Our Approach

At Q Retreats, we offer a unique approach to wholistic wellness through plant-based medicine, Indigenous ceremony and culture, and Psychedelic Assisted Therapy. Our retreats are designed to help you heal, empower and enrich your life. Our experienced facilitators will guide you through the process of integrating awareness into your life, and helping you to unlock your true potential.

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Journey Preparation

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It is essential to us that journeyers are connected with our community and are supported in the following ways with our 7 step process:

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1) Health Assessment

We will either call or zoom with you if you book a Mini or Day Journey Retreat and send our mandatory assessment form for you to fill out to ensure there are no contraindications, we understand your current medications and can tailor your plant based medicine directly to you. 

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2) Preparation

We will schedule a preparatory call or zoom meeting with you to talk about the health assessment, any mental health diagnoses, and traumatic events you may have experienced and to answer any questions you may have, your previous experience with medicines, and to determine your journey medicine.

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It may be helpful to slightly taper any anti-depressant medications 4-2 weeks before the journey to a lower amount in consultation with your doctor. It's best to let us know as you may have decreased or increased effects depending on the medication. The higher the dosage of anti-depressant the less effect you may feel on your journey. We recommend you work on drinking a lot of fluids, eating healthy and getting a good rest the week before.

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The night before only have a light meal and don't take any other substances if possible.  Make sure you are well hydrated before the morning.

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About before journey worry or anxiety - this is absolutely normal we all felt nervous before our first journey, remember to breathe. Developing a breathwork routine before the journey at least 30 to 7 days before will help you in the journey and in life.

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Practice this 6 minute Breathwork video every day for either 30 days or 7 days before your journey.

Breathwork Video.

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3) Journey Day

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You may not have had a good sleep as you were anxious and that's okay. When you wake up do not drink more than 1 glass of water (big or small not to worry) just don't drink too much, and limit any food to a piece of fruit like a banana, apple, a cup of grapes or any other kind of berries. Eat very lightly. Occasionally, there may be nausea so not having a heavy breakfast, and not drinking a lot will help so you are not overly nauseous. Please try not to have any caffeine - you can have a half a cup of coffee/tea if you have to.

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Smudging and Intention Setting

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Our staff will talk with you about your intentions for your journey, we will provide you with (or bring your own) an integration journal to write your intentions that you can refer back to over the coming weeks and months.

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4) The Journey

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For the next several hours you will be in a deep inner journey. You can experience many things and some have more physical effects while others have inner experiences. During the journey our staff will sit with you through the entire journey and help facilitate your comfort.

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5) Post Journey

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After the journey at our Mini or Day Retreat we will provide you with food, beverages, and talk with you about your journey. You can rest for awhile and we will bring you to your doorstep if you haven't arranged a ride.

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6) Integration

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The day after your journey (after a Mini or Day Retreat) one of our staff will call you for integration to discuss your journey experience and to answer any questions you may have. The real work starts here and you will have many reflections and thoughts and many more will come over time for weeks, months and even years, that is normal. We recommend not making any drastic life changes for 6 to 12 months post journey as they can be life changing but it's best to slowly integrate your journey into your life. Also, it's good to be aware that you may be more sensitive to conversations, to the world around you, so it's a good idea to be intentional about who you spend time with, what you watch, and what you do for at least the first week or two. You may also feel deeply energized or deeply fatigued which can go on for weeks or months. If you released a lot of historic and pent up trauma you may have a brain and body reset where your fight or flight response is relaxed (sometimes after years or decades of being continuously triggered). Your body will begin to repair and to learn to live without all of that extra adrenaline and other hormones. It's important that if you feel deeply fatigued this is your body healing and to try to step back from your regular rigorous schedule and listen to your healing playlist, connect with nature, nap when you need to, cry whenever you need as this is good and natural, try to eat and drink healing foods and beverages. Continue with the breathwork video's provided here, connect to a group of like-minded people, develop your practice even if it's only 5 minutes a day, laugh, and be gentle with yourself.

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7) Follow Up Aftercare

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For all of our special events, mini, day, and weekend retreat journeys with Q Retreats you can join our online learning community where you will work on your integration online through assignments and also have access to monthly Medicine Wheel Integration Groups online. We are with you and you will have access to the Q Retreats program, community for as long as you want. WE STAY WITH YOU!

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