Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Groups are happening! Let's keep Colorado on the leading edge of psychedelic medicine work by coming together in community to learn, share, and grow. Each Psychedelic Professionals Meetup Group starts with an informative topic relevant to research, practice, policy, or activism around psychedelic medicines, followed by open discussion and an opportunity to connect with like-minded others.
Join us in July (skipping the holiday week, so we're meeting July 11th) for a special celebration and book talk with friend and author, Sean Lawlor. In our journeys through life, it is easy to get caught in ideas of “arrival.” Many of us are taught to set clear goals and structure our efforts toward their achievement. Helpful as it is to align our visions with our desires, excess focus on “getting there” removes us from our present experience, where we meet our ever-unfolding process. Psychedelic practitioners instruct clients to “trust the process” rather than attach to an outcome; as the Buddha taught long ago, attachment causes suffering. But what does it mean to trust the process? How do we do it? When we believe we are doing it, might we be deceiving ourselves? What are the consequences of such self-deception, and what might we learn in its recognition?
In this presentation, writer and ketamine therapist Sean Lawlor, LPCC will explore notions of trusting the process and attaching to an arrival as they apply to psychedelics and his six-and-a-half year writing journey on the subject, which recently culminated in the publication of his book, Psychedelic Revival: Toward a New Paradigm of Healing, released in June 2024 through Sounds True/Macmillan. In the wake of over sixty interviews with diverse luminaries in the field, a three-year education at Naropa University in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling, and numerous experiences with a range of psychedelic medicines, one truth Sean has learned is that the processes of writing and psychedelic healing share an extraordinary amount in common. Each invites exploration of the inner world, helping us “make the unconscious conscious.” Both invite a trusting of the unfolding inner process. And both are stunted by over-attachment to specific outcomes, particularly those sourced in shadowed desires.
In the end, Sean will explore hard lessons he's learned about his own shadow through writing his book, aiming to redirect illusions of a distant arrival into focus on the present, where we are and always will be arriving so long as we receive the gift of another day.
Please note that car parking in the area can be challenging. Folks are encouraged to carpool or use rideshare services as much as possible. Also, consider making an evening of it... Enjoy education and networking early in the evening and the specially crafted Nowak mocktail and cocktails by Beacon!
Suggested donation of $10 goes toward supporting the work of The Nowak Society. If you have ideas for topics or presentations for these meetup groups or would like to be more involved, please contact us!
Finally, if you have a brochure, flyer or business card you want to display, please bring them! We kindly request that anything advertised is legal and aboveboard, but otherwise we're happy to make space for you to share your offerings with the larger community.