🫂 Beneath the Differences, There’s Something Deeper

There’s something I keep witnessing over and over again in group work.

It doesn’t matter who shows up. It doesn’t matter their age, their background, their beliefs, their profession, or what their intentions are. At the end of the day, we all arrive carrying the same things: grief, insecurities, childhood wounds, patterns that no longer serve us, and, underneath all of that, the same hope that something can change.

Two People, Total Opposites

I was reminded of this again after facilitating two psilocybin retreats this month, but the memory that keeps coming back to me is from a few years ago when I was facilitating monthly medicine retreats in Mexico.

We ran those retreats no matter what. Usually we had about six people. Once we had twelve. And one time, only two people showed up.

They could not have been more different if they tried! They were different genders, different ages, and came from completely different life experiences and belief systems. In fact, within minutes of meeting each other, they got into a verbal disagreement.

I remember feeling that tightness in my chest and wondering how the experience was going to unfold, and whether I needed to step in and do some damage control. The curandero I was working with looked at me and simply said, “Trust the medicine.”

So I did.

Two nights later, they each went into their own journey without any interference or attempt to resolve their differences ahead of time. By the end of the ceremony, something had shifted.

They were sitting next to each other, both crying, simultaneously having recognized something deep. They saw themselves in each other as two imperfect humans who were both carrying pain, both doing the best they could, and both longing to be seen and understood.

They hugged, thanked each other, and spoke about how the other person had shown them something important about themselves. There was a softness that had not been there before, along with a kind of compassion that did not require agreement. It came from seeing their shared humanity.

What I See in Every Medicine Journey

The stories are different, the wounds are different, and the ways those wounds are expressed are different, but the underlying patterns are remarkably similar. The fear, the protection, the longing, and the tenderness beneath it all show up again and again.

When people are willing to be honest and allow themselves to be seen, something opens, not just within themselves but between each other.

I know how this can sound. It can come across as overly poetic or idealistic, or even a little hokey. But when you witness it repeatedly, and when you feel it in your own body when you sit in ceremony yourself, it stops feeling like an idea and starts to feel undeniable.

There is something that happens when we begin to loosen our grip on the identities, defenses, and roles we carry. We start to recognize each other not as differences to navigate, but as human beings.

From that place, compassion becomes much more natural. It is not forced or something we have to try to access, but something that emerges on its own.

As people begin to heal their own wounds, they also begin to soften toward others. The same place that holds self-criticism starts to open into self-compassion, and from there it extends outward.

The Subtle Work of Healing

This is the work that doesn’t always get highlighted in stories about psychedelics. It’s not just about peak experiences or dramatic breakthroughs that transform everything overnight, but about the simple yet profound reminder that we are not as separate as we think we are.

Maybe healing is not about becoming someone new, but about recognizing what has always been there beneath the layers.

The part of us that knows we are human, imperfect, trying, and not alone in any of it.

The Next Group Experience

If this speaks to you and you feel called to experience this kind of work in a group setting, I will be facilitating a women’s group psilocybin journey at The Center Origin in Denver, CO on June 20. For the men reading this, there is also a men’s group coming up on May 9.

You can learn more by sending an email to anna@annadesmarais.com or visiting this page: https://www.thecenterorigin.com/copy-of-group-page