Before You Try Ketamine, Read This.🌿

Ketamine Is Just a Door. What Matters Is Where It Leads.

In recent years, ketamine has emerged as a curious player in the world of mental health and consciousness work.

Once known mainly as an anesthetic, it’s now being explored for its potential to relieve depression, anxiety, and even existential distress. Some receive it in a clinical setting; others in underground or ceremonial containers. It’s gaining traction—and understandably so. People are looking for something that works. Something that feels different.

This month, the Ketamine Research Foundation released a free, well-grounded publication:

👉 Guidelines for the Personal Use and Clinical Administration of Ketamine

It’s a valuable read for anyone considering ketamine-assisted therapy—or simply trying to understand the terrain.

But as a presence-based practitioner, I want to offer a wider lens.

Because here’s the truth:

Ketamine is not the medicine. You are.

Yes, it can be a powerful doorway. But the experience around the substance—your mindset, your environment, your readiness to meet what arises—matters far more than the molecule itself.

In the language of altered states, we call this set and setting.

It’s not just about where you are and who you’re with. It’s about the safety you feel, the stories you carry, and whether the space welcomes your full humanity.

Some people find this with ketamine. Others find it in silence, in nature, in a single moment of being truly seen.

At the Ajax Harwood Clinic, we don’t prescribe medications. But we do work with consciousness. With deep patterns. With the ways you’ve learned to survive that are no longer serving you.

Presence—not performance—is the core of our work.

Not just coping. But actually waking up to how things are.

If you’re curious about ketamine, I encourage you to read the guidelines above. Learn what’s happening in the U.S. and consider how it may ripple outward. More importantly, explore your own intentions. What are you really seeking?

Because no matter the path you choose—medicine or no medicine—what you’re longing for might already be closer than you think.

✨ If you’d like to explore this kind of work, I invite you to connect with me.

We can talk about what’s moving in your life, and what’s possible from here.

👉 Learn more about Presence Therapy

With grounded care,

Dr. Carlos Yu

Ajax Harwood Clinic