2024 Prairiesattva Update Q3
Hello!
Hope you're doing well and enjoying your summer (or winter if you're south of the equator). And for those of you in the States, Happy 4th of July! Wishing you a safe and enjoyable time as you gather with friends and family to celebrate.
TL;DR
Worked with a client using the psychedelic-assisted coaching framework. The results were tremendous.
Had a very successful test run of a ketamine retreat I helped put together.
Working on my next area of learning - Internal Family Systems.
Still doing growth development coaching for leaders.
The Full Story
If you remember from my last update in April, I was stepping in plant-medicine work and offering psychedelic-assisted coaching as a new area of practice. My entry into this practice has truly been met with incredibly rich experiences - both for me and more importantly, my clients.
I'll share a quick story about a longtime client of mine. Without giving too many details to keep them and their experience confidential, I'll share a bit about what came up for them during their session.
It was something we never discussed during our normal coaching sessions. While in a non-ordinary state of consciousness, they were able to see an obstacle that wasn't apparent to them in an ordinary state of consciousness.
While we had prepped for this kind of thing to happen, we wouldn't have been able to predict what came up for them. And now that they could see it clearly, they knew they could not avoid it and needed to accept what they learned.
This is when the real work kicks in.
Medicine work is extremely powerful, but without proper post-session integration, it could be all for naught. Integration is the time to fully process what is learned and put practices in place to facilitate change. Understanding this, we had a game plan in place to navigate the integration phase and used the A.C.E.R. framework (this framework was created by Dr. Rosalind Watts out of the U.K.).
A.C.E.R. stands for - Accept, Connect, Embody, and Restore.
When using these medicines, we're inviting in the opportunity to look at things we've been avoiding, and make the necessary shift into acceptance. We're also looking at what we've been disconnected from and put practices in place to facilitate connection.
Once those two things are in motion, we then try to embody these new practices and ways of being which helps us restore whatever it is we seek to restore - feeling whole, being confident, acting with self-love and self-compassion, living in our purpose, etc.
It's a transformative process and one that I'm grateful to be a part of.
Ketamine Retreat
Another thing I mentioned in my last update was that a few of us were working on putting together a ketamine retreat at the end of May/beginning of June.
I can report that it went better than I could have ever hoped for. We had 6 participants who signed up for this trial run and the feedback we got was tremendous. All reported experiencing a deep amount of healing, and with the group integration we're doing together in the weeks after the retreat, they're all staying on top of their practices to make sure the healing continues. It's been really beautiful to watch this unfold, and I can't wait to put another retreat together. It'll probably be several months before the next one, but I feel we have a really strong program in place and just need to tweak a few things to make the experience even better for participants.
If you're interested in possibly participating in a retreat like this, feel free to send me a note and I'll reach back out when I have more information.
Next Area of Learning
Every time I finish earning a new certification, I tell myself, "Let's take a year off before signing up for another one." I should know better by now.
When I was finishing up my certification for psychedelic coaching integration, the therapeutic technique of Internal Family Systems (IFS) came onto my radar. The creator of IFS, Richard Schwartz, was a guest lecturer during that program and everything he said about how we deal with trauma at an early age made sense.
The brief explanation of this is that when trauma occurs, we create a new "part" of our psyche. This part works to protect us from future harm. Unfortunately, this part gets stuck at the age it develops at. So we might be an adult, but when something happens that makes this part show up, that part arrives as a 4 year old, or 8 eight year old - whenever the trauma occurs. These parts are "burdened" and if left unresolved, we're essentially left to operate in a way that makes them feel the most comfortable. This keeps us stuck and unable to move beyond our fear and our pain.
While IFS has been in the domain of therapy, the organization behind this work sees the potential of it in coaching and will be opening up training to coaches in the fall. My hope is to be one of the 80 folks allowed to go through the training and on a pathway toward certification. IFS dovetails so nicely with plant-medicine work that it makes it a no-brainer when looking at it as a framework to facilitate healing. Richard Schwartz is a big advocate of combining the two, so I'm excited to learn as much as I can and start putting it into practice.
If you're interested in learning more about IFS, I highly recommend the book, No Bad Parts.
Growth & Development Coaching
I've seen an uptick in the interest in coaching since May, so I'm feeling good about that. Like I've said before, this type of coaching will remain the core of my practice, so I'm always open to any referrals you might have. If there's someone you think would benefit from this, feel free to share my information with them. I'm truly grateful for each and every referral that comes my way. It really does mean the world to me.
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If you made it this far, I appreciate you reading about what I'm up to. This is work I very much believe in, and since you all were part of it in the past, there's no better group I want to share it with.
Wishing you a wonderful Q3, and if there's anything I can be helpful with, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Cheers,
Matt
