Trailheads on Demand

Naomi met Renata the evening she finished the book.¹ “It’s good. Are you going to read it?”

“Not sure,” Renata said. “Sounds like you’re going to brief me anyway.”

“This book got me thinking. Ever since we finished Level 3—with all that role reversal—I’ve been wondering how to continue improving as a practitioner,” Naomi said.

“There’s always supervision,” Renata offered, without much conviction.

“Sure, pay someone to notice your blind spots,” Naomi said. “But here’s what I can’t stop turning over.”

“What am I bracing for?”

Naomi leaned forward with a mischievous grin. “Suppose I take ayahuasca and see if I can stay unblended?”

Renata raised an eyebrow. “Just to be clear, ayahuasca’s a psychedelic, right?”

“Yes,” Naomi replied. “It’s like psilocybin or LSD, but a brewed tea, not a fungus or tab.”

“Why ayahuasca instead of these other options?”

“A two hour duration is convenient. Pharmahuasca, a lab-synthesized version, could make dosing more precise.”

Renata struggled to summarize and clarify: “So instead of the client taking ayahuasca, you’re taking it yourself? Where is the client? And isn’t the point of a psychedelic to explore whatever it opens up to you? What do you mean by ‘if I can stay unblended’?”

“This is just for my own skills’ development. There is no client,” Naomi said. “And sure, plenty of people take ayahuasca to explore what it shows them. But check out page 51: With careful preparation, bad trips are uncommon. So what does a bad trip signal, if we flip it around?”

Renata waited patiently for the reveal.

“It’s not bad luck,” Naomi said. “It spotlights what you missed—a part that needed your attention but didn’t get it.”

Renata rolled her eyes then shifted to a flat, appraising look. “I think you’re taking the ‘all parts are welcome’ thing too far—welcoming bad trips! Say it in a room full of therapists and watch their reactions.”

“Oh, I have.” Naomi let the silence stretch, then: “Nobody wants it said out loud.”

Renata snorted; she’d seen the same recoil. “You’re talking like staying unblended is pass or fail. The skill is noticing and coming back.”

“Sure, but noticing is the hard part.” Naomi looked out the window at the leaves drifting down. “Too often, being blended just feels like being yourself. We need a quick and foolproof way to detect it.”

Renata turned the problem over, casting around without landing anywhere. A chapter title, upside down on the table, caught her eye: Music and Setting. “I thought music was a big part of the psychedelic experience—playlists and all that?” she queried.

“Sure, playing music helps clients stay in the right headspace.” Naomi leafed through the book, “Here on pages 76–77.”

Renata sat up. “What if you flipped that too? What if you sang instead of just listened?”

“Sang what?”

“Anything you love to sing.” Renata felt out the implications. “Will an unchosen part knock you off-key or off-lyric? If you can keep singing, you’re unblended enough. Just like you don’t need to be perfectly unblended with a client. Which makes me—” Only then did she notice her accommodating part had already volunteered. She felt hijacked. “—your sober judge for two hours, grading karaoke.”

“Wait, why do you have to be sober?” Naomi asked. “We could both take it. At the same time.”

“Then who’s watching?” Renata asked.

“Both of us! If we’re singing, we can each hear whether the other one is hitting the notes. Very efficient.”

Renata toyed with her mug, thinking it through. “But wait, what if we both blend at the same time? One of us should take a lower dose. Less of a challenge, sure, but it’d leave enough presence of mind to anchor the monitoring.”

“So we take turns being the harder test.” Naomi looked entirely too pleased with herself.

Renata laughed, but it was the laugh of someone who’d already said yes without meaning to. “You realize what you’re asking. If it goes smoothly, that tells us nothing. If it doesn’t—”

“If it doesn’t,” Naomi said, “then I’ve found a part that needs my attention. Jackpot.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Renata said, studying her friend’s face with concern.

“Schwartz calls difficult clients tor-mentors,” Naomi said. “It’s right there in his article, ‘The Larger Self.’ But I can’t summon a difficult client on schedule. Ayahuasca goes straight for my own material, on its own terms, at a dose I chose. The book bends over backward to prevent unchosen blending. I’m asking for it.”

“Naomi, that’s—” She couldn’t decide if what she was hearing was humility or a brag, and suspected Naomi couldn’t either.

Naomi pressed on: “Reliable provocation, on demand. And none of my regular clients even need to know; they just enjoy better attunement.”

“So you can’t schedule a crisis, but you can schedule ayahuasca.” Renata turned her mug slowly. “Recurring appointment, I assume?” she asked, deadpan.

“Call it IFS Level 4,” Naomi said, reaching for her own calendar. “You don’t graduate out of seeking your blind spots.”