Preparation for the Journey
Embarking on a plant medicine journey is an amazing opportunity for healing, to gain insight into oneself and to come into harmony with the world around us. To ensure you make the most of your experience, it’s important to prepare ahead of time. We have some helpful guidelines to help you prepare for this transformative journey!
PHYSICAL PREPARATION
MEDICAL SCREENING:
Prioritizing your safety and well-being when working with plant medicines is our top priority. To ensure that we provide you with the most positive experience, our team has created a comprehensive screening process to assess your physical, mental, and emotional health before the retreat – plus our supportive team will provide assistance every step of the way! We kindly ask that before any major changes occur (in health outcomes or medications taken) that you get in touch with us so that proper precautions can be ensured. Plus if necessary, don’t forget to connect with your provider as well!
Nutrition: Proper nourishment plays a key role in having optimal results from any spiritual practice. Make sure to nourish your body with clean, natural fuel – think of a range of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains & lean proteins for optimum health! Avoid red meat/pork, dairy products, highly processed foods, sugar-filled items, fried food, and junk food as much as possible the week before the retreat.
Detoxify: Start your journey to better health by purifying and detoxifying your body from any unnatural substances such as candy, alcohol, recreational drugs, cigarettes, chemical products, and so forth.
Sleep: Quality of sleep is crucial to good health. Try to eliminate any sources of distraction or stimulation that could impede your rest. Incorporate calming rituals into your nighttime routine such as reading a book, listening to relaxing music, or taking a warm bath in order to create the right environment for sound slumber.
Exercise: As you prepare for your upcoming retreat, make sure to incorporate some physical activities into your routine. Exercising can be a powerful way to cultivate a deeper connection with your body, increasing your flexibility and boosting stamina for the journey ahead. Consider trying out anything from swimming and dancing to yoga or qi gong – each of these will give an extra boost of energy when the time comes.
Body awareness: Pay attention to your body and what it is communicating. Everything will be magnified during your retreat experience, so start paying attention to what your body has to say to you.
Relaxation: A relaxed body going in will soften and deepen your experience; a tense body holds resistance, traps energy, and inhibits the flow of the experience. Prepare now through body relaxation practices like meditation, breathing exercises, or gentle hikes in nature.
MENTAL PREPARATION
Get clear with intentions: Intentions give you clarity and depth to your experience and give you strength and perseverance during tougher times. Your intentions don’t need to be detailed and complicated, but it is important that they come from your heart. Ask yourself, what is my heart’s deepest yearning?
Practice mindfulness meditation: A mindfulness practice will help you develop curiosity, kindness, and compassion for yourself and others. By being caring, nonjudgmental, and taking the time to observe ourselves from afar we gain insight into how our thoughts and emotions influence us – instead of letting them control us.
Prepare for discomfort: Working with plant medicine is deeply rewarding and can be challenging at times. Leading up to your experience, whenever you feel discomfort, rather than reacting to it, allow space for it, and lean into it. The invitation is to accept and allow any feelings of discomfort and use them as a chance for growth. Trust that this journey will take you where you need to be and we will support you in the process.
De-stress your mind: Practice bringing calm in the face of stress, tension, or worry. Avoid intense drama, toxic relationships, and violence in the media, film, literature, music, or arts; this all causes intensity and chaos in the mind, bringing more stress and unnecessary distraction into the experience.
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Start a meditative practice: Deepen your spiritual journey by starting a meditative practice – it’ll help you to tap into the wisdom of your body and emotions while silencing mind chatter so that you may exist in harmony with what lies beyond. Prepare yourself for an enlightening voyage!
Connect to inner guidance: Tune into your inner guidance system (intuition, instinct, higher knowing, gut feeling, wisdom). Stay in tune with your inner voice and follow its guidance. Listen to what it has to say – whether through thought, feeling, writing or just quieting the mind.
Open the spiritual dialogue: take time to connect to the spirit world, you can pray to the ancestors, angels, or the spirits of nature.
Clarify your spiritual purpose: Think beyond your pursuits and goals, and contemplate your higher purpose and spiritual development. Wachuma presents a profound opportunity to awaken and grow spiritually, and having a sense of higher purpose activates strength, courage, determination, and perseverance in every area of one’s life. Acknowledging things like family lineage, the collective good, what the afterlife may be, and what the source of life may be, brings depth and new insights to this kind of journey. It is not important to have a spiritual path or to have any answers, but rather to be open to these questions from a place of curiosity.