Help Me Create a Psychedelic Course
Later this year I will create and launch a course about psychedelics. In this post I want to share a little bit about it, my why, my hopes, intentions, and invite you to co-create with me.
My Intentions
My broader why of focusing on psychedelics is covered in my post: Why Psychedelics?
On a personal level, I would like to connect with fellow psychedelic explorers around the world, and I hope to create a place where other explorers can connect with each other too. I hope to be able provide a valuable and meaningful experience for people participating in the course, and I intend to help participants on their journey with psychedelics. I want to help people solve their problems and overcome their challenges.
I hope that by creating and facilitating such a course I can deepen my own knowledge on the topic, and in this way I hope the experience will be an exploration for myself as well as the participants.
Creating Psychedelic Community
Although I have not yet decided what the format of the course will be, for example, if there will be group calls, I would still see this as some kind of a group or community experience. At the least I think it would be good to have a chat group, such as a telegram or whatsapp group, where people on the course can connect, share insights, and talk about the material and exercises as they go through. This would also give everyone the opportunity to ask questions to other participants as well as myself. For me this aspect of the course is very exciting as I am very much interested in community building, a topic that as yet, is something that I have limited experience with.
My hope is that connections would far outlast the course and be beneficial for participants for years to come. In terms of the community that would be built, I think it would be great to have some kind of place online, potentially even in person events, for alumni to connect. I imagine it would be great to have private group retreat in the Netherlands.
This year I am trying to make more of an effort in my psychedelic work to focus on themes of collaboration and community. For this year‘s month-long-blog-post-a-day, PSYJuly, I opened up to guest posts. In the end I hosted posts from 14 other writers. This was an interesting experience in itself and I very much enjoyed connecting with others, but more on that another time.
Understanding People’s Problems and Desires
I’m currently in the research phase of this project and trying to find out what problems people would like help with and what areas they would like to develop or explore next. Last week I created a form with questions for readers to answer, and from the few people that have so far given responses, it has already proven to be very insightful. The answers are giving me a clear direction in terms of the kind of material to cover and discuss in the course, and how I can best help people who are interested in participating. I really enjoy getting this feedback and if you haven’t already, I invite you to fill in the form here. For some of the topics that don’t make it into the course, I may still write some articles and post on the blog.
I really enjoy getting people’s ideas because firstly it helps me to help people, with what they want help with. I’ve written many blog posts on ideas that I would like to share or things that I think would be useful to people, and many times that has been enjoyable and fulfilling. Sometimes my intuition has been right and those articles have been useful for people. I’ve found, however, that it’s most useful to hear directly from people what they would like to see or hear, and what they would like some advice or guidance on. Two of the most popular recent articles from the blog came from questions directly from readers or clients, and it feels great to know that they are proving to be valuable.
As some answers come in on the form, I’m finding that I actually like having a list of other people’s problems and aspirations. It’s nice to me because I like helping people solve their problems and reach their goals, and it feels good knowing that I might be able to do that and contribute to their lives in a meaningful way.
Co-Creation
I also enjoy receiving these ideas and inspiration from people because it makes the creation of the course and material into something of a co-creation and collaborative project. I am not just deciding the curriculum by myself in a vacuum, I am getting ideas from people and inviting input into what will be included. I will do a thorough review of all the answers before making final decisions on what to include.
As with any new and big project I am feeling a mix of nerves and excitement but mostly excitement and I’m very much looking forward to to connect with like-minded souls and seeing where this journey goes.
Talk to Me
On this theme of connecting with and helping other like-minded people, I would like to speak with more readers of my blog. Yes, that includes you 🙂 So I am offering free calls, one per person, for the rest of August. We can talk about anything you’d like and explore any area of psychedelics. If you would like to talk with me you can go ahead and book a time on my calendar here and I’ll be in contact with a link for the call.
I look forward to connecting with you and wish you a great day,
John
