Journal · September 11, 2026
When a journey gets hard
Three of the nine questions Tricycle Day sent me this summer were about the difficult end of this work: what to do when a journey turns, what to do with anger, and what to do with a memory you cannot verify. They belong together, because in a session they usually arrive together.
The moment it turns
Sophia C. in Oregon asked what a person can do in the moment when a journey turns difficult.
"Slow, intentional breathing, feeling the support of the ground beneath you, or placing a hand over your heart can help regulate the nervous system and create a greater sense of safety."
In the room it is smaller than it sounds. I take input away rather than add it: music down or off, lights lower, one instruction at a time, said once and not repeated at speed. I name where we are. Then the floor, literally, because a body that can feel what is holding it up stops braced. None of this makes the hard thing go away, and it is not meant to. It makes the hard thing something you are inside of with company rather than alone. The August 14 issue ran the short answer.
When anger arrives
The July 31 question was how I work with anger or rage that comes up during a journey.
"Where do you feel it in your body? If your anger could speak, what would it say? Often, anger is protecting something more vulnerable underneath."
I do not try to cool it down. Anger that gets met is usually brief; anger that gets managed digs in. So we go slowly through those three questions, and I mean slowly, a minute or two of silence between them if that is what it takes. The body answer comes first, jaw, chest, hands. Then the voice, which is often much older than the person's adult vocabulary. The third answer arrives on its own, and it is frequently grief or fear underneath. My training in parts work sits under this. The same three questions are worth asking at a kitchen table on an ordinary hard day, with no medicine anywhere near it. Read the July 31 issue.
A memory you cannot verify
The first question I answered for the column, back on July 17, was what to do with a memory that surfaces during a journey if you cannot tell whether it is real.
"Ask yourself: Do I often feel this way in my day-to-day life? When was the first time I remember feeling like this? Who was there?"
This is where I am most careful, and I say so during preparation, before anything comes up. A journey is not an investigation, and what surfaces in one is not evidence. It can be a memory, a compression of many memories, a dream, an image the mind built to hold a feeling, or a mix. Trying to settle which, on the day, tends to cost the person the thing that was actually useful.
What I trust is the feeling. If the feeling is familiar, it has a history, and the history can be walked back in ordinary daylight with an ordinary therapist. So we stay with the feeling, we note what the image wanted, and we leave the question of fact open. If someone wants to pursue it afterward, that is real work and it belongs to a therapist, sometimes to a family, occasionally to a lawyer, and never to a psilocybin session. Read the July 17 issue.
What I do not promise
I cannot promise a journey will not get hard. I cannot promise that hard means productive, either; sometimes a difficult stretch is just difficult, and the work happens in the weeks afterward or not at all. What preparation buys is not a guarantee but a plan: a room you chose, a facilitator you have already tested with your harder questions, agreements about touch and silence made while you were clear-headed, and someone present the whole time whose job is nothing except you.
It also buys an honest screen. Some people I turn away, and the reasons are in who this work is not for. If a difficult journey is the specific thing you are afraid of, bring that to the complimentary 15-minute consultation and ask me exactly what I would do. You should know the answer before you decide anything. The nine questions the column put to me are collected in nine Fridays in Tricycle Day, and my facilitator profile is on Althea.
MycoMuse offers facilitation and integration support within the state programs of Colorado and Oregon. This writing is education, not medical advice. Facilitation is distinct from medical, psychiatric, and psychotherapy care, and MycoMuse never provides psilocybin. Adults 21 and over.
Sources
- Tricycle Day, Ask a Guide Anything, August 14, 2026
- Tricycle Day, Ask a Guide Anything, July 31, 2026
- Tricycle Day, Ask a Guide Anything, July 17, 2026
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Questions this post answers
What helps in the moment when a journey turns difficult?
Slow, intentional breathing, feeling the support of the ground beneath you, or a hand over your heart. In the room I also take input away: music down, lights lower, one instruction at a time.
How do you work with anger in a session?
Slowly, and without trying to cool it down. Where do you feel it in your body, what would it say if it could speak, and what might it be protecting. The third answer is often grief or fear.
What if a memory surfaces and I cannot tell whether it is real?
A journey is not an investigation, and what surfaces in one is not evidence. I stay with the feeling, which has a traceable history, and leave the question of fact open for work with a therapist afterward.