The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Welcome! In my 12 years of working with the Cannabis plant, something I have come to recognize is that Cannabis truly is, in my opinion, the world's most misunderstood plant medicine. Although authors such as Chris Bennett have supplied research that shows Cannabis and human beings have been intermingling for at least 10,000 years, the last 80-100 years has done a very good job of erasing that history, leaving most people in the western world either believing or having to move past the belief that Cannabis is nothing more than a drug that will rot your brain. As I imagine everyone reading this knows, this could not be further from the truth and in the present day, new science is coming out seemingly each week that is giving credence to the many powers Cannabis holds within it to assist us in our experience of life. This being said, what about the more qualitative, spiritual components of the plant? When looking into the history of Cannabis being used as a spiritual aid and ally, we can find evidence all across the world that the powers of this plant go far beyond the incredible benefits Cannabis can provide for the physical body. Having worked in the professional Cannabis industry for five years, in which I worked intimately with over 5,000 medical patients, I can say first hand that this missing part of the equation of how Cannabis works in the totality of the human experience has left a lot of people struggling to understand Cannabis, how it works, and how to maintain a healthy, conscious relationship with the plant. A good analogy I have found to bring this concept home is that it’s almost as if we, as a society, are missing the user manual for how this plant operates. This is why we at Highly Optimized created the “Connect With Cannabis” program to be the long lost user manual for how to create a healthy, conscious relationship with this plant to ensure that those looking to connect with it can do so in a healthy manner & not end up doing more harm than good, as many Cannabis users unfortunately experience. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
The “Conscious Cannabis Guide” is our answer to providing the foundation for anyone looking to have a taste of what a conscious relationship with this plant can do for them in their individual experience of life and within this guide we will be exploring:
Our 3 step process for creating a conscious relationship with Cannabis And The 3 Step Process To A Conscious Relationship With Cannabis While there are endless ways in which to become conscious in your relationship with Cannabis, we have found these 3 steps to be easy and effective to allow anyone, regardless of how long they have been connecting with the plant, to be able to achieve a heightened sense of consciousness into their relationship with Cannabis. STEP ONE: “Take Your Power Back” When we think about taking our power back, this concept can best be described as recognizing and taking ownership over the components of your experience with Cannabis that you do, in fact, have a say in. This step combines the two concepts of intention and ceremony. Let’s break these down individually to allow these concepts to come to life & be able to be applied successfully in your relationship with the plant.
Intention As we will expand upon later within the section of the language in which Cannabis speaks, Cannabis, being a feminine medicine, is not designed to “know” where you want to go. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
As a result, all too often Cannabis users connect with the plant, only to find the results they receive with the plant to be different than they expected. By creating an intention before your Cannabis sessions, you can ensure that you have an anchor from which to give meaning to your experience. For instance, maybe you make an intention that you wish to feel happier at the end of your session, only to find yourself feeling anxious when the effects come on. If you hadn’t made an intention, you may get lost in your anxious thoughts & have no way in which to anchor them to what Cannabis may be looking to teach you & as a result, further externalize your power in thinking that the plant “made” you anxious. In the scenario in which you did make an intention, however, you will more easily be able to anchor yourself into the notion that maybe the reason you are experiencing anxiety is because that sense of anxiety that was already inside of you preventing you from feeling happy in your day to day life was what was standing in the way & looking to have attention brought to it in order to find the sense of happiness you were looking for beneath it. Remember when setting an intention & working with Cannabis in a co- communicative relationship to stay curious as to what comes up. Oftentimes the way in which your intention may play out will arise in the form of memories, synchronicities, images & many other forms of communication that you may miss if you’re expecting the plant to communicate with you in a specific manner. In terms of what intention to make, this is completely up to you, however, I will give you some examples of intentions I have made to give you a better understanding of how surface level or deep you can go within your intention setting process. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Once you have completed your 10 rounds, you will notice that you will feel much calmer &, as shamanic medicine speaks of, you will have “emptied” yourself. The reason that emptying yourself is so important is that if you are looking for the guidance of a plant medicine, the plant will only be able to communicate with you if there is room to do so & as such, if you have racing thoughts upon entering your experience with Cannabis, you are more likely to miss the messages Cannabis provides you. In addition, you will also be more likely to experience negative results with the plant overall, as when our mind is racing & we include a plant medicine such as Cannabis into the picture, it can be an overload of energy & lead to an increased amount of negative thoughts as a result. Once again, there are endless modalities from which to accomplish a well balanced set, however, this exercise I find simple & effective to accomplish this.
Ensure You Are Somewhere You Feel Safe If you are in an environment that feels upregulated, new to you & is loud, for instance, it can further exacerbate the chances that you will face challenges within your experience with the plant. This is because, once again, you will not have the necessary space to focus on your breath, feel safe in your surroundings & be able to successfully receive the messages that Cannabis is looking to give you. My recommendation for creating a well balanced setting is to ensure you are somewhere that feels comfortable & safe, able to give your ceremony with Cannabis the attention it deserves. This does not mean you can never connect with Cannabis in a scenario such as a concert, for instance, however, there is a big learning curve with regards to discovering how to do this safel |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
What I have found is that if I am looking to connect with Cannabis in a situation that is more upregulated & foreign to me, I am going to practice harm reduction techniques by employing the concept of minimum effective dosing, ensuring that I am accounting for the stimulation I am going to be feeling in a new environment playing into my overall experience. This being said, for the idea of creating a ceremony with Cannabis, I recommend only connecting with the plant in relaxed, safe spaces, such as your home, for instance, as I have found it extremely hard to focus on my experience with the plant in other types of settings. Make Sure Your Space Is Clean In my experience, there is no easier way to experience anxiety within your experiences with Cannabis than when connecting with the plant in a messy environment. When exploring the idea of feng shui, we can understand the mechanisms behind what a clean, organized environment can do for our ability to relax into our experiences with Cannabis, versus a messy & unorganized environment. The simplest way to explain this is with the law of correspondence, which is one of the seven hermetic principles. This law states “as above, so below, as within, so without.” The reason this law is the perfect way to encapsulate the importance of a clean space from which to conduct your ceremony is that if your space is clean & organized, your mind, body & spirit will be better equipped to match that energy. If your environment is messy & unorganized, however, your mind, body & spirit will naturally gravitate towards the same chaotic energy of your environment & can lead to interferences within your ceremony. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Make Sure You Have Your Materials Prepared Beforehand My recommendation for this step is to have the following items in place before initiating your ceremony:
1.Cannabis materials (flower/edibles, papers, vaporizer, etc.) within your ceremony 5.Sage/Palo Santo
Creating A Sacred Space For Your Ceremony The idea of sacred space is a foundational aspect of any container in which medicines will be connected with & within shamanism, there are many different ways from which to cultivate a sacred space.
Cleansing & Re-Energizing Your Space My favorite way to do this is to use sage and palo santo. I use sage first to cleanse myself and my environment as sage is known to cleanse any negative energies out of your space and neutralize the space overall. My method for cleansing myself with sage is to first draw an outline with the sage bundle around my body, making sure to go down one leg, up the inside of that leg, down the inside of the other leg & then up the other leg and following that line up & around your body until you reach the top of your head. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
From there, I walk around my space with the sage and ensure I have covered the majority of my space with it. Once your space is cleansed, you will want to bring in new, positive energy and this is where palo santo comes in. Palo santo is known to re-energize a space once it has been cleansed and to do this, I follow the same steps we went through with the saging process in which we trace the outline of our being with our palo santo and then walk around our environment with it to ensure the essence of it has filled our environment.
Creating A Sacred Space There are many methods for doing this, however, my personal favorite is to move through a 7 directional prayer. The concept of this is to give thanks to each of the 7 directions, including north, east, south, west, up, down & to your center (aka your heart.) My recommendation for what to say for each direction is to think about what each direction represents to you & to improvise based on what feels right for you in the moment. For example, maybe north to you represents the challenges you face in life that help you grow, as the north is typically harsher cold climates and for your north prayer, you decide to speak to your gratitude for recent challenges in your life that have helped you grow. On the other hand, if you’d like to have the same 7 directional prayer each time and would rather not improvise, you can look up a script online for each direction and use that method instead. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
STEP TWO “Unlock Your Creative Potential" If you have been in the world of Cannabis for even a short time now, I imagine you have heard the idea that Cannabis can heighten our creative abilities. This being said, I can tell you firsthand that this notion is not a given within the vast number of outcomes achievable with Cannabis. When I was first starting to explore the true spiritual powers of Cannabis, I began asking the plant why this was so and how to maximize the ability of the plant to help me be more creative and the one word I received was “surrender.” Now if you’re like me, the term surrender was a trigger word for me throughout my life, especially within the plant medicine space. What I came to recognize in sitting with this answer and allowing Cannabis to further communicate the story behind why the concept of surrender can lead to an unlocking of our creative potential, was that on its own, surrender can be very scary to fully embody, as when we have not accomplished the primary step of setting an intention, we really can’t know why we are surrendering, what we are surrendering into, and how to place what may come up for us within our experience. On the other hand, when we have successfully set an intention, our intention can act as the anchor from which we can understand what we are choosing to surrender into, how to relate what discoveries we find within our experience to our intention, and can overall allow us to feel more safe and secure in the idea of surrender. It is also worth noting that when we are connecting with a plant medicine, such as Cannabis, we are inviting the spirit of the plant into us to communicate with us and without providing the necessary component of surrender into our ceremonies with these plants, we will be less able to have that communication with the plant as the plant can only work its magic if we get ourselves out of the way enough for it to do so. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Some great tips for being able to tune into surrender include:
Coming back to our breath anytime we feel like the experience is becoming challenging Moving our bodies into different positions, such as laying down, fetal position, etc. as certain positions, such as these ones, allow for more effective emotional releases & much of the time when we are feeling challenges present themselves within our experiences with Cannabis it is simply a sign that emotions are rising to the surface & are looking to be released. STEP THREE: "Becoming Unstoppable" When we think about the story in which we want to frame our experiences of life, I imagine each of you listening to this right now would agree that feeling unstoppable is a fantastic goal to strive for within our lives. With regards to plant medicines, such as Cannabis, the most effective way to become unstoppable is to effectively integrate our experiences. As such, the step of becoming unstoppable in our relationship with Cannabis deals directly with how to effectively and efficiently integrate the experiences we have with the plant. Many people tend to think integration is an optional step, however, if you are someone who wishes to interact with Cannabis as a medicine and teacher, rather than a substance, it is imperative that you integrate your discoveries with the plant after your experiences conclude. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
This plant yearns to be in a co-communicative relationship with us, however, in order to be able to actually learn the lessons Cannabis has to teach us and successfully become conscious in our relationship with the plant, we must recognize that the real work within the plant medicine space happens within the concept of integration. Let’s look at an example to bring this concept home. Imagine you are seeking a higher amount of creativity within your life, yet you feel blocked and stuck and feel unable to access your creativity like you used to. As such, you decide to connect with Cannabis with the intention of discovering the missing link between you and accessing the creativity you seek to bring back into your life. You then move through your ceremony with the plant and as the ceremony deepens, you begin to experience memories from your past in which painting was a big part of your life. Once you realize this, you begin getting excited at the thought of getting back into painting and you then create the hypothesis that the breadcrumb trail you are going to follow to access more of your creativity is by getting back into painting. Now, let’s say that while in your ceremony, you feel all the motivation and inspiration necessary to sign up for art classes and begin following this breadcrumb trail, however, when your ceremony has concluded, you fail to take the initiative to integrate your experience by not signing up for an art class and fulfilling your end of the work within your relationship with Cannabis. What will most likely happen in this scenario I spoke about here is that your life will go on as normal and overtime, you will feel more and more frustrated as to how to unlock the creativity you yearn to bring into your life and will end up thinking that in order to feel that inspiration and motivation once again, you must connect with Cannabis again to enter that state. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
This is one of the areas in which patterns of dependency can come forth, as in this example, this individual has mistaken Cannabis as the supplier of creativity, rather than the medicine and teacher that can show them the way to unlock creativity in their own life. Let’s say that instead of missing the mark, you come out of your ceremony with Cannabis and immediately take initiative to integrate what you’ve learned by signing up for an art class to follow the breadcrumb trail that Cannabis illuminated for you. In this example, this individual is now in the perfect scenario to continue finding synchronicities, serendipities and successfully being on the path to unlocking creativity within their day to day life. A great way to encapsulate this concept is that by choosing to enter a conscious, intentional relationship with Cannabis, you recognize that while Cannabis can show you the “what”, aka the realization that painting is a form of creativity that is calling you, as in the example above, it is up to you to discover the “how”, aka signing up for an art class, buying a paint kit, etc., as in the example above. In addition to examples like the one above, there may be some ceremonies where you don’t get such a clear message and instead you experience recurring thoughts, feelings or sensations within your experience. For things like these, I have some fantastic methods for integration that I use to continue getting curious as to what meaning to make out of these in my life. Some of my favorite methods for integration include: Walking Journaling Meditating Breathwork Movement A good guideline for integration is that whatever methodology you choose to integrate with, it is most effective to be with yourself, by yourself, in order to make your own meanings out of your experiences, rather than be persuaded or convinced by others what your experience could mean. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
When we integrate effectively, we can take our “PEAK” experiences, which are the experiences themselves and integrate them into “PEEK” experiences, where in our sober, daily life, our lives begin to resemble the magic that we feel within our plant medicine experiences. By understanding this, we can not only allow our entire lives to become more magic, but we can also allow the plant to continue giving us deeper layers as to what is most useful to gain from our plant medicine experiences within our lives, as if we fail to integrate our experiences, the plants will either continue showing us the same realizations or “aha” moments or stop showing us the next breadcrumb to follow in our lives altogether. This is because, similar to if someone was speaking to you and you were ignoring them, the plant will begin to realize that communication is not what you are looking for and will cease showing itself to you in this way. The 3 Steps To Understand How Cannabis Works in The Human Experience Along with the 3 steps to become conscious in our relationship with Cannabis, I have found it helps immensely in understanding the ways in which Cannabis works within the human experience. As such, this section will be dedicated to providing you with the 3 steps in which to understand this in order to continue bringing your relationship with Cannabis into the conscious and allowing you to reach new heights in your ability to have a co-communicative relationship with the plant. STEP ONE: Cannabis Is Feminine Medicine I imagine that many of you may have heard before that Cannabis has a feminine spirit to it. While I will not be breaking down the scientific components behind this, as I feel it would be far too lengthy and is not necessary for this concept to be understood, I will be diving into an analogy of how to understand this and breaking down some common scenarios with Cannabis in which failing to understand this notion could lead to undesirable results with the plant. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
First, let’s dive into an analogy to bring this concept home. Imagine you are learning how to salsa dance and your instructor is breaking down the masculine and feminine roles for you and your partner. They share with you that the masculine component of the salsa dance is to lead the dance and provide the direction from which the salsa dance can play out within, while the feminine component of the salsa dance is to follow that lead and express themselves fully, knowing that the masculine component of the salsa dance will be focused on where they are going and allow them to feel safe to express themselves. When we think about a healthy, conscious relationship with Cannabis, this analogy can be used to describe the masculine and feminine roles within our experiences with the plant. Now, while the plant is supplying the feminine component of this equation, we, whether we are male or female, must provide the mascuine component of this equation, which is setting the intention & corresponding direction for the plant to work within, in order for Cannabis to be able to successfully work as a medicine & teacher in our lives & illuminate for us the breadcrumb trail to follow within our lives to achieve the intention we set & create a higher quality of life for us in our lives. Now that we’ve explored the analogy from which we can understand how to work with Cannabis as a feminine medicine, let’s dive into some common ways in which Cannabis users fail to understand this concept and the subsequent results they receive as a result. Let’s say that someone who has not explored this concept in their relationship with Cannabis connects with the plant without providing the masculine component of setting an intention before they connect with the plant. This person then feels the feminine essence of Cannabis envelop their being and either one of two things happens: In the first example, they end up sitting on the couch all day and fail to tackle any of their responsibilities and end up blaming the plant as a result for “making” them lazy....cue the “lazy stoner archetype. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
In this example, not only did they unconsciously expect Cannabis to “make” them productive, but they also externalized their power by placing the blame onto the plant for being lazy, instead of taking ownership over the notion that they chose to connect with the plant without setting an intention and ended up losing drive as a result. It is important to note that it is not Cannabis’ job to know why we are connecting with the plant or for “making” us into a certain version of ourselves and, in reality, it is our job to know these things as with great power comes great responsibility. In the second example, they end up having a challenging experience as a result of whatever was in their subconscious coming to the surface without them realizing why they are all of a sudden having negative thoughts and as a result, end up believing that Cannabis “made” them anxious. In this example, this person failed to recognize that by not consciously setting an intention, the plant connected with whatever thoughts, feelings, sensations or emotions came to the surface as a result of the plants ability to connect us deeper to our subconscious by moving our brain waves from beta to alpha & theta, which act as the doorway to our subconscious. As a result, this person failed to take ownership over their lack of conscious intention setting and ended up externalizing their power onto the plant in believing the plant “made” them feel anxious, paranoid, etc. By understanding Cannabis is a feminine medicine, we can allow ourselves to understand why it is so crucial to set an intention within our ceremonies to be able to experience the healing benefits the plant has the opportunity to show us as a result of understanding this concept. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
STEP TWO: Cannabis Acts As A Mirror As I touched upon in the step before, many people experience either great highs with Cannabis or great lows and instead of being able to take ownership over them, place that ownership onto the plant. Cannabis, as with most plant medicines, acts as a mirror by reflecting back to us what is already present within our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. As a result, what we experience within our ceremonies with Cannabis is not a result of Cannabis “making” us happy, ecstatic, anxious, paranoid, etc., but rather is a result of Cannabis illuminating for us what was already residing within our subconscious. By understanding this concept, we can set ourselves up for heightened success by ensuring we are able to take ownership over what Cannabis reflects to us and be better equipped to know what to focus on integrating after our ceremonies have concluded. For example, maybe you have a ceremony with Cannabis in which you experience a great deal of anxiety. In scenario number one, you externalize your power onto the plant by blaming the plant for “making” you anxious and as a result, become nervous to engage with the plant moving forward and also fail to recognize that by diving into the anxiety you experienced, you could potentially create a much higher quality of life for yourself. In scenario number two, you take ownership over the anxiety you experienced & instead of ignoring this anxiety, you begin taking note in your daily life of when you feel a similar sensation within your body and begin getting curious as to what the correlations between each of the scenarios you experience similar sensations could be. As I am sure you are beginning to see, by understanding this concept, you can enact a training ground not only for your relationship with Cannabis, but also in your daily life by choosing to take ownership over your experiences with the plant & within your life as a whole. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Something I have come to realize in my life is that how you do anything is how you do everything and so along with understanding how to work with Cannabis in the ways listed in this workbook, you can also pick up more effective ways to move through your life as a whole. STEP THREE: Cannabis Acts As Imagination Medicine Although I am not affiliated with a particular religion, I know a good line when I hear it. The bible states that “in order to reach the kingdom of heaven, you must first enter the mind of a child.” One day, when connecting with Cannabis in ceremony, this statement made its way into my awareness and although I had heard it many times before, it landed differently this time. What I began to notice is that in a world full of praise for intellect, aka what we “know”, far too many of us have become stuck in allowing our lives to be boxed into what we think we know is “correct” and “incorrect” about life as a whole. As a result, these “knowings” become belief systems and it is our collection of what we believe to be true and untrue about life that creates our experience of life. For example, let’s say that you grew up in a household where your parents always had the news on and were always speaking to the notion that the world is a scary place & to be careful when traveling alone. As a result, you take on the belief that the world is scary and unsafe. You then move through your life and as your friends speak about traveling to distant lands to have new experiences, you feel fear in saying yes to travel with them and as a result, choose to stay home where you feel safe. In order to successfully change this individuals belief, they would first have to “imagine” a reality in which the world is a safe place even though scary things happen from time to time. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Without being able to first “imagine” a reality in which this is true, this individual will be stuck in their belief that the world is a scary place and will feel this fear any time someone tries to push them outside of this belief system. I imagine that anyone listening to this right now can begin thinking of where in your life you may be boxed into a belief system and what I want you to know first is that you are not alone, that this is completely normal considering how most of us were raised & this is able to be shifted by working with Cannabis in a conscious manner. My best recommendation to explore Cannabis in this way is by setting the intention to have Cannabis show you where you are currently most stuck in a belief system that is not adding substance to your life. Once you have set your intention, connect with the plant and once you attach onto a specific thought, feeling, sensation or emotion that you can relate to a belief system, begin exploring what it would be like to imagine a reality in which either the opposite is true or a different version of this belief is true. After you have successfully imagined a reality in which this new belief system is true, you can then begin integrating this by visualizing this reality within your daily meditation ritual, breathwork ritual, walking ritual or any other integration rituals that resonate with you. As you continue to visualize this as part of your integration, the next step would be to begin living “as if” this belief was true. For example, let’s say that in the example above, you originally believed the world to be a scary and unsafe place and after visualizing this different reality in which the world is a safe place, you then begin to live into this new reality by living “as if” the world was a safe place. What you could then do is begin moving past your zone of comfort by saying yes to travel opportunities with friends and living into the version of you that believes the world is safe. After a certain amount of time, this “as if” will become a “matter of fact”, in which you will no longer need to consciously try to believe the world is a safe place & instead, you will begin saying yes to things quickly and without a second thought that before choosing to work on this belief system, you would of never said yes to. |
The Conscious Cannabis Guide |
Many of my clients come to me because they are trying to essentially jump from chapter one, in which they currently believe something that is hindering their quality of life, to chapter ten, in which they believe the opposite, however, to shift beliefs effectively, it takes time, patience and imagination. From imagination, we can look at our beliefs, imagine new realities for ourselves in which we do not believe these disempowering beliefs and as a result, end up shifting our beliefs over time & revolutionizing our experience of life. Conclusion As I am sure each of you who dove into this workbook can tell by this point, it is easy to see why so many end up doing more harm than good with Cannabis. While it would be easy for any of us to say that we have no control over what types of experiences & results we receive in our relationships with Cannabis, that is an easy way to continue externalizing our power in our lives as, like I stated earlier, how we do anything is how we do everything. By employing the concepts laid out for each of you within this guide, you can ensure that you are connecting with Cannabis as a medicine and teacher that can act as a powerful tool for self development and self awareness in our lives and allow us to discover the connection deepening benefits this plant yearns to share with all of us that choose to connect with her. My hope is that each of you take these concepts and share them with the world, as I truly believe that in a world that is currently faced with an epidemic of an inability to connect deeply to ourselves, those we love, the important work we seek to do in the world and the world at large, connecting with Cannabis in a conscious, intentional way can be a very effective way to begin remediating this challenge. However, this does not mean that Cannabis is for everyone & we must say that we are not recommending anyone to connect with this plant unless they have discerned in their own life that it is right to do so.
As always, sending each of you love and light in your journey and if any of you are looking to buy the ticket & take the ride into the full experience of working with Cannabis as a medicine and teacher in your lives and the lives of those you serve in your work, make sure to reach out to book a complimentary call for the Connect With Cannabis program and together we can explore and dive in! Our free community group: Highly Optimized Ceremony Circle Join our free community group and connect with our weekly Ceremony Circle meetups on zoom where we explore the topics of interacting with cannabis, the science of cannabis, and the process of cultivating the plant! Cool people, great discussions, and tons to dive into! Hosted by Ryan Sprague, this podcast showcases individuals who are living a life beat to their own drum, sharing their stories, and revealing their valuable information for each one of YOU listeners on how you can effectively take life into your own control, what steps to take to create your own path, and how to maximize your results in manifesting YOUR dreams in this reality. This One Time on Psychedelics Podcast Accompany us down the rabbit hole of self exploration through plant medicines. Explore psychedelic medicines & the impact they've made among the countless psychonauts exploring the last true frontier. Buy a ticket & take the ride with us as we get true first hand accounts of the experiences, benefits, risks & transformations taking place within the ever expanding world of psychedelic medicines on This One Time On Psychedelics. |