There are many wonderful and well led experiential psychedelic retreats in the Netherlands, we would like to add a small retreat that focuses on a carefully chosen topic, shame, and uses it to help you feel the benefits of working with these experiences with a group of likeminded fellow participants.

Drawing from over 8 years of working with the powerful emotional content of psychedelic experiences we have observed the value of offering a specific intention to focus on and share in group retreats. This not only helps to more deeply explore a given subject by sharing the wisdom of the group, it also increases the sense of safety and belonging, both pivotal when working specifically with shame.

 

Shame:

 

Why focus on shame?

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" Loneliness doesn’t come from not having people around you but from not being able to communicate the things which seems important to you" 

- Carl Gustav Jung

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So… what is important to you that you can’t share with anyone else?

Obviously this retreat will not demand from you that you simply share stories of yourself that you are ashamed about. We aim to help you connect with and understand your shame better so that you can take care of it in a way that will help you live more freely.

 

Shame can be a very beneficial moral guard in society but when it is excessive, automatic and unprocessed, shame can limit our feelings, expressions and our sense of safety. It is one of the core of human emotional mechanisms which is why it can have such a powerful impact on our careers, relationships, happiness and on our health. Our minds have developed specifically to instinctively avoid feeling shame at any cost, as a core survival mechanism. This prevents us from becoming aware of important aspects of our psyche, reaching for help and to be vulnerable.

This means that we will be dealing with very delicate processes and we have designed activities to gently unfold this material with you. You will be supported to decide for yourself how much you are ready to process what arises in you.

 

You may have other issues in your life such as depression, anxiety, loneliness or other themes that are more important to you at this point than shame. Please use these. Any shame around your subject may not only prevent it from healing but also from you being willing to approach it with curiosity and compassion. Thus, the skill of relating to your shame in a healthy way will ease the way to dealing effectively with other major issues in your life. As we all have very unique ways in which shame is expressed in us we will approach this topic from a range of different perspectives; the body, the mind and cultural perspectives.

 

Processing your shame may finally allow you to see your true needs and reach for help. Processing this, especially in a group, can help foster feelings of belonging and connectedness. We will be working to create a space to authentically process those emotions and perspectives which often cannot be processed elsewhere. Supported compassionately by our team and the other participants.

 

While being with these kinds of processes, and as you relax your protection against connecting to the painful parts of your life, you will likely experience vulnerability and anxiety. We want to help you enhance your sense of control, help you to experience a sense of agency when engaging with these feelings.

 

Shame and psilocybin

 

As psychedelics are wonderful enhancers of feelings and emotions the psilocybin can help you feel deeply into the feelings of shame in you and help us to explore these feelings with you, both as they arise inside of you as memories of the past and in your present relationship with the group and with us as the facilitators. We will help you to use the support of the psilocybin to observe the different aspects of your shame, how they are expressed in you, why they are there and how you might relate to your shame in a caring, nourishing way. Our aim will be to help you use these experiences to develop skills to relate to your shame so that you can live in a more aware way and with more agency together with the shame you have.

 

Psychedelic experiences can be potent catalysts of transformation but we will be supporting you to also respect the pace of your process. That your transformation process will most likely not be a simple switch but an ever changing project of a lifetime, a flowing and growing lifestyle to step into in your own way. This may or may not involve future psychedelic experiences, other techniques and practices; you may have a very different and unique way of integrating the lessons you gain into your life.

 

Through psychedelic experiences we welcome chaos into our lives. This chaos may encompass feelings of fear, safety, sorrow, joy, love, hate, shame, pride, connection, disconnection. These feelings we so often try to push away or pull towards us are now something we willingly invite with intention so we can learn to dance with them all. We find that these skills tend to make us wiser beings and can serve us and those around us for the rest of our lives.

 

Setting

 

Being in a group can be very challenging. Therefore, in this retreat we will not be promising you a safe space but rather invite you into a brave space that will require support and attunement to your individual needs by the facilitators. We will allow plenty of time and space to get to know each other and to help you authentically interact with each other and participate in the exercises and participation will always be optional.

We will help you to connect to your bodies and emotions first to be able to decide when you want to be by yourself or not and where you want assistance or support.

All small (break-out) group exercises will be led by facilitators to model new ways to experience yourselves and others.

We will guide meditations, movement sessions, breath work, small and big group sharing circles, art expression sessions, journaling, and relational exercises.

 

We have decided to offer a high level of privacy to help you focus on your process. Therefore we will ask all participants not to share private information about status, profession, background, country of origin and we will ask that the use of mobile phones will be restricted to the private bedroom to help remove distractions. You will be free to share any private info with each other at the end of the retreat. 

 

Extra support

 

Many people express concerns that there is a very close connection during the retreat but that this will simply be over once the retreat ends.

As a part of this program there will be 2 online group preparation sessions before and 2 online group integration sessions after the retreat. We will also be offering monthly 2-hour online integration meetings to help reconnect, check in, to hear how you are doing, if you are getting the support you need. And to help the community we build with these retreats to have a chance to stay connected. These ongoing integration meetings will be based on a subscription fee. An important part of this fee will go toward helping people access the retreat who can’t afford it.