We recently connected with Katherine Valencia-Burleson and have shared our conversation below.

Katherine, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

As a teenager and young adult I struggled (understatement) with IV opiate addiction. It was the dark night of my soul. I had tried all traditional rehab treatments until I had no hope left to give. I had unprocessed trauma from my childhood and was in a cycle of self destruction. I had lost my spirit, my family, friends, and myself in the process of my downward spiral. I had no hobbies, nothing to look forward to. I accepted that I would die early and alone in my little apartment and that my body would probably not be found for at least a month. No matter how bad I wanted to be clean, I couldn’t do it. At that point my day consisted of doom scrolling reddit to commiserate with other addicts, which is where I first learned about ibogaine. At that point In my life, almost ten years ago, I knew very little about psychedelic medicines. I did not think of them as medicines at that point at all, only as trippy drugs and I had little experience with them. I was desperate to try anything though. My biggest risk was going down to Mexico, without a passport and little to my name to try this thing I knew little about and wasn’t even sure that it would work. So I initially went down for 7 days to take the ibogaine. And it worked. It worked, but not without effort from my end, especially the days and months following the treatment. But I was able to stay clean. From that point, I became enthralled with the idea of spreading awareness of this medicine and helping others receive the benefits that I had. So I moved to mexico to live permanently. I had no actual plan to execute. Only to get myself down there and hope to find one of these clinics to begin training and working at. Moving to tijuana alone was easily the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. I didn’t speak spanish at the time, had little money, no friends or connections. The first night I slept on the cold tile floor of my little empty apartment (since I didn’t have furniture yet) and cried, thinking I had made the biggest mistake and how embarrassed I would be to run back home with my tail between my legs, as a failure. One month later, I leveraged my client care experience from past jobs to eventually find a job in Ensenada, MX, thanks to the late Tyson Elliot, who was a leader in the ibogaine industry. I entered into a kind of community that I never knew existed, I took psychedelic medicines on a consistent basis and worked through my trauma, I met friends that actually understood my pain and saw me for who I was and not only my addict self. I stayed down in MX for almost 6 years, where I had the opportunity to train with the medicines as well as develop a deep relationship to psychedelics, particularly psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms opened parts of me that I didn’t know were there, they helped me to love the parts of myself that I hated and instilled a long-term hope that I still carry to this day. When it came time to return to the United States, I did so with gratitude to the medicines and community that saved my life. After returning, I was again alone. I did not have the community that had supported me the last 6 years right next to me, sure I could call them. But it was still lonely. These feelings of longing for community led me to create the Colorado Psychedelic Community, which is now almost 8,000 members strong. Through this, I found my future business partner and co-owner of Psychedelic Trip Sitters (Psychedelictripsitting.com). We built the business from the ground up in 2021 and created a trip-sitting program geared towards helping individuals overcome trauma through the use of psilocybin. The most exciting thing to come of Psychedelic Trip Sitters is our current Psilocybin Training, which is a 9 week course that teaches students how to safely facilitate psilocybin journeys for their clients, breathwork techniques and Microdose Coaching. Our goal was to create a curriculum to help students create their own comprehensive Psychedelic Support Service business with multiple modalities to help cater to their current and future clients. Our next training begins July 2024 and we have truly put our heart and soul into it. I really resonate with those in the psychedelic/spiritual community that struggle with depression from dead end job after job. I hope that with the creation of this course that individuals are able to do something that they love while also helping others.

Katherine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the founder of Colorado Psychedelic Community and co-owner/founder of Psychedelic Trip Sitters Colorado. We have multiple services within Psychedelic Trip Sitters, such as 3 and 5 week psilocybin journey programs. These services are geared towards those who have struggled with mental health and want an alternative solution. What makes our program different is our curriculum, each journeyer receives both preparation and integration workbooks, education content as well as both prep sessions, integration sessions and of course the psychedelic journey itself with continuing support thereafter.

Our most exciting offering is our training program for psilocybin facilitation. What makes our training program different from others is the comprehensive nature to it. It is a 9 week, 100hr+ course with a 7-day in-person intensive in Denver, CO. The training is broken into 3 parts: Psilocybin Training (how to intake/screen clients, creating preparation and integration sessions, psilocybin guiding principles, emergency protocols, dosage protocols, trauma-informed care, etc.), Somatic Breathwork Training which is led by Candice Well’s of Screamwerk in Denver, CO (how to guide others into deeper states through breathwork, using breathwork for psychedelic integration and preparation, and working through trauma in the body through breath), and finally Microdose Coach Training (which takes place the final 6 weeks of the course and is geared towards teaching students how to work one on one with clients to set goals and step into their highest self through microdosing psilocybin, this coaching can also go hand-in-hand with integrating larger psychedelic experiences).

Our training includes business and social media coaching. Our goal is for students who have a calling to work with this medicine but no actual business and client experience to reach a level of confidence both in their skills and their newly formed business.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One of the things that I had to struggle with at the beginning of my sobriety and early in my career was coming to terms that my addiction wasn’t my downfall. It was actually just what I needed to find my calling and purpose. I had struggled with judgment from others and those who would not take me seriously. I had kept my past addiction a secret for a long time to the new friends I had made along the way in my path. But being open and transparent, I found that I was not not alone and that if I allowed myself space to be vulnerable, that it opened up space for other to share about their own vulnerabilities.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Yes, absolutely. Early in my life-before psychedelics I also struggled with depression. I went to job after job after job, hoping that I would be able to cope with the work-life that society expected of me. I usually only stayed for about 6-12 months until I began spiraling into a deep depression with overwhelming anxiety before each shift. I also think having adhd played a role in this, but nonetheless, it was never ending. I always felt like, if everybody else is managing, why can’t I? I always felt weak and embarrassed to tell my family that I was quitting and looking for something new. Though I had a degree in business at the time, I had never used it and could only find dead-end shift work which made me contemplate if working full-time while struggling to pay for food, bills and an addiction was worth it. I sometimes imagined that death would be better than doing this for the next 50 years.

Finding work within the psychedelic sector gave me a new lease on life. I no longer dread going to work, I am excited! Moreso, I am helping others who I can see my own reflection in, which makes this profession just that much sweeter. I truly love each of the people that we work with and want them to succeed and find happiness. I had never felt this in any of my past jobs.

Contact Info:

• Website: psychedelictripsitting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/psychedelictripsitters/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PsychedelicTripSitters
• Other: psychedelictripsitting.com/training