How Psychedelics Foster Connection and Healing in Eating Disorder Recovery
For those navigating eating disorders, the experience often feels like an endless search to fill a void —a deep hunger for wholeness, belonging, and connection. Psychedelics and plant medicines offer a unique path toward this healing by awakening a sense of interconnectedness with ourselves, others, and the larger web of life.
Maybe you have experienced this in a plant medicine ceremony:
I am part of something greater.
My place in this web of life matters and is needed.
I am made of the same stuff as the Earth; my body is the Earth body.
I am nourished on all levels when I feel in my bones that I am held by the Earth.
In plant medicine ceremonies, many describe a profound remembering:
We are part of something greater.
Our presence in this web of life is vital and meaningful.
Our bodies and the Earth are deeply interconnected.
This reconnection nourishes us on every level — physically, emotionally, and spiritually — offering a sense of being held by something greater than ourselves. This connection is the pathway to healing
How Psychedelics Work in Eating Disorder Recovery
Psychedelics create a hyper-connected brain state known as "entropic," where pathways that are usually separate begin communicating in new and creative ways. This state allows us to access buried emotions, reprocess trauma, and reframe long-held patterns of disconnection.
From a shamanic lens, eating disorders are attempts to heal and communicate unmet needs. Behaviours like restriction, bingeing, or over-exercising often stem from:
A lack of spiritual connection; a hunger for something deeper.
Unresolved trauma, whether personal or ancestral.
A diminished sense of self-love and worth.
Rather than pathologizing these behaviours or reducing them to mere coping mechanisms, psychedelics encourage us to view eating disorder behaviours with compassion and curiosity. They invite us to ask:
What is my body trying to communicate?
What unmet needs is “my” eating disorder attempting to fulfill?
What does my soul need to thrive?
By addressing these questions, plant medicine facilitates a profound shift from shame to understanding, from disconnection to wholeness.
The Holistic Power of Psychedelics
Unlike traditional treatments, psychedelics work on multiple dimensions of an eating disorder, addressing:
Physical: Reconnection with bodily sensations and cues.
Emotional: Processing, digesting, and releasing unresolved emotions.
Mental: Reshaping thought patterns and beliefs about self and body.
Spiritual: Reconnecting with a larger sense of purpose, meaning, and wholeness.
This approach is highly multidimensional, holistic, works on the root level causes, and importantly addresses the spiritual aspect. Plant medicine seem to catalyze one’s connection with nature, or larger spiritual force or intelligence, providing them with unparalleled “spiritual and existential introspection and physical healing” that is beneficial for their eating disorder recovery process (study).
People often describe an increased sense of embodied wholeness after a psychedelic journey. This wholeness arises from clearing energetic blockages, integrating trauma, and reconnecting with the deep truth of being enough, just as we are.
From what I have personally experienced in psychedelic journeys, heard from my clients, and have read in academic articles, specifically “Getting to the Root": Ayahuasca Ceremony Leaders' Perspectives on Eating Disorders” (published in 2023 by Lefrance, et al), people navigating eating disorders are struggling with spiritual disconnection, spiritual starvation, and a hunger of wholeness.
This happens to be the exact teachings that psychedelics and plant medicines offer: a remembering of being interconnected to this great web of life.
Eating disorders are protective strategies of disconnection and so with the support of these medicines, the soul can return to and recover this knowing that we are connected to something greater and meaningful, and that our presence in this interconnected web is vital and needed.
Eating Disorders as Protective Strategies
It’s important to reframe eating disorders not as failures but as intelligent attempts to find safety in the face of unmet needs and incomplete stress responses. Psychedelics help to gently unravel these protective mechanisms by:
Clearing unresolved survival energies like fight, flight, or freeze.
Facilitating spiritual and existential introspection.
Reorganizing relationships — with self, others, and the eating disorder itself.
By nurturing connection, psychedelics catalyze a shift from survival mode to a state of thriving.
The Transformational Journey Toward Connection
Recovery is not about returning to an old version of yourself — it’s about becoming whole. Our bodies inherently know how moving towards healing, integration and wholeness. Given the right conditions, this healing is possible. When we feel whole and connected, we naturally we feel more connected to the world around us. As within so without.
Plant medicine provides a gateway to reconnect with nature, spirit, and your inner truth. This process fosters resilience, emotional regulation, and a sense of purpose that naturally diminishes the pull of disordered eating behaviors.
Through this journey of reconnection, you’ll begin to:
Find new meaning and purpose in your life.
Experience identity shifts that align with your authentic self.
Cultivate lasting behavioural changes rooted in connection and compassion.
At its core, recovery is about unlearning disconnection and relearning love — for yourself, your body, and the life you’re a part of.
Psychedelics remind us of this truth: healing happens in the nourishment of unconditional connection.
This journey takes courage, patience, and support, but it’s a path worth walking. As you reconnect with the wisdom of your heart and the beauty of the world around you, you’ll discover that the healing you seek is already within you.
You are whole. You are enough. And your presence in this web of life is needed.