If you are interested in trying Eco-Somatic Release Therapy, you can find multiple different ESRT meditations on my youtube @lightloveclarity! If you are a practitioner and would like to use this for your own clients, you can learn more and download the free scripts in this blog post.
Between the years of 2024 and 2025, plant medicine played a very prominent role in my life. I was fortunate enough to sit down in ceremony with multiple medicines from Southern and Central America, as well as medicines closer to home. There are 4 occasions where I sat in a small group (2-4 people) with cacao and a medicinal dose of psychedelic mushrooms. There is something extremely special about the mix of cacao and mushrooms within a dedicated ceremonial space, and through these ceremonies were experiences I haven’t replicated outside of these conditions. While these aren’t the medicines that I need in my life right now, they have left an incredibly deep lasting change within my being. Most notably in this moment, is when I experienced “Eco-Somatic Release” for the very first time.
At the beginning of these ceremonies, we would almost always start with a “cocoon” phase, where we pull a blanket over our head and body and experience the beginning, often most intense part of our journeys. As I settled in my dark cocoon, I started to feel the sensation of the sun on my skin, or what I thought was skin. Starting at my fingertips, I could feel myself start to turn into sand, with the unforgettable feeling of this sand I once was cascading across my body. I distinctly remember my entire layer of skin becoming sand before next, the muscles in my arms and hips, which held the most tension at the time, also turning into sand. I remember as my muscle became sand, the feeling of me as sand cascading down and across my organs. I remember feeling my heartbeat remain, and my breath continue to cycle, in me as this now dune of sand. In these final moments, my bones start to separate into individual specks of sand and I remember the last piece of the physical body to go was the spine, and before I knew it the furthest reach of my sense of self was within a line of sand dunes. In this moment I didn’t capture the full environment around me or have a chance rest in stillness like ESRT creates, but instead the processing started immediately.
As gusts of wind shifted my body, I could feel as if my arm, which is now sand, was completely removed from my self, also just a dune of sand. I remember feeling each individual particle of sand separate from the other, as if I could feel the shifting of every cell in my body. I remember the acceptance I felt in completely missing parts of my body, where me in a human body would very reasonably freak out by losing all feeling within my arm, or even more frightening losing it completely. In the wake of acceptance I could feel the wind bring new sand reforming my arm and all of the other cells that were missing, bringing me back as a whole but much different being. Some of the things lost I was well aware of, and many were shifts of the deep subconscious that I needn’t concern myself with.
As the wind died down and the sands of my self settled, in that brief moment of stillness I could feel a rustle from deep within, something in me that was pushing it’s way through my shifting body. Before I could understand what it was, I was able to see it tread out of my body as this dune of sand. I could tell exactly what it was, it was a conglomeration of emotions from my childhood, a being of indescribable and incredibly confused fear. This inner part was far from who I was, and in that short moment of stillness it left and faded into the sand that was not apart of my body, descending into the Earth. I didn’t realize how crucial this step would be to ESRT until I first guided someone through ESRT with hypnosis. Without suggesting it, they were able to detail the exact same experience after their session, of something crawling out of them as a body of water, from deep within their being. This has repeated in many cases without suggestion, so I often suggest it in the moments the client is able to find stillness as this body of nature they have become.
Just as I entered, I began to feel a spine harden within my body from my own sand. Forming back into bone, the ribs and the rest. Then I felt my heartbeat and breathe again as I knew it best. The feeling of sand cascading across me rebuilding my muscles, with a feeling that the fibers were completely remapped, as if my body was physically different as much as emotionally. Finally, that beautiful final layer of skin, establishing the clear separation between me and the world around me. I remember the final grain of sand falling off of my body as I once again opened my eyes. The feeling of rebirthing into a body that in some ways foreign, is a feeling that I can’t forget. I estimate I was in this state for around 30 minutes, but it felt so timeless to simply be sand I couldn’t truly tell. I continued the rest of my ceremony feeling more free than ever before in a body that was ready to be fully experienced and present.
As I left ceremony, I felt rather immediately that this was an experience I was supposed to recreate. This medicine was not a one off but desperately desired to be shared. In the following year and a half, I spent time developing through practice with myself and clients to create Eco-Somatic Release Therapy, a technique that can be taught and re-applied in many creative ways to create healing for others. Thank you for reading, I hope you give yourself an opportunity to experience this medicine and maybe share it with others. Links to guided meditations and scripts are at the top of this post!
