Ketamine Preparation
You don't need to memorize any of this. Just reading through it once plants the seed. When the time comes, you'll have more available to you than you think.
Before any technique or tool, what matters most is how you show up for the experience.
These aren't things you need to force or perform. They're more of an orientation. "I have my intention in mind, but I'm also open to whatever comes up."
The short version: trust, let go, be open. Let the experience lead. Something in you, call it inner wisdom, inner healing intelligence, your heart, knows what needs attention. Your job isn't to direct the experience. It's to get out of its way.
Think of it this way: your inner wisdom has prepared something for you, like an opera. Your role is to experience it, and to make sense of it later.
A note on "surrender"
This word can feel loaded. It doesn't mean giving up or being passive. It's more like the difference between clenching your fist around something and opening your hand. What was there doesn't disappear; you're just not gripping it anymore.
If surrender feels like a tricky word for you, you might try: "I'm open to seeing what comes up." Or: "I'll let the experience move through me rather than trying to control it." Or simply: all is welcome.
If you've experienced psychedelics before in a social or recreational setting (with friends, at a concert, out in nature), this may feel quite different. The substance is different, but so is the container. A healing-oriented experience with sound, clinical support, and intentional preparation tends to go deeper and feel more inward. It might be more emotional, more personal, more surprising. That's by design.
And if you've never experienced anything like this before, that's completely fine too. There's nothing you need to know how to do. Just be here.
You're not just watching your experience. You're interacting with it. These are tools you can reach for at any point. You don't need all of them. Even one can be enough.
If things get difficult, you're not doing anything wrong. That's sometimes where the richest healing work comes through.
None of these are rules. Think of them as gentle considerations from people who've sat with many others through this experience.
You might want to try not to steer or control the experience. The river knows where it's going. Your job is to stay in the boat, not to paddle.
Try to avoid judging what's happening. "This isn't working," "I'm doing it wrong," "other people are having a better experience." These thoughts are normal, and they're not true. There really is no wrong way.
It can help to not rush to make meaning during the experience. You're in the river with your net, gathering. The making-sense-of-it happens on shore, afterward.
Try not to compare your experience to anyone else's, or to a previous experience of your own. Each one is its own thing.
You don't need to continuously "work on" your intention. Just remembering it for one moment, especially if you've distilled it down to a short word or phrase, can be re-orienting. Like lighting a candle: lit once, casting a glow, not constantly stoked.
If you find yourself resisting, that's okay too. Don't pathologize it or beat yourself up. Sometimes your mind is protecting you, or you're not ready to go there that day. Sometimes doing your own thing, not what you were told, is the healing itself. The whole experience and its themes are yours. It's like a magnifying glass or a flashlight, highlighting how things work and what's there. There is no "wrong."
You have everything you need. Trust yourself.
Anything on your mind?
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