PRIVATE AND GROUP PSYCHEDELIC JOURNEYS AND INTEGRATION COACHING
A carefully held space for meaningful inner work.
Grounded in contemporary research, trauma-aware practice, and respect for ancient wisdom traditions.
PREPARE JOURNEY INTEGRATE
An invitation…
There’s a good chance you are where I was not that long ago. You feel like you have reached a point where the things you've always relied on simply aren't creating the change you're looking for. You may understand your patterns intellectually, have tried therapy, meditation, self-help, prescriptions, or simply pushed through on your own—and still find yourself returning to the same places. For many people, this is what brings them to psychedelic work.
Over the years, I've witnessed how these experiences can help people:
My experience is that the medicine itself is only one part of the journey. The quality of preparation, the safety of the environment, and thoughtful integration coaching afterward often determine whether profound insights become lasting transformation.
What you can expect from your Sacred Journey is a calm, supportive, and carefully held space where you can surrender to your inner wisdom.
My promise to you is that every journey is approached with respect, humility, curiosity, and deep care.
Shaun Peterson
Psychedelic Facilitator, Trauma Informed Integration Coach
Find new meaning or direction in life
See possibilities that were difficult to imagine before
Move beyond the past
Process grief and trauma
Get clarity around a relationship
Spark a new creative awakening
Cultivate a greater sense of compassion and presence
psychedelic experiences are not shortcuts to healing—they are invitations into a deeper relationship with our inner wisdom
My approach
My approach sits at the intersection of modern psychedelic science, trauma-informed practices, and the centuries-old ceremonial traditions of the Mazatec people of Oaxaca.
My training has taught me to value both what contemporary scientific research is revealing about psychedelics and what Indigenous traditions have understood through generations of experience. I bring these perspectives together with a grounded, human-centered approach—one that recognizes the psychological, emotional, spiritual, and often times deeply magical and mysterious dimensions of these experiences.
In our preparation we discuss your goals and intentions for the journey, but I don't expect you to arrive knowing exactly what you're looking for. Often it begins simply with the feeling that something in your life is ready to change. This work is about creating a safe and carefully held space in which you can explore what lies beneath the surface—and discover what might be possible on the other side.
During the Ceremony, you will never be left to navigate the experience alone. I will be right there with you.
Whether the experience becomes joyful, emotional, challenging, quiet, or unexpected, I remain present and attentive throughout, offering a steady and compassionate presence from beginning to end right there in the room.
The Process
Preparation
An introductory call to explore your intentions, questions, experience, and whether working together feels aligned. If we decide to work together, we follow up with a dedicated Zoom session focused on readiness, mindset, expectations, practical planning, boundaries, and the ceremonial container.
The Journey
The day of your journey is intentionally unhurried, with time to arrive, settle in, and reconnect with your intentions. I create a safe, comfortable ceremonial space and remain present throughout, offering support and guidance when needed while allowing the experience to unfold in its own way. Curated Music, nature, silence, and traditional ancient ritualistic practices all become part of the experience. My role is not to lead your journey, but to hold the container so you can go wherever the experience takes you. And I will be with you the entire time.
Integration
The experience doesn't end when the journey does; this is where the deeper work begins. We meet several days afterward to explore what emerged, including insights, emotions, questions, challenges, or experiences that may still be unfolding. Together, we look for ways to translate what you encountered into meaningful changes in your everyday life rather than allowing the experience to remain simply a powerful memory. Additional integration sessions are available when continued support would be helpful.
Integration Coaching
Have you already had a psychedelic experience and looking for support making sense of it? Integration coaching offers a grounded space to explore what came up, identify what feels meaningful, and begin translating insights from the journey into your everyday life. Whether the experience was beautiful, confusing, challenging, or still unfolding, we can work together to help you understand it more clearly and decide what comes next.
Come As You Are
I approach psychedelic work with reverence and respect for the traditions from which many of these practices emerged, but there is no belief system you need to adopt in order to have a meaningful session. These experiences can be deeply spiritual…but you don’t have to be spiritual to have a profound journey. Your ceremony may feel deeply personal, psychological, emotional, sacred—or difficult to define at all.
For those that are spiritual, it can be profound in a different way. Johns Hopkins and NYU did a study giving psilocybin to 24 psychedelic-naive religious leaders (Christian clergy, rabbis, an Islamic leader, and a Zen Buddhist roshi). 96% ranked the experience among the five most spiritually significant events of their lives.
The setting
Choose the setting that allows you to feel most grounded, secure, and at ease.
In-home facilitation
Support in your own home or another mutually agreed private location. Familiar surroundings can offer an added sense of safety, ease, and continuity before and after the experience.
Private nature setting
A peaceful, secluded residence beside Topanga State Park, surrounded by oak woodland and natural quiet. The setting is designed to feel warm, comfortable, private, and deeply connected to the landscape.
I came to this work through a life spent understanding people's stories.
As an artist and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, I have spent much of my career making films about the lives of historical figures, musicians, artists, and people who challenged the world around them. My work and life’s passions have long been connected to questions of identity, civil rights, LGBTQ+ equality, feminism, creativity, and what allows people to live more fully and authentically.
My path into psychedelic work began personally. My own experiences with plant medicine over the years have profoundly changed the way I understand myself, my relationships, and what healing and transformation can look like. What began as exploration of my healing path, became a calling to study this work more deeply and to responsibly support others in their own journeys.
That path has led me into formal psychedelic facilitator training, trauma-informed coaching, contemporary research, and immersive study with traditional teachers and knowledge keepers in Mexico.
Above all, I approach this work as an ongoing journeyer and student. I have deep reverence for the traditions that came before us, respect for the responsibility of holding space for another person, and genuine curiosity about everything we are still learning.
About me…
Shaun with Rick Doblin of M.A.P.S.
Shaun with Andreas Donaldo Sabina, Maria Sabina’s great, great grandson
Graduate, Synthesis Institute Psychedelic Practitioner Training, Colorado Licensure Program
Graduate, ICF Trauma Informed Coaching Program, Moving the Human Spirit
Additional Studies, Ubiquity University Mexico,Therapeutic Guidance w/ Ancestral Medicines and Entheogens
Additional Studies, with Curandera/Mazatec Anthropologist Alejandrina Pedro, Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca
Additional Studies, with Andreas Donaldo Sabina (Maria Sabina’s great, great Grandson), Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca
You may be wondering…
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Yes, you will remain conscious. Experiences vary considerably from person to person and can change throughout the journey. You may move through periods of deep inward focus, heightened emotion, vivid imagery, laughter, tears, stillness, or a very different sense of time and self. Throughout it all, I remain nearby and attentive, checking in when appropriate and available whenever you need reassurance, grounding, or support.
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That is one of the most common concerns people have before a first journey. And in some ways, the experience does ask us to loosen our usual grip on where our thoughts and emotions are going—but letting go is very different from being alone or unsupported. You don't have to force yourself to surrender or navigate anything by yourself; we prepare carefully beforehand, and I remain present and attentive throughout the entire experience. Often, the work is less about losing control than discovering that, in a safe and supported environment, you don't have to hold everything quite so tightly. The most import part of the journey is to “Just Let Go…surrender.” When you surrender to the experience, when you trust that—the medicine, the journey, this moment in time— will give you what you need, your sense of self and your need for “control” will drift away. There is actually research behind that idea. Across psilocybin studies, participants are commonly prepared to “trust, let go, and be open,” particularly when difficult material arises.
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Challenging moments can sometimes be an important part of psychedelic experiences, which is one reason the setting and the person accompanying you matter so much. You will never be left to navigate those moments alone. I remain present throughout the entire journey, offering calm reassurance, grounding, and compassionate support while helping you feel held as the experience unfolds. The common wisdom in Journeying is to “lean into” the challenging moments. Much like life, “this too will pass.” And when you get to the other side, this is where great insight and revelations live.
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A difficult experience in the past doesn't mean you'll have the same experience today. Psychedelics are especially sensitive to set and setting—that is your mindset, intention, and emotional state going in, as well as the environment and the people surrounding you.
Taking a psychedelic spontaneously, in public, at a party, at a crowded concert, or in a stressful environment can create a very different experience from one approached with care and intention. This work is best entered with purpose, preparation, trust, a peaceful private setting, and a trained facilitator present throughout to support you.
Together, those elements create what I call the container—a carefully held space that allows you to enter the experience feeling prepared, supported, and safe enough to meet whatever arises.
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That's completely understandable—and common before a journey. Part of preparation is making space for those concerns rather than pretending they aren't there. We'll talk openly about what you're feeling, what you're afraid of, and what would help you feel comfortable, informed, and supported before moving forward.
Let’s begin the conversation.
If you're curious about whether this work might be right for you, we can begin with a private, no-pressure conversation about what you're looking for, what's bringing you to psychedelic work, your questions or concerns, and what working together might look like.
There's no expectation that a conversation needs to lead to a journey. Sometimes the first step is simply exploring whether this feels right for you.
SCHEDULE AN INTRODUCTORY CONVERSATION