Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
MDMA: Gateway Drug to Being Heartsoft
Geral T. Blanchard • December 4, 2021
Biologist and philosopher Humberto Maturana said, “Love is the only emotion that opens intelligence and expands awareness.”
We often forget the important tenet: When we love we expand. And as we expand there is increased social participation. More compassion, more giving – filling up by giving away. That is a principle underlying the Northwest Coast tribe’s potlatch, a giveaway festival.
Two of the most valuable tenets in Maya teachings are lifting one’s heart and thankfulness. They link people back to the mythical substance we all share, reminding us that all of us came from a benevolent Creator. And love, they contend, is that common substance.
Spiritual elder, Raimon Panikkar, a Catholic priest and Buddhist monk, believes it is our human calling to love in the ways of heart reasoning, meaning to deeply appreciate and empathize, to radically understand, but not to classify or synthesize. By extending this heart-fully-opened presence to others we are enlarged. As Helen Keller put it: “I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.”
As you continue your growth after receiving the medicine, several ancient traditions may further guide you. The metaphor of the Great Spoked Wheel reminds me of the Medicine Wheel atop the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. It represents all people being interconnected, spokes of a large wheel. We fall apart if spiritually disconnected, if we don’t see and follow ancient guiding principles.
The Maori – indigenous people of New Zealand – have a custom of sharing their breath upon meeting “others,” as well as when breaking contact. By sharing breath, mouth-to mouth, the Maori entrain their hearts, feel enlarged, and find their common rhythm.
There is the South African indigenous ethic of Ubuntu. It is often translated in one of two similar ways: 1) I am because you are, you are because I am, or 2) a person is a person through other persons. This can include abusive interactions as well as loving exchanges. We are completing each other in a variety of often unexpected ways.
And there is also the Lebanese greeting, “Ya Ayuni!” which translates to “Oh, my eyes!” or “Oh, my darling!” Implicit in this greeting is the recognition that we need each other to see clearly; one view is insufficient. Again, we complete each other.
This brings to mind my favorite definition of what “I love you” means: I love you means that when I am with you I am in touch with the most beautiful, the most capable, and the most loveable parts of me.
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When Native Americans speak of the Original Instructions, I take it as meaning Earth’s primal, feminine ethics for living in a life sustaining and life enhancing way. The beat of Mother’s heart is the rhythm we are instructed to fall into. By doing so we know peace. A similar idea comes from poet Eugene Ruggles who wrote:
I have no enemies left,
only some friends who are late.
Come in, there is no lock, hang your coat
beside the fire and pull up a chair to its edge…
We shall drink tea and clear the path
Leading back to the heart’s first address…
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By electing to ingest MDMA you are, in essence, embarking on a new path to change the trajectory of your life. That is a big decision that must be made after deep reflection. The decision comes following the realization that past ways haven’t worked very well for you, so the search begins for a new path. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu cautioned, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” Your commitment, before consuming the medicine, is to seek a better understanding of yourself. And the magic won’t be found in the pill, it is in the commitment to becoming more heartsoft. So seek to accept and love yourself despite errant paths taken in the past. Eventually, after changing direction, you will have what it takes to love the rest of the world more fully -- in an enlarged way. Bottom line: a prerequisite to opening and breaking ceremony is to commit to loving in a bigger way than ever before. Unafraid of where it might take you, including homeward, to a larger and more unified internal community.
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“All knowledge is useless if one cannot lift one’s heart.”
- Don Tomas, Maya Quichean shaman
“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
- George Sand
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Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
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Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it?
At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more.
These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
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It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection.
First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants.
So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
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