If you’re on SSRIs, mood stabilisers, or antidepressants — do not combine them with ceremonial doses of San Pedro, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, LSD, or other serotonergic psychedelics.

This week alone, two clients I worked with nearly did. Another was told by a so-called medicine man it was “absolutely fine”. He didn’t even ask what medications they were on — or the dose.

If your shaman or facilitator isn’t asking these basic questions, what else are they missing?

Here’s Why Mixing SSRIs with Psychedelics Can Be Dangerous — Even Life-Threatening:

1. Serotonin Syndrome.

SSRIs increase serotonin. So do these psychedelics. Together, they can overwhelm your system — leading to agitation, fever, muscle rigidity, seizures, and, in extreme cases, even death.

2. Cardiovascular Strain.

Both SSRIs and many psychedelics can raise heart rate and blood pressure. Combined, that strain can become dangerous, especially with large ceremonial doses.

3. Blunted Effects (The Risk of “More Medicine”).

SSRIs block the same serotonin receptors psychedelics act on. This can dull or mute the experience entirely. And here’s the issue — when someone in a ceremony says, “I’m not feeling it”, the common response is to give them more medicine.

But it’s not the medicine failing — it’s the medications interfering. More medicine. Delayed onset. Greater risk of serotonin overload.

This Work Deserves Respect.

I’m a passionate proponent of psychedelic therapy. It’s changed my life. I’ve seen it transform the lives of my clients. When used responsibly, these medicines have extraordinary potential for healing and personal growth.

But powerful tools demand reverence — for both the body and the mind.

Psychedelics are not a game. Treat them that way.

And beware of facilitators who overlook medications, psychology, or the full depth of this work. Because your safety matters more than anyone’s ego.

Psychedelics & Mood Regulators/Antidepressants was originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When considering psychedelic coaching, the question I most frequently encounter is, “What if I have a ‘bad trip’?” This concern is valid and central to the discussion around psychedelic experiences, where psychedelic safety and understanding are paramount.

My approach as a transpersonal psychology coach is rooted in creating a framework that significantly reduces the chances of distressing experiences while facilitating profound opportunities for healing and growth. Here, we explore why ‘bad trips’ occur and how my four golden rules — Set, Setting, Guide, and Integrate — can help navigate and optimise these transformative journeys.

Understanding ‘Bad Trips’

A ‘bad trip’ is often characterised by distressing and challenging experiences during a psychedelic journey, and the fear of this phenomenon is what deters many people from what might well be a life-changing experience. However, in therapeutic terms, we do not always view such episodes as setbacks but as vital opportunities for deep psychological healing. When repressed or suppressed traumas or adverse experiences resurface, they provide a crucial opening for addressing and integrating these issues effectively, bringing traditionally unconscious material to the ‘surface’ for processing. Recognising that ‘bad trips’ can serve as powerful catalysts for growth reduces fear through understanding and underscores the importance of skilled guidance and thorough preparation. Managing bad trips effectively is crucial for a safe psychedelic journey.

The importance of safety and preparation

Safety and harm reduction are at the core of my practice. My top priority is ensuring that each individual feels secure and supported throughout their psychedelic journey. The four golden rules cultivate a nurturing and protective environment that allows for a safe exploration of the deeper self.

1. Set: mindset and intentions

The ‘set’ involves preparing one’s mental and emotional state (mindset) before embarking on a psychedelic journey. Clear intentions, preparation, and a positive attitude are crucial. Through mindfulness practices and intention-setting, you can approach your experience with purpose and openness, reducing the likelihood of distressing encounters. Furthermore, it’s essential to be fully prepared for what to expect. Not all psychedelic experiences, ceremonies, or medicines are the same, so preparation is vital to ensure there are few to no surprises during your experience. How to avoid a bad trip starts with the right mindset and intentions.

2. Setting: the physical and emotional environment

The ‘setting’ refers to the physical space and the emotional atmosphere in which your psychedelic experience occurs. A calm, comfortable, and controlled environment is essential for fostering a sense of security. This, combined with a supportive presence, ensures you can surrender to your experiences without fear of judgment or external disturbances. Consideration of the setting also includes the other people involved, which is relevant in a group setting. The facilitator’s values primarily drive this since they attract and onboard the group.

3. Guide: expert facilitation

The guide’s role is indispensable and deserves priority attention. As the psychedelic field explodes, countless well-meaning people have begun offering these experiences with little knowledge and less formal training. A trained facilitator, knowledgeable in the ways of psychedelic medicines, emergency response, and the nuances of psychedelic experiences, provides the necessary support and reassurance. Thoroughly research your guide or the venue offering the experience. Be content that you are not merely sitting with a shaman or experienced facilitator and will receive a holistic service, from preparation to integration. Your guide can bless or break your psychedelic experience. Read that again.

4. Integrate: processing and applying the lessons

Integration is the most overlooked component of a psychedelic experience. It is the process of making sense of the psychedelic experience and weaving the insights gained into everyday life. This stage is crucial for translating potentially difficult experiences into meaningful personal growth. It’s often the difference between getting ‘high’ and using a psychedelic experience to catalyse profound and long-term change. You can emerge from your journey with a renewed sense of self and purpose through structured reflection and support.

Some rules should never be broken

By focusing on these four golden rules, we aim to mitigate the fear of ‘bad trips’ and transform these experiences into opportunities for profound healing and self-discovery. Even when we follow the guidelines, it’s not uncommon to have challenging psychedelic experiences. Hence, it’s crucial to work with a facilitator (or team) prepared for all eventualities. My role as a coach is to ensure that you engage in this practice safely and effectively, allowing the inherent therapeutic potential of psychedelics to unfold in a controlled and supportive environment.

My background as a ‘psychonaut’ (an experienced explorer of altered states of consciousness for psychological and spiritual growth), coaching, and transpersonal psychology equip me to guide clients safely through non-ordinary conscious states, offering insights and maintaining safety throughout the process.

How can I support you?

If you’re contemplating a psychedelic journey and are concerned about safety and the nature of ‘bad trips’, you can download this free , or let’s connect. I am here to guide you through preparing, experiencing, and integrating your psychedelic experience safely and meaningfully. to explore how I can support your transformative journey and help you harness the profound insights and healing potential of psychedelics. Trust me when I tell you that these medicines when used intentionally and safely, will change your life.

A sidenote about respect

Unless you are an experienced psychonaut, I strongly advise against journeying alone. Additionally, it is essential to be cautious of the recreational use of psychedelic substances, as such use significantly increases the risk of adverse experiences, commonly referred to as ‘bad trips’. These substances can be profoundly impactful, and you should approach them respectfully and thoughtfully. Please do not treat them lightly.

The Four Golden Rules for Effective and Safe Psychedelic Use was originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Between My Dance and the Sunset

Real-life might not be out there
But somewhere in this body

in what this body is and does,
in what I touch, taste, see
in all this body will ever be

The potential in what I can’t yet perceive,
quietly sitting,
abiding alone

unrecognized
unbidden

Possibility can embody the nature of change
What all things can be but are not yet

Between the lines of tension
extending up the back of my neck
into the muscles of my scalp where it itches
and tightens as pain sears

The way I hold myself and try to take another step
by holding onto what I hear, smell, and

wait
for another moment

A boat appears across the river coming this way
Will it take me to the other side?

I wasn’t sure it would
but I feel that wavy disorientation
requiring me to hold on

Just as I reach out
the water disappears
Do I step onto land or do I fall into the river
I didn’t think was there?

Possibility occupies everything I cannot be
It has not happened
but if we wait long enough, we will see

A cougar stalks our dogs during our friendly woodland hike
Treed as soon as they see her
She spits and snarls, her sharp fangs palpable,
it’s possible she could have eaten at least one of us

Our friend didn’t remember
not to stand under a wildcat on a branch above
Asking to capture the cat on film
innocent as young love

Gripping with stone-scraped fingers as I climb
Yearning to claim the full wonder
of being with you one last time

Grasping at the tip of something I’d forgotten
As if it would be different, I tumble again

Did that really happen?
Am I dreaming?
Is this Alzheimer’s?
Did someone slip me a psychedelic?
Will my neurons fire?
Can I even prove I’m alive?
I feel tired, as I fade into oblivion,
yearning for your soft cheek on mine

Did I just kiss you? Do I love you?
Possibly, I gasp
Choking on the unanswered ask

Is any of this really happening?
Or do we live in a world of simulations,
dreams encompassing pain and addiction,
and the surrender to ecstasy?

Avoiding the unknown for fear it will eat us alive
This is no way to live, yet we do,
until we are thoroughly digested
by the endless list

In every molecule, every atomic moment,
in every blade of grass poking its light-seeking nose up,
insistently cracking through concrete

As I spin and sing,
a flock of birds squawks and squeaks
between my dance and the sun setting

In the choices between caution and care,
seed and tree, language and culture,
between this moment and love,
possibility dwells

The invisible connections between what has been, what will be, and what is

The terror dying carries as it slowly opens to possibilities new life brings

The places our soul settles without even noticing we are gone

The vast unanswered shadow behind all things

In possibility is the impulse to lead the best lives we can
until our time comes
The realization of taking one step forward when
we could have taken two sideways

The awesome surprise of waking up in the morning
when I thought I was stuck in
a fuzzy-wuzzy-cozy dreamland forever

I believed I was dead
Yet here I remain, seeing the starlight guiding me ahead

If we could only stop wasting time being somewhere else
and realize how we are created
by unbelievable yet possible powers
who wish we could abide in the wonder

Wherever the sacred beings connect us,
it’s possible we could feast with them

Possibility was originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We all bump into that giant at one point or another in life.

That looming tower of rejection named doubt, who loves playing point guard against all of our hopes, dreams, and beliefs.

If the presence of doubt endures for too long, we naturally begin shopping around for new perspectives on love, friendship, society, and even morality — not always conducive to a prosperous and happy lifestyle.

Nihilism may trickle in through the cracks of our egoic armor, and pessimism might begin to feel like the most rational visor through which life should be viewed.

As someone who has made this universal mistake, and worn the beefiest armor I could find, I wouldn’t recommend it. At least not until the courage to accept the existential situation has been found, and our armor is voluntarily removed.

Instead, consider that old adage where every experience we face is an opportunity in disguise, even (especially) our wildest nightmares.

Here are 5 powerful life lessons I learned from an existential crisis:

1. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Another old adage, originally attributed to boxing legend Joe Louis as a clever remark foreshadowing his impending fight with the brilliantly swift light weight champion Billy Conn. Knocked out once already by the reigning champ due to overconfidence, Conn’s round two revenge was already underway. When the media asked Louis what he thought about fighting Conn a second time, Louis responded, “He can run, but he can’t hide”. — Polo Grounds, NYC 1941

He was right. Joe Louis knocked out Billy Conn again, in the 8th round.

We can’t run from our fears, because they live in a subjective cage with us. We can very gracefully dodge, and feign jabs, and dance around the ring waiting for the ding-ding-ding, but the fears that cause us to routinely fail at our goals in life will follow us wherever we may go; they are generated from within, not accumulated from an outside world.

Our fears are like inner movies unfurling on the “screen” of the world, but we are the projectors. That is the secret to overcoming suffering and how we can turn our aversions into something useful: by owning them.

The only Zen at the top of the mountain is the Zen you bring with you.

— Robert M. Pirsig

2. Nothing lasts forever.

Wait, another adage?! I’m like a platitude loaded shotgun, peppering the internet with rounds of cliche camouflaged as “universal truth”.

Regardless of originality, the finite nature of everything remains a fact, and this negates all personal ownership from an existential perspective.

Things in life are a lot like intellectual property; it really feels like an idea is yours — and then you die. And suddenly everyone owns it or it becomes common knowledge, and before you know it a modern day preschooler is wiping their bottom with an invention that took a 17th century scientist a lifetime of blood, sweat, and struggle to conceive.

Everything is always shifting. Even the truth is a moving target, swept along with the sands of time. When shaken by life’s turbulence, choosing to hold onto anything but yourSelf will only result in harsh disillusionment down the road.

By accepting the impermanence of life, we enter the eye of the storm, and find the only true source of stability available in a constantly moving world, the center.

We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything.

— Jack Kornfield

3. We don’t really control anything.

We plan, we plot, we scheme. Where does this leave us other than up to our necks in more problems that need solving?

This is what happens when we make specific plans about the future and emotionally attach expectations to them — we suffer. And we don’t suffer because we were inadequate and failed to see the obstacles ahead… we suffer because the quantity, form, and randomness of the obstacles ahead were and always will be incalculable.

So give yourself a break.

Recently, I boarded a commercial plane to another country knowing the flight would be exceptionally long and tiresome. I had failed to secure a window seat and was separated from my travel companions for financial reasons, adding additional boredom to the trip.

I could fill a sizable book with the amount of frustrating mishaps that went wrong for me and my party during that flight (someone slapped my fiancés glutes…), and I probably will someday, but it wasn’t until I relaxed and stopped trying to compulsively fix everything that my perspective brightened and the power of the present moment revealed itself.

The situation became far more clear and manageable after I had found that place within myself that doesn’t feel the constant need to be a total control freak.

Ultimately — life is just going to play out however it plays out, so making peace with that makes sense to me, and certainly requires less effort than putting up a fight.

In the midst of a violent winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

— Albert Camus

4. There are no great people.

Yes, yes, some people seem great. There have been great Civil Rights leaders, dynasty moguls, and religious martyrs popping on and off the pages of history for thousands of years, this is true. But what’s stopping you from joining their ranks?

What’s the difference between the exceptional and the mundane?

Perspective.

I’ve been known to overuse this word, only because it’s useful for explaining the subjects I muse about. But truly, the way someone appears to you is fully dependent on how you see them and what you value.

Some people are certainly greater than others at specific activities. For example, top performers in specific niches, like: sports, games, art forms. Again, some people are “realistically” more beautiful, and others still are “objectively” more intelligent. Yet, these consensuses still revolve around perspective.

Even so, when we talk about really great people in the way I mean, it implies an unreasonably high bar of moral character for the candidate, and in my experience there isn’t a person alive who won’t lie, steal, cheat, or pretend to be something their not — given the proper motivation.

At the end of the day everyone has their secrets, skeletons exist in all closets, and what we think we know about a person will always just be the tip of a vastly convoluted iceberg, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Half beast, half concept — the human is a mysterious creature.

If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.

— Sheldon B. Kopp

5. Progress is an illusion.

Many people describe progress like it’s a straight arrow, shot from a divine bow of pure intentions, destined to hit the bullseye. I don’t see it this way.

Each progressive issue is like its own ring. When the progressive push or conservative pull of that issue has reached its social limit, it simply swings around to the polar end of the circle. Some new generation of thinkers pop up and declare the traditional consensus as oppressive and outdated, reigniting the momentum of the wheel until the concept reaches the other limit (end of the 180° arc) and is flipped by the crowd’s opinion once again in 20–30 (or 2,000-3,000) years; reintroduced under a new name.

More often than not when we believe ourselves to be solving issues, we are really just kicking up dust. And when the inevitable process of entropy mucks up our plans, we point fingers and throw up our hands while the world wilts around us. Yes, lighter fluid does kill the weeds, but it also burns down forests. And poisons the wildlife. And corrupts the soil. Better to have just left the weeds alone.

We can’t completely eradicate evil with blunt force; it will only multiply. What we can do is disperse and minimize it temporarily by way of an authentic relationship with nature and a firm acknowledgement of all her quirks.

Despite the outcome our actions will have in the area of human “progress”, I still believe we have a responsibility to at least try and work toward a “better” world — whatever that means.

Otherwise, what’s the point of any of this?

Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessor.

— Emil Cioran

Thanks for reading!

Stay tuned for more blasphemous reading material.

I truly have no agenda when I write and publish. My only goal is to hopefully produce something that can be of service to one or many readers lives, on and off the pages of Medium, while also providing myself with a much needed therapeutic outlet. Unfortunately, the only thing I have to offer is my experience, so take it with a grain of salt from the rim of a slightly sus margarita.

My credentials may be plastic, but I’ll never lie to you.

— Alex

http://jeetwincasinos.com/subscribe/@AbsurdL

5 Powerful Life Lessons I Learned From an Existential Crisis was originally published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.