How to Deal with a Troubling Ayahuasca Ceremony

Ayahuasca is an amazing and transformative plant medicine, and it’s helped countless people heal, grow and become better versions of themselves. However, it is not an easy path.

The medicine challenges us on many levels by its very nature. The intensity of the visionary state can be overstimulating on a raw sensory level. Purging is often a difficult and physically painful process. Revisiting traumatic memories can be emotionally overwhelming. Facing parts of ourselves that we don’t like and don’t want to see can be psychologically challenging. And ego-dissolution experiences with Ayahuasca can be terrifying. 

But beyond these common challenges, sometimes people experience frightening and overwhelming ceremonies that can leave them feeling anxious, unsettled, disoriented, or even traumatized. For some people, these feelings persist long after the ceremony, leaving them feeling unstable and unmoored upon returning home. 

How to work with these kinds of experiences really depends on what you’re going through. Different types of difficult experiences will require different approaches — for example, someone experiencing paranoia after a ceremony needs different help than someone feeling traumatized by an overwhelming experience. 

That said, here are some general recommendations:

Take Time for Yourself

It’s always best to set aside a couple of days after ceremony for rest, reflection, and integration — but this is especially important if the experience was difficult. If you’re really struggling, you’re going to need space to deal with what’s coming-up. Jumping back into work or other intensive commitments while you’re in a fragile state can add immensely to feelings of anxiety and distress. 

If at all possible, take some time off after the ceremony or retreat before resuming your full schedule. 

Do Not Isolate

It’s important not to isolate or withdraw after difficult ceremony experiences. Not talking with anyone about what you are going through can actually make things worse. 

Reach out to other participants who were in the ceremony or retreat with you. Let them know what you’re going through. The bond that often forms in ceremony extends well beyond the retreat, creating a natural community of peer support. You may even find that some of them are working through challenges of their own.

Share what you’re going through with trusted loved ones and supportive people in your life. Talking about your experience is part of processing it and eventually making sense of it. This is why so many retreat centers and ceremony communities offer sharing circles as part of integration. If you are struggling following a ceremony, let trusted people in your life know. 

Reach Out To Facilitators

Most facilitators offer some kind of post-ceremony support. Let them know you are having a hard time. If there are outstanding questions about what happened during a ceremony, ask them for their perspective. Ask what kind of follow-up resources they offer. Sometimes retreat centers will offer post-retreat counseling sessions with professionals experienced with the medicine.

That being said, if the facilitators contributed to your challenging experience (ie. if they confused or distressed you with their guidance, if they were inappropriate, if they abused their power in some way, if they dismissed or ignored your needs) then it may be best to avoid contacting them and seek out help outside that ceremony community.

Engage in Calming or Grounding Practices

Grounding practices are anything that helps you to ground your energy and stabilize your nervous system. Most are oriented towards bringing your awareness into your body or relaxing your body in some way. We spend way too much time in the thinking world already and when you’re overwhelmed or distressed this can end-up amplifying your anxiety significantly. Understandably, anxiety can make being in your body an uncomfortable experience, at least initially, but if you continue to ground your attention into your body and its sensations, your nervous system in most cases will calm down.

Examples of helpful grounding practices include: yoga and qi gong but also things like walking in nature, taking a hot bath, and getting a massage. Spending time in nature in particular can be very calming and restorative. It also often helps us to get a broader perspective on things beyond our immediate troubles. If you don’t have access to immersive natural spaces, go to a park or even better go to a nearby body of water of some kind (river, creek, pond, lake) and spend time sitting with and observing the movement of the water. 

Avoid Altered States

Avoid anything that will alter your state of consciousness further. This is not a good time for intensive breathwork, using mind-altering substances or any kind of trance work. Especially avoid other psychedelics or plant medicines until you feel more ground under your feet. Meditation can be helpful for some but for others it can be de-stabilizing so be careful with meditation practices if you are in an emotionally or psychologically turbulent place after ceremony.

Get Help

If you still feel like you are struggling after several days post-ceremony, seek out professional help. Processing the ceremony experience and talking with someone about what you’re going through can be very helpful. A professional therapist or counselor provides a safe space where you can explore what happened during the ceremony and come to an understanding of what it means for you. 

While any psychotherapist can offer a supportive space to process the experience, the vast majority of therapists or mental health professionals have limited or no experience with plant medicines and may not understand the themes, dynamics and issues that can come up as part of Ayahuasca healing work. 

If you do not already have a therapist, I think you are better off finding a therapist or counselor with a specialty in plant medicine or Ayahuasca integration. They should understand the Ayahuasca experience and just as importantly understand the retreat center or ceremony circle context that you experienced. The ceremony setting has a big impact on the Ayahuasca experience so it’s helpful to work with someone who knows that world.

In rare cases, psychiatric medication may be needed to help someone stabilize. A licensed psychotherapist can help determine whether you should seek out a consultation with a psychiatrist who can prescribe medications. They may even be able to provide referrals to plant-medicine knowledgeable psychiatrists. 

This is one reason why, if you are really struggling, it’s often better to work with a licensed psychotherapist rather than an integration coach; psychotherapists are trained in understanding and managing acute mental health issues, while coaches generally are not.

It may only take a handful of sessions to feel some relief and ceremony integration work is often short-term oriented so you’re not committing to a long-term process as you might in traditional psychotherapy. 

With the right help, even these troubling experiences can become springboards for healing and personal growth. People who proactively engage with their difficult psychedelic experience and work with the material it brought up generally end up benefiting greatly on psychological, emotional, and spiritual levels.