Having worked with psychedelic plants in all sorts of therapeutic and traditional settings, the transformative power of these plants has become apparent. Not to say there aren’t challenges and cautions as they’re certainly not for everyone, however, when used responsibly, they can accelerate the process of personal development.
This is how I began my self-discovery journey with psychedelics; to understand. I wanted to understand how I could change, and even though it was a treacherous road, these plants illuminated everything that had to be worked on.
Psychedelics showed me the errors of my way and brought to my attention some unpleasant truths I would rather ignore, but needed to confront for my personal development.
Whether these plants showed me my insecurities or inspired new behaviors, attitudes, and actions, I commend these teacher plants as a much-needed aid to explore my consciousness, unravel the issues I was facing, and illuminate new paths to walk.
Why psychedelics can be powerful tools
Psychedelics have well earned their reputation as transformative tools, and more people are looking towards them as a viable method to excel in their personal development. That’s because psychedelics help you get to the roots of your pain. They act as the fast track to development, given they are used with caution and respect.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also seen psychedelics deteriorate the minds of unsuspecting foe. I have met those with good intentions, ruined by the merciless teacher of psychoactive plants.
I’ve met people who have gone psychotic following the resurgence of particularly painful repressed traumas the person wasn’t ready to deal with. I’ve seen people who have been retraumatized and someone who was almost killed.
However, under the right circumstances, for someone in the correct state of mind to handle the alienating world of psychedelic space, these substances are the wisest teachers you will encounter.
People lose years trying to figure out why they aren’t the person they want to be. Often they don’t know where to start. They want to become more confident, and they want to stop people pleasing, but besides reading some wise advice, how do we put that information into play?
That’s because personal growth isn’t linear. It’s a maze, and we spend our lives trying to figure it all out, but we never truly can. This is where psychedelics play a role, they act as our personal development teachers by pointing out what is broken and how we can fix it.
You need to do the work
Personal development is the act of improving yourself to achieve a better quality of life. It’s the path of self-betterment by working on your relationships with the world, oneself, and other people.
Generally speaking, the personal development journey is a long road. You should perceive it as a life-long journey because there is always something that can be improved about your life experience.
The role that psychedelics play in personal development is as an aid. Although the experiences can be anything but fun, they alter your perception of life and oneself, and show you alternative roads to take with your development.
While psychedelics should be seen as teachers to assist your personal development, they certainly can’t walk the path for you. Psychedelics have a tremendous ability to cut through the fluff and illuminate the root cause of your dysfunction.
But you need to do the work.
Naturally occurring psychedelics are known as plant medicines within the traditional context due to their ability to help people heal, but they also go by the lesser-known alias as powerplants.
When you intend to use psychedelics to develop yourself rather than heal, psychedelics play a role as power plants – as tools to expand your consciousness.
Why are psychedelics teachers?
First I want to make it clear that you should always be working on yourself, regardless if you’re using psychedelics as an aid or not. Either way, you are doing the work, psychedelics may speed up the process, but you need to put in the extra miles.
The role of power plants help you actualize your best self. They illuminate aspects of yourself that you need to work on and provide insight into how you can make the appropriate changes in your life.
If you’re on a growth journey, plant medicines can provide deeper insight and realizations that skyrocket your learning trajectory. This is why plant medicines are becoming more widely recognized as powerful tools for personal development.
Whether you’re trying to improve particular characteristics, let go of mindsets that are weighing you down, or enhance your social relationships, plant medicines can provide powerful insight into any area of your life.
Let’s look into some of the common reasons why psychedelics can be used as powerful teachers for personal development.
1. They help you let go of emotional baggage
Something that many plant medicine enthusiasts talk about is their ability to let go of the past after taking these medicines. Whether this means letting go of an old relationship, a person who has passed away, a situation you were in, or something traumatic that happened to you, Emotional baggage weighs you down.
It’s heavy, it hurts, and it prevents you from achieving the life you want. The issue is… it can be hard to drop because either we don’t know how to let it go, or we identify with it.
This is where psychedelics can loosen up your joints to allow these painful experiences to wash off your shoulders. You still need to work through these experiences and let them go as you would regularly, but plant medicines can facilitate the experience, and help take off the load.
2. They open your mind
Close-mindedness is no match for psychedelics because they will pry it open with a crowbar.
When taking plant medicines, you tend to experience many thoughts, ideas, and perspectives that you may have never considered before. These alternative perspectives allow you to think differently about the world, and this is where people often have epiphanies.
In this sense, psychedelics can help you rid yourself of biases by pushing you to contemplate concepts that you may previously avoided. Instead of seeing a single angle of any given situation, you’re inundated with alternative perspectives.
Ignorance and plant medicines don’t mesh, which is why they are powerful tools to open your mind. Understanding all perspectives on any given scenario is a much more rational way to live.
3. They help you confront your dysfunction
Plant medicines help you discover aspects of yourself that no longer serve you. They shine a light on the root cause of your dysfunction, whether it’s regarding your social relationships, behavior, attitudes, or conduct with the world.
Perhaps psychedelics will illuminate why you’re so shy, easily triggered, or constantly angry at the world. They may show you a side of yourself that you have previously refused to look at, yet you now can’t avoid.
By being aware of these dysfunctions, it becomes easier to transmute them into characteristics that benefit your life. You can’t fix your problems if you can’t see them.
4. They help you identify unconscious patterns
People operate on engrained patterns that dictate our actions, attitudes, and decisions. If we knew a pattern was harmful, we would simply change it, however, most patterns are unconscious and operating under the surface of awareness.
We tend to get caught in painful patterns that we have adopted since we were little. This conditioning is caused by your parents and peers, your culture, religion, and the society you were raised in.
These patterns become so deeply lodged into your programming, that you are led to believe there’s no other option. But there is. Plant medicines help you recognize destructive patterns as they force you to have a long hard look at why you are the way you are. This awareness allows you to make changes for the better.
5. They help change your perspective of self
Many people feel a stronger connection to their spiritual body, their feelings, and the Earth itself when taking these medicines. Rather than being caught in the trap of ego, a deeper connection with self is cultivated, which facilitates a more wholesome framework of self.
Especially when thrown into the deeper experiences that plant medicines can induce, it’s difficult not to have some major shifts in perception. These shifts can help you view your reality in a much healthier light. One that instills optimism, gratitude, and other high vibrational outlets that allow you to see the beauty in life.
6. They push you to better yourself
You are likely to broaden your understanding of fundamental truths, and these truths put you on a better trajectory toward health and happiness.
This might be the recognition that wrongdoing is caused by wounds, that healing leads to happiness, or that being at service to humanity is the greatest way to achieve inner fulfillment. By learning these fundamental truths, plant medicines help you cultivate better ways of living.
7. They challenge your belief systems
Plant medicines dissolve outdated belief systems that no longer serve you, and help you rebuild healthier ones.
With the help of psychedelics, ignorance becomes difficult to hold onto because plant medicines make you question your edifices, and discard ideas, notions, and doctrines that aren’t serving your highest growth and happiness.
8. They help you surrender to the unknown
Learning to surrender is such a pivotal skill as resistance is a primary root of suffering. When you’re thrown into the unknown, you learn quickly not to resist, because resisting the experience can make it much more painful.
So you learn to flow, accept, and learn from what the medicines are trying to teach you. When you apply the same mentality to your life, it’s much easier to accept of your life condition and allow your life experience to take you to the next chapter.
9. They help you become comfortable with mortality
Being comfortable with your mortality is a huge relief.
All fear is rooted in our sense of mortality. It’s a big reason why you take your life so seriously, and drum up such little matters to be life or death – because, to your ego, they are.
These experiences help you gain new perspectives about death, and help you find peace with your short time on this planet. Instead of being a questionable horror, death becomes a beautiful mystery. This opens up so many doorways and provides a sense of freedom that can’t be attained while latching onto the permanency of life.