Conscious Cannabis: The Third Wave

Three waves. Most people only know two.

The first wave of cannabis was recreational. A way to relax, unwind, take the edge off. The second wave was medical, chronic pain, nausea, sleep disorders, the conditions that have slowly shifted public opinion and policy around the world.

The third wave is different. And it’s the one barely anyone is talking about.

In Eastern spiritual traditions, cannabis has been known as a spirit plant for thousands of years. In ancient Vedic texts, some of them five thousand years old, cannabis is described as a plant that “begets joy and destroys every anxiety.” The Sadhus, the mystics, the holy men rooted in India’s ancient wisdom traditions used it not to escape themselves but to go deeper into themselves. To access states of consciousness that ordinary waking life couldn’t reach.

Ethnobotanist Terence McKenna wrote that cannabis, used in a context of ritual and intention, is “capable of nearly the full spectrum of psychedelic effects associated with hallucinogens.” That’s a bold claim from someone who spent his life exploring the full range of plant medicines. In my work, the altered state is not the destination. It’s the doorway. Intentional amounts shift the ordinary mind just enough to create access to the emotional body, to what has been defended against, to the territory where the Emotional Liberation method can do its deepest work.

This is the cannabis I work with. Not the recreational one. Not even primarily the medical one. The spirit plant. The one that, used with clear intention in judicious amounts, creates an intimate desire to go inward and amplifies everything we do there.

Why I use cannabis in this work

I want to tell you something personal.

For decades, since college, I used cannabis. It kept me sane, literally. But only under certain conditions. If I was already anxious, it amplified everything. If I was with other people, my self-doubt went off the charts. My best approach was using it alone, quietly, when I wasn’t already triggered. And when it wore off, the difficult emotions were still waiting.

That changed when I discovered the Emotional Liberation method and began pairing it with conscious, intentional cannabis use. What had been hit-or-miss became something entirely different. The cannabis, used in judicious amounts with clear emotional intention, stopped being a way out. It became a way in.

Within one year of weaving conscious cannabis into the Emotional Liberation method, I was able to ease a lifelong burden, the daily haunting of childhood trauma, the slavery to out-of-control emotions. And since I began teaching and guiding this multidisciplinary approach, I have watched that same healing unfold in my students, releasing burdens I once knew intimately.

What makes it conscious

The word conscious is doing a lot of work here. It is worth being specific about what it means.

Recreational cannabis asks nothing of you. Conscious cannabis work requires intention before you begin. Not a vague hope of feeling better, but a specific emotional focus: what is it you want to access? What has been difficult to feel? What do you sense is waiting underneath the surface?

It requires preparation, building the emotional vocabulary and nervous system capacity to work with what arises rather than be overwhelmed by it.

And it requires integration, the ongoing practice of making meaning from what arises and allowing it to reshape how you move through your life.

Without these three elements, cannabis is just cannabis. With them, it becomes a portal.

“The dose is small. The intention is everything. Conscious cannabis is not about leaving yourself. It’s about finally being willing to meet yourself.”
– Becca Williams

How I work with cannabis

Often, our overactive brains need something to help settle the pounding onslaught of thoughts and dissociation that can interfere with going inward. This is one of cannabis’ most remarkable properties: at the right dose for you, it quiets the inner critic, relaxes the fight-or-flight response, and creates an intimate desire to go deeper.

For example, in my monthly online Elevation Ceremonies, judicious amounts of cannabis, always optional, create enough safety for what has been defended against to surface. We work with what arises directly, using psycho-spiritual inquiry, expressive movement, and breath and body-based kriyas to process and release what the cannabis helped bring forward.

I also use conscious cannabis (and psilocybin microdosing as well) as a preparation tool. For those considering a full psilocybin journey, this pre-journey conditioning is an intelligent on-ramp, building emotional fluency, conditioning the nervous system, and developing the inner vocabulary to work with what the full medicine journey reveals to you.

Dosing is always intentional. This is not about getting high. It is about getting access.

What the Emotional Liberation method does differently

Most cannabis experiences, even intentional ones, stop at the feeling. Something surfaces. It feels significant. And then it fades, because there was no framework for working with what arose.

Emotional Liberation® provides that framework.

We begin with the thinking brain, a real education in the seven difficult emotions at the heart of the Emotional Liberation method, what they are, where they come from, and what they have been trying to do. That cognitive foundation is what makes the deeper work feel safe rather than threatening.

Then, with or without cannabis, we go deeper:

• Psycho-spiritual inquiry, guided inner exploration that accesses the deep inner knowing, the part of you that already knows what is true and what needs to move.
• Expressive and active movement is rooted in ancient Eastern esoteric practices that have worked with the body for thousands of years. Active movement stirs stuck energy, giving the body permission to release what it has been holding and bring to completion what the inner exploration opened.
• Breath and body-based kriyas, drawing from the Kundalini tradition, condition and regulate the nervous system, creating the safety that allows difficult emotional material to move rather than retrench.

What the research says

The endocannabinoid system is one of the most significant discoveries in neuroscience in recent decades. It plays a central role in emotional regulation, stress response, and the processing of fear, which means it is directly implicated in the emotional patterns that Emotional Liberation works with.[1]

A preliminary study published in Psychopharmacology found that low-dose THC reduced threat-related activation in the amygdala in trauma-exposed adults, suggesting potential as a pharmacological approach to stress and trauma-related conditions.[2]

The endocannabinoid system is also a key regulator of synaptic plasticity : the brain’s ability to form and reorganize neural connections. This is part of what makes conscious cannabis work a powerful ally in emotional healing: not just opening access, but supporting the conditions for new patterns to take root.[3]

A 2025 observational study of 269 PTSD patients found significant improvements in symptoms, anxiety, sleep quality, and quality of life across 18 months of cannabis use in a supported clinical context.[4]

Where healing meets real life

What people consistently report after conscious cannabis work is not that they felt high. It is that they felt something they had not been able to feel before. A Grief they had been carrying for years. An Anger whose source they had never been able to trace. A tenderness toward themselves they had long since given up on.

Here is what some of them have said:

“My deeply suppressed emotions are starting to flow more freely.”
– Ann

“I am so grateful. I’m experiencing such a release of hidden emotions that have been building up for years.”
– Rain

“This helps me reach emotions I hid away years ago.”
– Kirsten

“I am continually amazed at the intensity of the experience using just cannabis. It seems more on par with something one would get from a traditional psychedelic.”
– Brock

That feeling is the beginning. Not the destination.

You don’t navigate it alone. This work is self-therapy, you are always the authority on your own inner life. And I am there as a steady presence alongside you, to guide the process without taking it over.

While one-to-one work goes deep, my group masterclasses, trainings, retreats, and ceremonial gatherings create a different kind of alchemy altogether. People learn from one another, and there is profound medicine in witnessing and being witnessed.

Teachers and facilitators often find this work particularly valuable, understanding these practices in yourself makes you more effective in holding space for others.

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Sources

1. Lutz, B., Marsicano, G., Maldonado, R., & Hillard, C. J. (2015). The endocannabinoid system in guarding against fear, anxiety and stress. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(12), 705-718. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn4036
2. Rabinak, C. A., Blanchette, A., Zabik, N. L., Peters, C., Marusak, H. A., Iadipaolo, A., & Elrahal, F. (2020). Cannabinoid modulation of corticolimbic activation to threat in trauma-exposed adults: a preliminary study. Psychopharmacology, 237(6), 1813–1826. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-020-05499-8
3. Xu, J. Y., & Chen, C. (2015). Endocannabinoids in synaptic plasticity and neuroprotection. The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry, 21(2), 152–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858414524632
4. Datta, A., Erridge, S., Warner-Levy, J., Clarke, E., McLachlan, K., Coomber, R., Asghar, M., Bhoskar, U., Crews, M., De Angelis, A., Imran, M., Kamal, F., Korb, L., Mwimba, G., Sachdeva-Mohan, S., Shaya, G., Rucker, J. J., & Sodergren, M. H. (2025). UK medical cannabis registry: an updated clinical outcomes analysis of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. Expert review of neurotherapeutics, 25(5), 599–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/14737175.2025.2490539