HOW IS IT THAT we live in such a rapidly changing world, yet can find the endeavor of changing ourselves and our relationships to be so challenging, often remaining stuck in habit patterns that cause us pain?  

Change, in its uncertain and unpredictable nature, can be extremely anxiety-inducing, especially when approached from habitual, limited ways of thinking and being. We often prefer the familiar pain of staying stuck over facing our fear of the unknown.      

Expanded states can be a useful tool for change thanks to their capacity to amplify what is already present, yet underdeveloped.

Expanded states of consciousness, however they are accessed, offer the opportunity and assistance to move through this fear and approach the frontier of our transformation – to place ourselves, as poet David Whyte describes it, “in the fierce center of the conversation.”

How exactly can experiences in expanded states of consciousness, often fleeting and ephemeral, lead to any lasting and substantial transformation?

The first way they are of benefit is through their ability to open alternate portals of perception and ways of knowing. You are granted access to novel insights that do not come from your routine, day-to-day structures of mind.

Another way expanded states are a useful tool for change is in their capacity to amplify what is already present, yet underdeveloped. Suppose you are working with a specific practice, prayer, or intention and wish to catalyze or deepen your engagement with it. Expanded states can offer you a powerful means with which to enhance and potentiate your existing practices. A third and profound function they enable is that by interrupting your familiar way of seeing and engaging with the world, they can offer you the gift of reprieve from your own limited identity and perspective. Within this temporary opening, you can discover the fluid possibility for redesigning and restructuring aspects of yourself that before seemed set in stone.

I believe that regardless of the power and profundity of expanded state experiences, the makeweight for their transformative leverage depends on our wholehearted effort toward integrating them into our lives. This requires commitment and perseverance. While we endeavor to harvest healing and insights for our own benefit, we are also called to embody and share these gifts through our actions in the world.