Surfing The Waves: Scary Ketamine Experiences & Life
In this blog post, discover how adopting a "surfing the waves" mindset can help you navigate challenging ketamine experiences and life's ups and downs. Plus learn how a holistic approach to ketamine therapy can support you in embracing this powerful shift in perspective.
The ocean waves have a lot to teach us about life and dealing with our ketamine infusion experience.
This is a transcript of the video which has been edited for readability.
When I was in medical school, I heard John Kabat-Zinn, who has a book called Wherever You Go, There You Are, speak and I learned a great lesson from him.
Just like the ocean waves that never stop, challenges in our lives don’t stop as well.
Lessons from The Ocean Waves
One of the biggest lessons that I learned from him was about this concept of waves of the ocean. If you think about waves of the ocean, they never stop right? They're going to keep coming and coming. Some waves are bigger, while some are smaller. But the waves will continue.
Similarly, we're going to have challenges in our lives. They might be big, they might be small. They might be manageable or they might be not. But even with these challenges, even with these waves, although we can't stop them, we can definitely learn how to surf. I invite you to always remember that you can never stop the waves of an ocean but you can always learn how to surf.
The reality is that, regardless of how prepared you think you are for your ketamine treatment, sometimes things still don’t go as planned and that’s where you need to learn acceptance.
Surfing the Waves During a Ketamine Experience
Taking the waves analogy further, sometimes we can have a challenging ketamine experience during a ketamine infusion. You can do things such as have the best preparation and best intentions, but even then you can still have a scary and intense psychedelic experience. Knowing that this is a reality for ketamine patients, we invite you to accept this challenging experience and be curious. Instead of resisting what scares you, relax and accept it. Accept that the waves (aka what's challenging you during the experience) are here. The waves will come, but they will also go. Trust that you can handle what you are facing. Ride the wave of this experience, instead of being rigid and thrashing in the waters of this experience. There is a saying, “To get through this, you have to go through it.” To help you accept, be curious about what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling. It’s pretty hard to be curious and scared at the same time!
Learn more about this topic in particular at our How to Handle Challenging Experiences With Ketamine blog post.
Instead of being afraid of the waves of life, why not learn to surf and embrace them?
Beyond the Ketamine Experience: Shift in Mindset
Whether it is life or a challenging psychedelic ketamine experience, you will face waves. Perhaps you have found yourself trying to avoid the waves, by staying away from the “ocean.” You avoid situations or individuals who will challenge you and make you grow. Perhaps you play in the shallow waters of your comfort zone. You may find that while you don’t have the waves, there is something missing. You are still looking or searching for something. You still feel the stress and fear, despite playing it safe. We invite you to shift your mindset from avoidance to acceptance of the waves and learn to surf. Surfing these everyday waves can be a challenge, and like any activity, it takes practice. “Surf” life’s waves by having a perspective that each of these waves are here for you. These challenges are here for your growth and betterment, and should be considered as gifts. Sometimes, the gift or blessing of the challenge isn’t initially apparent, but with time, trust that the beauty of it will reveal itself!
Read our blog How To Use Ketamine As A Transformational Medicine to learn more about how you can make the most of your ketamine experience.
The waves in our lives will always come and go. So when you begin to practice acceptance, you will soon learn how to go with the flow instead of against it.
Summary: Embrace the Waves
Facing the waves is truly not easy. You need to do things that you’re not comfortable with and deal with unfamiliar emotions. But just like we always tell our patients, trust in the journey and believe that you’re meant to experience what you’re supposed to experience, no matter how challenging it can be. In the end, you will come out stronger and wiser.
Related Questions:
How can I better prepare myself mentally for a challenging ketamine infusion therapy session?
There are several ways to prepare yourself. One way that we encourage all our patients is to set an intention for your ketamine infusion therapy. This will help give direction and focus as you navigate the psychedelic experience. Another way is to incorporate a meditation and breath practice before the infusion. Sometimes, when the challenging experience is happening, it is easy to forget to take a breath! So practicing and being intentional about your breath the days leading to your infusion can support you. You may find more suggestions on our blog post, How to Prepare For And Integrate From a Ketamine Infusion.
How can adopting a "surfing the waves" mindset help me cope with challenges in my everyday life?
Similar to how a ketamine infusion experience can bring up unexpected emotions and memories, life can throw unexpected events in your life. Some of them are wonderful, and sometimes less than wonderful. These challenging events can discourage you. However you can “surf” this difficult wave by taking an empowering perspective. Perhaps the challenging life event is an opportunity to grow, let go of an old thinking pattern, or a catalyst for change. Remember, feel the feelings that come up. Give yourself time to mourn or grieve, however at some point you’ll recognize you are done being submerged and are now ready to “surf” the emotional wave.
If you found this post helpful, check out these blogs too:
How to Handle Challenging Experiences With Ketamine
During a ketamine therapy experience, you can encounter some challenging feelings and thoughts. Sometimes, you may even relive or see things you weren't anticipating. So how do you handle these? Learn how at our blog.
5 Insights On Handling Difficult Emotions That Are Holding Us Back
Have you ever felt frustrated when it came to feeling emotions that seem to be holding us back from living a good life? In this blog, we share with you some insights we’ve learned when it comes to handling these emotions and why it’s important to feel them.
The Story Of A King And A Ring: A Perspective On Challenges
In this blog, we share an important lesson from a story about a king and a ring. Here explore how the concept of “this too shall pass” and how it can apply to you when you face difficult challenges in life.
The ocean is not just full of life, but of lessons as well. And the ocean waves have plenty of lessons to teach us, especially during scary ketamine experiences. In this blog post, we talk about the importance of riding with the waves and why these waves are our friends, not our foes.