• Physical Preparation More than anything else, Ayahuasca is going to want to clean you. If you make your body as clean as possible before the ceremonies, there will be less general toxins from everyday life to clean out, allowing you to more quickly access the deeper and more important and interesting things. Eating a clean, simple diet for two to four weeks beforehand, avoiding pork and with minimal processed foods, spices and red meat, means that you'll enter the ceremony with a cleaner body and less dietary factors to detoxify from.  Along with the diet and medications, it's also important to avoid other psychoactive medicines and recreational drugs for two weeks as these can interfere with the effectiveness of the Ayahuasca.

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• Setting Intentions Your process will run a lot more smoothly if you have a clear understanding of why you're doing it. During challenging ceremonies, your intention can be the lifeline that reminds you why you are there and gives you the strength and willpower to get through it. There are no right or wrong intentions and no reason for drinking is necessarily any better or worse than another, but it is good to get clear with yourself about it. Are you looking to heal yourself physically, emotionally or spiritually? Or to explore a particular pattern that keeps replaying in your life? Do you want to learn more about yourself? Are you feeling stuck in life and looking to open up to a new direction? Or are you just curious? It's also good to keep in mind that you might not get a definite 'answer' to your question or intention during the ceremony, but knowing it can be extremely useful for keeping you focused and motivated during the more difficult times.

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• Preparing for Physical Release Purging can happen through vomiting, diarrhoea, shaking, yawning, crying and other forms of involuntary movement. Ayahuasca facilitates a release on every level and emotions, thoughts and other unhelpful energies can all be purged out during a ceremony. Practices or bodywork which encourage a deep release can help to open up the pathways in our bodies to detoxify efficiently and can also help you to get used to the feeling of opening up and releasing energy. Yin yoga and deep tissue massage work with the fascia, where the body stores a lot of suppressed emotion and trauma, so those are great options to encourage the body to begin to open up, to familiarise youreslf with the process of relaease and to bring you towards a deeper relationship with and understanding of your body. Mindful movement practices like yoga and qi gong help to move blockages in the body's subtle energy, which can help energy to release more smoothly and efficiently in ceremony.

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• Preparing for Emotional Release Helping us to release suppressed emotions is one of Ayahuasca's greatest powers and it's very common to experience an intense feelings of fear, anger, grief or shame as they come up and move out of the body. This can be incredibly healing, especially for those who have been feeling emotionally disconnected and find it hard to access and feel their emotions. It can also be quite a shock to suddenly find yourself feeling your feelings so vividly. Taking some time before the ceremonies to tune into your emotions and begin to form a relationship with them can allow the emotional rollercoaster of the ceremony to flow more gracefully. Spending some time journalling about your feelings around past and current events and allowing them to come up as they come can help you to establish a connection with your feelings which Ayahuasca will then be able to build upon.​

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• Nervous System Regulation When our nervous systems are stressed, it is challenging to remain calm even when there is no reason not to be. Combining an already disregulated nervous system with the emotional and spiritual challenges that an Ayahuasca ceremony can present is one of the main reasons that people may come out of a ceremony feeling worse than before they went in: the nervous system simply wasn't ready to receive such an intense amount of information so suddenly. Learning to regulate the nervous system won't just help you in your ceremonies but will help you to feel much more stable  in your daily life.  Deep breathing practices, conscious relaxation and mindful movement practices like yoga and qi gong all help facilitate the shift from fight-or-flight into rest-and-repair mode. Gentle body treatments such as relaxing massage, sound baths and reiki can also help to calm the nervous system. I recorded this yoga nidra relaxation especially to help you to rest, reset and move into  a state of presence and calmness before your ceremonies.​​

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• Breath Awareness Deep breathing is one of the most effective things that you can do to find calm when you're feeling stressed. Breathing deeply activates rest-and-repair in the nervous system and calms and focuses the mind. During a challenging ceremony, often the best thing that you can do is to deepen your breathing and focus on your breath. Deep breathing brings you back into your body and can often slow everything down. Having a regular practice of deep breathing in the weeks running up to your ceremonies not only benefits your nervous system but can help you to make returning to your breath a habit, so that it will be an easy and natural thing for you to do during your ceremonies if you need to. You can listen to a simple deep breathing meditation here.

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• Meditation If I was to recommend one thing for you to do to prepare, after discontinuing the necessary medications, it would be meditation. Having a good meditation practice can be invaluable before, during and after your ceremonies. Along with calming and quietening the mind, meditation teaches you to observe your thoughts and your feelings and to see them for what they are, allowing you to let go of any attachments to stories about yourself and your life that are not true. A traditional meditation practice where the mind has an object of focus - either the breath, a mantra or something similar - also teaches you to continually come back to yourself when your mind wanders away, which can be a hugely useful tool during a crazy ceremony. Cultivating a meditation practice will allow you to move through the ups and downs of your process whilst maintaining a sense of observation and will help you to more easily let go of stubborn thoughts and surrender to the medicine more easily.​

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• Spiritual Preparation The traditions which these medicine ceremonies come from are animistic in nature, meaning that the worldview acknowledges that everything in this world has a spirit. The plant, mountain, Earth and ancestral spirits are hugely important to the ceremonies and the presence of spiritual entities is wholly accepted and understood. You do not need to believe in the spiritual realms or the spirits of plants or ancestors to participate in the ceremonies (although you may have a very different perspective by the end!), but it is important to acknowledge that this is the belief system through which the ceremonies are held.  The plants may open you up  spiritually  and can sometimes challenge your spiritual beliefs, so showing up with an open-mindedness and willingness to explore the unknown can enable you to flow through what can often be a very  interesting experience.​

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• Managing Expectations The plant medicines are unpredictable and no one ever knows what is going to come up in a ceremony. I usually say that the only thing you can be sure about is that whatever you are expecting to happen probably won't. The medicines often put our need to be in control into perspective and it is not uncommon for disappointment to arise when the experience doesn't match our expectations. Perhaps you wanted visions but didn't get them or you were hoping for a particular insight that didn't come. The purpose of these plant medicines isn't to give you what you want but to bring you what you most need. Taking some time before your ceremonies to reflect and be honest with yourself about your hopes and expectations, and to accept the possibility that it may even feel like nothing is happening during the ceremonies, can help you to avoid disappointment and to have a more productive experience overall.

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• Understanding the Ceremony and Traditions Getting to know a little about the ceremonies, the traditions behind them, the format of the ceremony and some of the healing tools used can allow you to feel more informed and relaxed during the ceremony itself, with an understanding of why the different parts of the ceremony are happening when they are and the purpose of the songs and medicine tools. Sometimes joining a ceremony without knowing much about it can result in some  unnecessary anxiety and confusion around what is happening. Being well informed about the ceremony and its lineage also allows you to make an informed decision about if it is the right option for you and if you feel aligned with the belief systems that the ceremony takes place within.