Psychedelic Support > Psychedelic's Quotes

“Your breath, the only thing you need for ānāpāna, is always with you.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“There’s no failure with intentions.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“By setting your intention, you create a focused and purposeful mindset to guide your journey.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“Don’t make a mental mistake during your therapeutic psychedelic experience. Develop your equanimity / psychological flexibility and use a Race Day Strategy.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“Your intention is not a goal. It is much different. Goals are rigid; intentions are fluid. Goals are firm; intentions are adaptable. Goals are structured; intentions are pliable.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“You don’t want to pour all this effort into preparation only to make a wrong turn on the day of your psychedelic experience.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“You don’t need a temple.
You are one.

The breath,
the ache,
the memory that rises unbidden —
this is where grief bows.

The one who walks the Way
does not search for the sacred
in stone or scripture.
They feel it stir
when the wind shifts.
They feel it open
in the tremble of a song.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Some days you move forward.
Some days you fall apart.
And some days,
you simply float
in the strange middle.

You breathe,
but nothing changes.
And that counts, too.

The one who walks the Way
does not chase progress.
They bow to the bend.
They let the detour teach.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“The bowl is cracked.
The letter was never answered.
The goodbye came too early —
or not at all.

The one who walks the Way
does not confuse wholeness with symmetry.
They see beauty in the uneven,
truth in the pause.
They do not chase the last word.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Pain is not proof of failure.
It is the echo left
by something that mattered.
A tenderness that opened
and did not close cleanly.

The one who walks the Way
does not recoil from pain.
They meet it like weather.
They let it pass through.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Grief does not end.
It shifts.
It softens, vanishes, returns.
It curls up in your ribs
and then startles you awake.

The one who walks the Way
does not wait for a clean horizon.
They walk without needing to finish.
They rest without shame.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“You are not who you were
before the rupture.
You are not meant to be.

The one who follows the Way
does not patch the vessel
or search for old blueprints.
They sit beside the broken form
and listen
to what echoes through the cracks.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Healing does not march in straight lines.
It loops.
It stutters.
It circles back
like tide drawn by unseen moons.

The one who walks the Way
does not flinch at return.
They know:
the place you revisit
is not the same,
because you are not the same.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Sorrow is not a malfunction.
It is not a sign
that something has gone wrong.
It is a riverbed emotion
— ancient, alive —
part of what makes you real.

The one who follows the Way
does not try to seal it off.
They do not rush for tools,
or wrap it in advice.
They sit beside sorrow
without a script.
They breathe with it.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“You don’t grieve what was hollow.
You don’t ache for what never touched you.
Pain is not failure —
it is the residue of connection.
The echo of something that mattered.

The one who walks the Way
does not rush to mend the tear.
They place a hand beside it.
They let it breathe.
They let it speak
in pulses and silence.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“Anyone can run.
Anyone can go silent,
reach for distraction,
close the door
and call it healing.

But the one who walks the Way
does not abandon the ache.
They stay.
Not out of comfort —
but out of truth.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“You do not walk away from grief.
You walk with it —
through rooms once shared,
through days that ache,
through nights that whisper.

The one who follows the Way
does not wait for sorrow to lift
before rejoining the world.
They carry it
into the garden,
into the quiet kitchen,
into the tender risk
of reaching again.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“The one who walks the Way
does not harden to endure.
They soften —
to stay true.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Grief

“The ceremony didn’t end.
It changed shape.
The body is still listening.
The breath is still altered.
The mind is still rearranging
what it thought it knew.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Psychedelics

“You don’t need a plan.
You need presence.
You need stillness without retreat.
Soft attention.
Open breath.
The journey is still happening.
In your fingertips.
In your silence.
In the choices you don’t yet recognize as choices.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Psychedelics

“Don't wish it was easier wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom”
― Jim Rohn

“Empathy is not just a quality. It is also a skill. One of the core techniques in the most popular and most powerful counseling techniques in use today, Motivational Interviewing, is Express Empathy... Empathy is not some airy-fairy thing you only get when you walk in another person’s shoes. It is something that can be learned.”
― G. Scott Graham, Determining Marijuana Use in the Age of Legalization

“ou don’t want to pour all this effort into preparation only to make a wrong turn on the day of your psychedelic experience.”
― G. Scott Graham, Psychedelic Preparation Workbook: Sixty Days to Engagement

“If they aren’t asking for information, what are they asking for?  They are saying they are stuck and can’t gather enough traction to get unstuck.  They are saying that they are not able to choose because they lack the wherewithal to take action.  They need a charge, a spark, an incentive, and they need it from within themselves.  A well-placed why provides this spark. Not”
― G. Scott Graham, Motivational Interviewing Made Easy: A Simple, 5-week Program to Build Motivational Interviewing Skills

“Months later, as I write this, I find it curious how people tend toward expecting those who are struggling to be forthright with their struggle... It’s like handing a person who is mute some sheet music and then blaming them when they don’t sing.”
― G. Scott Graham, Come As You Are: Three Years Later

“Grief returning doesn’t mean you’re broken.”
― G. Scott Graham, Come As You Are: Five Years Later

“Vipassanā isn’t about becoming perfectly calm.
It’s about becoming real — moment by moment.
Grief doesn’t ask you to get over it. Love doesn’t require you to be fearless. Vipassanā says: just notice what’s here… and stay.
That is more than enough.”
― G. Scott Graham, Come As You Are: Five Years Later

“Who’s behind those eyes?
Who’s watching from within?
You are not the features.
Not the aging.
Not the effort.
Not the mask you sometimes wear
to be loved or understood.
You are the one who sees.
The one who stays.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Psychedelics

“You don’t have to overhaul your life overnight. Start small. Adjust your environment. Make a conscious choice to cultivate goodness. Train your mind to return to the present moment, again and again.”
― G. Scott Graham, Living the Maṅgala Sutta

“The sage does not walk toward a goal.
They walk through a question.
A destination invites expectation.
But a door invites presence.
The medicine does not care
what outcome you hoped for.
It responds to how honestly
you name your entry point.”
― G. Scott Graham, The Tao of Psychedelics