Gv Freeman

Many in the world of psychedelics have started to confuse comfort and safety.

It's also happening in...
therapy rooms.
spiritual spaces.
and classrooms.

When discomfort arises, the instinct is almost automatic: soothe it, soften it, remove it.

Has the pendulum of "trauma-informed" swung too far?

What if discomfort isn't the problem, but rather the path of liberation?

Some time ago, I was facilitating a group journey where a song I played made one person feel completely empowered… and another want to crawl out of their skin.

Same room. Same moment. Same medicine. Two entirely different realities. This is an easy problem to solve in 1:1 work. But is solving the problem the best course of action?

Should we change the song… or get curious about the reaction, and even better, develop the presence and skills to help our passengers find and release the discomfort?

Decide for yourself: https://ow.ly/t8yr50YH3SS

A doctor prescribes ketamine, and it's a medicine. You sit with ayahuasca in a ceremony, and it's a relapse. I've watched this double-standard play out with friends and clients more times than I can count. Here's why that logic doesn't hold, and how to actually approach psychedelic healing if you're in recovery.

Read for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/ZQnI50YnnoX

My sponsor had 35 years of sobriety and lifelong depression that never lifted. He was finally ready to try something different. Four days later, I got the call. This piece is about what I've carried since, and why I refuse to stay quiet about it.

Read for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/pSvE50YnnbH

You can’t optimize your way through healing.

Psychedelics aren’t a checkbox or a finish line. They’re part of a longer relationship with yourself, your nervous system, and your life.

I spent time time pondering why the “one perfect journey” fantasy so often backfires — and what works better instead.

Read for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/46pi50XYSBS

No explanation needed. 🫠🙃🤣

Happy New Year to all of you beautiful friends and strangers!

This is a new experience my team and I are launching this June — ½ Indigenous Medicine, ½ Tourism. Experience the Mountains + Machu Picchu + the Jungle + 4 nights with Dr. Ayahuasca...all in 11 days.

Reach out if you're called to join, or share it with a friend if they need it.

Healing often feels like a jumbled ball of Christmas lights.

No clear beginning. No obvious end. Just a knot of wires daring you to try.

And even if, by some miracle, you do find the end, the idea of patiently unravelling decades-old knots can feel overwhelming, if not completely futile.

But we try anyway.

Years of therapy. Countless insights. You finally loosen one strand, only to discover another layer underneath. Tighter. Older. More confusing. Waiting to be approached with the patience of a Buddhist monk and the nervous system of a saint.

At some point, we stare at the mess and want to scream, "Who did this? Who made this mess?!?"

But when we yell into the void, nothing answers.
No villain. No origin story. No satisfying “aha.”

And that lack of understanding only makes us angrier, until eventually we give up and decide we will never figure it out.

For my first seven years working as a psychedelic facilitator, I tried to help people find the end and untangle the knots one by one. I was essentially using psychedelics as a therapeutic tool.

I believed that if I was skilled enough, smart enough, I could loosen things just enough for people to feel better.

And often, they did. Otherwise, I would have stopped long ago.

But over the past three years, working within an Indigenous lineage, something fundamental has shifted.

I have learned that the medicine already knows EVERYTHING about us.

The Doctors I work with have access to tools no human mind could possibly comprehend. They do not need to find the plug and carefully untangle the mess.

They pull out metaphysical wire cutters and slice clean through years of illusion.

As I have learned to trust the Doctors, my role has softened. My work has become sweeter. And the progress of those I serve has become far more profound.

Psychedelic assisted therapy has its place. It is safe. It is structured. It is understandable. Especially for the Western mind that's keeping track and tallying wins.

But sometimes, understanding is the problem.

It is all energy, kids.

And if it came with you into this incarnation, you may never understand it. You're like a fish swimming around who doesn't know he's wet.

Uncomfortable truth: It’s not just about inner work.

You can do years of therapy, countless journeys, and have beautiful insights—but none of that will clean up a life that’s out of alignment.

Psychedelics don’t replace integrity.

They demand it.

Once the medicine has shown you what needs to change, taking more medicine doesn’t create clarity.

In fact, it usually creates friction. Anxiety. Resistance. Confusion. Discomfort. The signal gets louder, not softer.

That’s not the medicine “not working.”

That’s the medicine waiting on you.

At some point, the work becomes very unsexy:

🔴 Have the hard conversation

🔴 Clean up the mess you’ve been avoiding

🔴 Tell the truth you keep circling

🔴 Change the behavior, not just the narrative

If you keep reaching for altered states instead of taking aligned action, what you’re practicing isn’t healing, it’s psychedelic bypass.

Medicine opens the door.

Integrity is what lets you walk through it.

Until your life starts matching what you’ve been shown, more medicine won’t help.

It will just turn the volume up.

The discomfort you're feeling is the teaching.

I spent the last year writing, facilitating, getting super uncomfortable, learning the hard way, and noticing what actually leads to freedom versus what just looks good online.

When I reviewed everything I wrote in 2025, I distilled my top 10 truths and themes.

This essay is my attempt to share a top-ten list you might actually be able to use. 🤣

If your 2025 has felt messy, nonlinear, or deeply humbling, you’re not doing it wrong. In fact, I'm glad it's felt like that. If it didn't, you wouldn't be learning such valuable lessons.

👉 Read for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/YpIk50XQJgK

🎄 A Christmas Eve gift for anyone dreading tonight or tomorrow.

If holidays and family time feel heavy, awkward, or quietly miserable… it’s probably not because you’re broken.

It’s because many of us were trained to be nice instead of honest.
To keep the peace instead of grow up.
To chase approval, money, control, or spiritual highs instead of real inner freedom.

This essay is about the two patterns underlying so much modern suffering:
• Codependence disguised as kindness
• Mistaking external freedom for internal freedom

I wrote it as a love letter (maybe a gentle shove) for anyone navigating family gatherings, old dynamics, people-pleasing reflexes, or the pressure to perform happiness this time of year.

You don’t need to fix anyone.
You don’t need to have “enough.”
You don’t need to be nice at the expense of being real.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do this holiday season is tell the truth… kindly, clearly, and without apology.

Merry Christmas.
May next year be the year we stop performing and start growing up. 🎁

Read for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/z6G350XNOJt

Truth without trust feels like violence.
Truth held in relationship becomes medicine.

This is why going slow matters.
This is why discernment matters.
This is why we don’t kill the messenger.

Oh…and be careful what you ask for.

Read the article for free on Substack: https://ow.ly/nfV550XLsCa