>> WOTH 2026 registration now open >
The journey doesn't end
when the ceremony does.
Many are beginning to realise that The Real Ceremony starts when the psychedelic effects wear off.
(If this is you, you're right on track.)
The potential of plant medicines to boost your personal healing and spiritual growth is indeed immense. Yet as life-changing as the insights gained may be, they can also become overwhelming and difficult to process
without the right support.
The courage and effort it takes to voluntarily meet your raw self as deep as needed,
to acknowledge your needs and wounds,
honor your path so far (all of it)
and really grow,
should be matched by the support received.
If this is what you're looking for:
Or read on if you'd like to learn
about the challenging realities
of plant medicine work
I can support you with.
By the way, this is me:
Hi, I'm Bárbara Espina.
For the past ten years I've been helping people find their way through and landing back from some of the hardest, strangest, most luminous corners of human experience. As a psychologist, plant medicine practitioner, and Applied Theatre facilitator, this is my toolkit: stories, ceremony, and a lot of sitting with what's real.
Originally from Spain, I've been rooted in the Sacred Valley of Perú since 2022. This place is one of the world's busiest plant medicine hubs, which is both a wonder and a challenge. The ceremonies keep coming, but the infrastructure to hold what they open... Is still catching up.
That gap has shaped a lot of what I do:
-
1:1 integration support - online and in person.
-
Spiritual Emergency Response Team - on-the-ground, community-oriented psychedelic care and crisis response in the Sacred Valley.
-
ceremonial spaceholding
-
Once Upon A Ceremony Embodied Storytelling workshops around ethics, safety and responsibility in plant medicine practices.
-
Wisdom Of The Holders 10-day self-care retreat in the Sacred Valley for plant medicine facilitators to tap into the stories walking with us, from a lens of personal ethics and long-term sustainability.
Last but not least, I identify as a neurodivergent plant medicine practitioner. My nervous system's particular needs and capacities in daily life naturally transfer onto the psychedelic space. I consider them my teachers, as they continuously guide me through supporting both participants and practitioners with similar challenges, or navigating particularly sensitive and vulnerable spaces.
This reality informs and expands my capacity to address core aspects of this work, such as: grounding, somatic and intellectual overwhelm, hiper-sensitivity, empathy and emotional exhaustion, dissociative states, cultivating a structured life container, integrating transpersonal and spiritual breakthroughs; expressive individual needs and differences, and the facilitator's overall self-care.
Or continue educating yourself about
the multiple factors which can impact your experience:
Risks and triggers
include other people, environments and circumstances:
· unequipped facilitators and retreat centers
· abusive interactions (eg: emotional, psychological, sexual, financial)
· pharmacological interactions
· environmental conditions and discomfort
(eg: jungle immersion, foreign country and culture, rustic setting, etc.)
· clashing with your regular environment (eg: your home or workplace)
· receiving backlash from loved ones unfamiliar with this work.
As you can see, many things can unfold during and around your experience. It is good practice to question any circumstances, symptoms or interactions which might feel a bit off.
Usually (hopefully) facilitators will be able to support you as you need;
but if they can't, or you don't fully trust them
(they might even be the problem)
you may need to seek external help.
Any of the above (and many others)
can turn the prospect of a deeply healing experience
- in which you have invested your trust, hopes, integrity, time and money -
into a highly unpleasant and even traumatizing event.
Now,
if you find yourself in this kind of trouble,
as the iconic 80's show Ghostbusters would go,
if there's somethin' weird,
and it don't look good,
.
.
.
who ya gonna call?
Multiple factors can impact your plant medicine experience
and subsequent integration process,
The psychedelic session itself can:
· reawaken old wounds
- plants will test you, having to face personal challenges you thought you were done with;
· show you traumatic memories you aren't sure about
- aside from the content itself, "what ifs" tend to become a major source of stress and anxiety;
· intensify physical pain or discomfort
- some plants cause certain physical conditions to flare up, inviting you to listen to them anew;
· impact significant relationships
- some of which will inevitably shift;
· question your relationship with reality
- psychedelics indeed offer a veil-dropping experience and integrating certain information can be tricky;
· trigger a spiritual crisis or "spiritual emergency"
- an "awakening" can be an overwhelming process, profoundly disruptive long-term (even years).
and the list goes on.
Aside from this,
human reality surrounding the plant medicine experience
also plays a role in the safety and quality of it all:
(Have I lost you here?)
Listen,
Ghostbusters hit the integration support nail in the head:
...if there's somethin' weird...
impressive visions, strong bodily sensations, heavenly and extraterrestrial beings, plant spirits, astral traveling, cosmic messages, deceased loved ones and ancestors, melting into one with all there is, births, deaths, rebirths, past lives, childhood memories, re-experiencing old trauma...
These are all fairly common examples
of what you may need to describe
to someone in order to help you.
To help you,
and your friends, partner, relatives, neighbors.
...and it don't look good...
Not only the struggle isn't calming down,
but it's deeply confusing and intensifying,
perhaps feeding the fear
of being past
the point of no return.
If you - or a loved one -
were to need professional support
to stabilise and make sense
of this kind of experience,
who would you actually call?
.
.
.
.
.
🦗🦗🦗
.
.
.
.
.
(This is a great time to save my contact.)
Ceremony and retreat leaders' general "integration tips" can only help you that far.
If you're looking for an actual g̶h̶o̶s̶t̶b̶u̶s̶t̶e̶r̶
psychedelic integration specialist
(even if just to double-check if what you're thinking or feeling is "normal")
you've found her.