Life is a Festival #51: Sara Gael (The Zendo Project)

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Do you know what to do if a friend or a stranger is having a difficult psychedelic experience? Sometimes called a “bad trip,” these challenging journeys can actually be catalysts for healing and personal transformation. The key is to keep them safe and trust their inner healer. Sounds simple right? In fact, it’s a profound art, which requires specialized training and can be incredibly personally rewarding.

In this episode, I speak with Zendo Project Director Sara Gael. The Zendo Project is a part of MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) that creates a safe space within festivals and similar gatherings for people having difficult psychedelic experiences. “Trip sitting,” as it is sometimes called, is a specific kind of peer support that follows four key principles:

1. Create a Safe Space

2. Sitting, Not Guiding

3. Talk Through, Not Down

4. Difficult is Not the Same as Bad

On the show, we talk through each principle in detail. We also discuss the differences between trip sitting and psychedelic therapy, the state of the psychedelic renaissance, and how to create a community around compassionate care.

Sara has been working with MAPS to coordinate psychedelic harm reduction since 2012. She also supports the MAPS clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in Boulder, and spent two years working as a Ketamine-assisted psychotherapist at the Boulder Integrative Psychiatric Healing Center. Sara maintains a private practice as a psychotherapist specializing in trauma, integration, and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

You can be a safe container for someone having a difficult psychedelic experience, you just need to learn how to make yourself empty.

LINKS

• Sara Gael, Soul-Centered Counseling

• The Zendo Project

• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

• The Manual of Psychedelic Support

  Other Psychedelic Peer Support

• The Sanctuary at Shambhala Festival

• Kosmicare at Boom Festival

• Ranger’s Green Dot Program at Burning Man

• Full Circle Tea House

• Harmonia Sanctuary in Asheville

• Rock Medicine (White Bird Clinic)

• Tatva Center in Goa

• The Nest at Rainbow Serpent Festival

• I Did “Psychedelic First Aid” at a Festival in Costa Rica

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TIMESTAMPS

• :07 The difference between psychedelic peer support and psychedelic therapy.

• :15 Psychedelic Peer Support and gender

• :20 Are difficult psychedelic experiences more frequent during someone’s first trip?

• :27 How do you approach someone who’s having a difficult psychedelic experience

• :31 The 1st Pillar of the Zendo project is to create a safe space. We discuss the difference between recreational spaces, ceremonial spaces, and therapeutic spaces.

• :37 The 2nd Pillar of the Zendo Project is Sitting, Not Guiding: We discuss how sitting is like a meditation practice. And it’s difficult.

• :44 The 3rd Pillar of the Zendo Project is Talking Through Not Down

• :50 Should you use a Xanax or a similar chemical restraint if someone is having a difficult psychedelic experience?

• 1:00 Trusting the inner healer and the psychedelic as a catalyst

• 1:04 The 4th Pillar of the Zendo Project is Difficult is not the Same as Bad, but does that mean that there are no bad trips?

• 1:19 How I was invited to volunteer for the Zendo Project during an ayahuasca ceremony

• 1:24 Other organizations that do psychedelic peer support and how to start your own psychedelic peer support group

• 1:32 Creating a community of compassionate care

• 1:39 How the Zendo Project as an organization is in a way trip sitting the Psychedelic Renaissance

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Graphics Designed by Andy McErlean

Theme song ““Peculiar Colors” [Manjumasi]“ by dj atish