“Psychedelic therapist” isn’t exactly on most kids’ what I want to be when I grow up list.

 

It definitely wasn’t on mine.

 

So you might be wondering: how did I end up here? How did Alalaho end up here?

 

Really, there were two experiences that changed the course of everything.

 

Both happened when I was eighteen, on what was supposed to be a one-year gap year travelling around India, Nepal and Thailand (which then turned into three gap years…).

 

I was a bit of a sixties flower child, just a few decades late.

 

Backpacking around, hopping between meditation retreats, trying to make sense of life and the universe.

 

(That's me then, in a shot that probably best encapsulates the whole “gap year in Asia” experience.) 

 

I’d read about psychedelics and was more than curious about that “doors of perception opening” thing.

 

But I’d never actually experienced it for myself.

 

Until one day in the Himalayas.

 

I was travelling with a group of slightly older friends who were experienced with psychedelics.

 

They had some LSD they wanted to share. They made sure the set and setting were right.

 

So we walked up into the mountains, away from cities and noise — away from Babylon, as we used to call it. Into wild, open space.

 

And we spent the whole day outside together, surrounded by nature, open to whatever might come.

 

That first experience... wow.

 

For me, my curiosity about psychedelics came from a deep longing. To know truth.

 

Not just to read about it, but to see it. Taste it. Feel it in my bones.

 

And that day delivered.

 

What stayed with me most was the cracking open of my heart to its own immensity.

 

I was awestruck by creation — inner and outer.

 

I felt so alive, so connected.

 

And this huge sense washed over me: oh my god, there is so much more to life than what I’ve known so far.

The thing with psychedelics and peak experiences is that they shift something deep in you, often before your mind has even caught up.

 

Even now, I can feel that first experience echoing through my life.

 

Experience #2 didn’t involve any substances.

 

But it went just as deep.

 

It was during a Buddhist meditation retreat.

 

They led us through a “death meditation,” guiding us, step by step, through our own death.

 

And at the end, they dropped this question:

You’re on your deathbed.

 

You’re about to go.

 

What made life worthwhile? What made it meaningful? What remains when everything else is gone?

 

And, not surprisingly, the Beatles were right.

 

Because this is what came:

 

Love.

 

 

So, long before Alalaho existed, these two experiences were ringing through my life:

 

the immensity of psychedelics,

and the importance of love.

 

But it would take a few years for the reverberations to make their way to my career.

 

In the meantime, I set aside psychedelics, choosing instead to go deep into Dharma and Buddhism. I spent years exploring consciousness and meditation, including multiple 50-day silent solitary retreats. 

 

Eventually, though, I found my way back to psychedelics (or maybe they found their way back to me).

 

My best friend had gotten involved with the UK Psychedelic Society. They were running these weekend retreats, and she kept trying to get me to join. They were just to special to miss, she said.

 

So I did.

 

And that's where it all came together.

 

In some ways it was like my earlier psychedelic experiences. But it was also completely different.

 

Because this time, I got to witness others cracking open.

And the whole thing was so therapeutic. So healing.

 

It was SO beautiful. I wanted to be part of it.

 

I started my psychotherapy training. And I started facilitating ceremonies.

 

I wanted to bridge East and West. The spiritual and the psychological. Psychedelics felt like the perfect meeting place. The terrain where all of these worlds could come together.

 

That was the real beginning of Alalaho.

 

Nine years later, a lot has changed.

 

We've gone from a weekend gathering in rented Airbnb's to a full six-week programme including in-depth preparation and integration. We've held 108 retreats and counting. We've guided over 1,300 people through this experience. We've become leaders in a field that barely even existed when we first set out to do this work.

 

But still that moment — the one where I see someone's heart crack open to its own immensity — it never gets old.

 

I still feel awe.

 

And I feel so grateful that this is where my path has taken me.

 

Happy to have you with me.

 

Sending love as usual,

 

P.S. The name Alalaho comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, if you're curious.

 

It’s meant to express the vast, sky-like nature of mind — open, infinite, able to hold everything that moves through it. Which is exactly what we do. Hold space for everything to move through. And help you find that within yourself.

 

And yes, it came to us at a psychedelic ceremony.