousness, and to open your heart, mind and body to the medicine.
If you are still feeling like there is energy that won’t leave you, a gentle shaking to let go of what's still stuck can be helpful.
Begin with a shaking of a hand, and let it travel to your elbow and then the whole arm, and eventually around the whole body. This can remain a gentle shaking, or it can build in intensity as it feel best to you and your body and nervous system.
If you have a witness or a safe space, or integration support provider, you may even be able to revisit some of the harder moments, bringing with it softness and lightness, to smooth out the rough spots.
In my practice, I have supported clients in this space, holding tenderly the places where traumas are held and difficult memories are recalled, being a companion for them in the dark places.
Every new movement of a limb or muscle is a new pathway, once you change a limb, the thought, action, changes. For example, if you are moving your arms in a circle, which may symbolize a particular thought or way of being, if you interrupt that cycle, to begin to move them in a horizontal direction, it gives your neural pathways another way
Janina Fisher and Pat Ogden, when speaking of neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to adapt throughout life, say “Repetition of old, habitual thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and movements won’t change the brain, but will only reinforce established neural networks and behaviors. To change the brain, something new has to happen: we must interrupt and inhibit rigid patterns, and experiment with new kinds and amounts of sensory stimulation.”(1)
Movement allows the experience to circulate through your cells, educating and informing them about how to be, whether its creating new patterns that were discovered in your journeys, or helping to make sense of the ineffable moments that are not yet understood on a cognitive or verbal level.
If there is a ‘new me’ that I’m incorporating. As I dance, it allows that person to take shape, to come alive.
These are just a few ways that I have tried. See what works for you. Feel free to keep in touch. I’d love to know what works for you or any questions you might have.
The healing and integrative potential of dance and movement is infinite.
I will attempt to share some embodiment practices that could be helpful for you to support your integration process after working with psychedelics.
Quoting the founder of 5 Rhythms movement meditation, Gabrielle Roth says,
“Put your body in motion and your psyche will heal itself.”
There have been countless times where I feel out of sorts, and even just a few minutes of movement puts me back together again, reminds me who I am, gives me a place to start fresh from.
While this is true for anytime I am needing some reconnection, after an expansive experience, it helps me even greater.
Movement gets us out of our heads and into our bodies. It moves fluids around, shifting stagnant energy. Movement can also release what has been stuck from the past, and unlock mysteries that the mind can’t grasp. Conscious movement is a way to contact, communicate, and connect with the divine spirit. It's a healing, a connection, an answer and a release.
And not only after a peak experience, but even sometimes during, this can take us deeper into the healing, and hence begin the embodiment process in real time.
In some psychedelic spaces you may be able to use movement during your experience which can actually begin the integration process.
For safety reasons, standing up and moving may not be a part of the container or context in
some settings; you may be required to be sitting or laying still.
If there is permission or encouragement to move, this act can support taking some of those movements from your meditation into this 3-D reality.
Sometimes when we are feeling stuck in our lives, or in our meditations, we can begin to move the body, even from our seated positions, to help our cells find a different pathway, or to help a purge come, to get ourselves out of a loop, and if we have the capacity to stand and move, even gently, slowly, that can help us bring the healing deeper into the body, having all the cells come join a part of the ride.
And having that concrete feeling of movement, we may be able to call upon that feeling, that muscle memory more easily after the experience to continue the healing.
Once we are no longer in those psychedelic spaces, we can revisit movement to help us in the process.
For example, think about the last psychedelic journey you had. Was there a certain moment or feeling that you can still connect with?
If you have a particular moment that you can recall from your journey that felt poignant and you can recall a posture you were holding at the time.
You can start your dance from that posture and see how it wants to move, what it may have to share with you.
If you can recall that feeling, can you gently move your body while feeling that emotion or feeling. Was there a vision or character you saw? Can you take the shape of who or what you saw, and then begin to move from that place to understand more of what that being was showing you. What this does is help you reconnect so you can continue with the healing or teaching from your meditation journey, and bring it into your experience in this lived reality.
If the experience was big and you’re feeling a sense of overwhelm, try putting on some gentle music to calm and nourish the nervous system, help it to settle.
Turn on a sweet medicine song that was heard in the journey space, or else some piano music or slow ambient music, whatever helps you to feel calm and also moves you, and just begin to sway, allowing yourself to slowly move a limb, a hand, a foot, a leg.
Letting it move to the music.
Moving with any music that feels good to you will be of support, or maybe some of the icaros or medicine songs that brought goodness into your meditations can be utilized.
Before a journey, a similar type of movement may help to open your body to the experience, letting go of anxiety, or nervousness, and to open your heart, mind and body to the medicine.
If you are still feeling like there is energy that won’t leave you, a gentle shaking to let go of what's still stuck can be helpful.
Begin with a shaking of a hand, and let it travel to your elbow and then the whole arm, and eventually around the whole body. This can remain a gentle shaking, or it can build in intensity as it feel best to you and your body and nervous system.
If you have a witness or a safe space, or integration support provider, you may even be able to revisit some of the harder moments, bringing with it softness and lightness, to smooth out the rough spots.
In my practice, I have supported clients in this space, holding tenderly the places where traumas are held and difficult memories are recalled, being a companion for them in the dark places.
Every new movement of a limb or muscle is a new pathway, once you change a limb, the thought, action, changes. For example, if you are moving your arms in a circle, which may symbolize a particular thought or way of being, if you interrupt that cycle, to begin to move them in a horizontal direction, it gives your neural pathways another way
Janina Fisher and Pat Ogden, when speaking of neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to adapt throughout life, say “Repetition of old, habitual thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and movements won’t change the brain, but will only reinforce established neural networks and behaviors. To change the brain, something new has to happen: we must interrupt and inhibit rigid patterns, and experiment with new kinds and amounts of sensory stimulation.”(1)
Movement allows the experience to circulate through your cells, educating and informing them about how to be, whether its creating new patterns that were discovered in your journeys, or helping to make sense of the ineffable moments that are not yet understood on a cognitive or verbal level.
If there is a ‘new me’ that I’m incorporating. As I dance, it allows that person to take shape, to come alive.
These are just a few ways that I have tried. See what works for you. Feel free to keep in touch. I’d love to know what works for you or any questions you might have.
- Fisher, J. & Ogden, P. (2011, March). Retraining the Brain: Harnessing our Neuralplasticity. Psychotherapy Networker, https://janinafisher.com/pdfs/neuralplasticity.pdf.