Neuroplasticity in Meditation and Plant Medicine
I was listening to Paul Hutchinson talk about his undercover operations to rescue children enslaved in sex trafficking. He is guided by a clear intuition in his work. As he’s describing this intuition, he tells his origin story that led to his now administering guided meditation and plant medicine experiences.
As I’m listening to him talk about the use of these therapies for addictions (and other conditions), I’m keenly aware that he is describing the infinite wisdom that is revealed in meditation. I have had this very same awareness each time I attend a psychology continuing education program on the subject.
Neuroplasticity and Healing
Let’s take this one word, for example. He noted the concept of neuroplasticity. Essentially, this is when the mind is most permeable. It’s the moment heightened learning can occur. A significant cognitive frame or pattern can change. An understanding and healing of primary belief systems that obscure feeling the divinity within can fade or disappear.
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to rewire itself. During heightened states of awareness—like those reached in meditation or plant medicine journeys—old thought patterns can loosen, and new understandings can take root. It’s a moment when deep learning, emotional release, or lasting insight becomes possible.
This is what happens in regular meditation practice over time. When I think of neuroplasticity, I’m reminded of the aftermath of meditation… from rising out of it through the next 15–20 minutes. During that segment of time, one feels expanded and porous. There is clearly a felt lightness of being. It’s as if you know whatever comes upon you, either from other or from within, registers more deeply, in one way or another.
That’s why it is so important to emerge slowly and let that first 15 minutes be mindless and easy. Or if you are inclined, take that energy into a creative project, and watch yourself soar.
Meditation and Me
I believe people do have experiences of infinite truth through therapeutic plant medicine. And when used professionally, as a healing modality, these therapies appear to offer significant benefit to many.
I personally have never used, nor administered these treatments. I prefer regular meditation, because I have an aversion to putting anything outside of what naturally grows in a garden into my body.
My older brother had a severe drug addiction in my teens, and I witnessed first-hand what it did to his life and to the lives of my parents. I vowed never to walk down the road of drug consumption. And then, meditation found me. I’m really happy I embraced this practice in my 20s and maintained it through this day.
Even though I have this personal bias, I remain fascinated by the way people have awakenings strikingly similar to the experiences and revelations I’ve known in and through meditation.
For more on infinite truth, meditation, healing and spirituality, see Being the Light.
Let me know what you think about the experience of infinite truth.
Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, helps people heal trauma and discover infinite wisdom within.
© Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. 2025