Photo by FLY:D đ¶Art Photographer on Unsplash
You may have heard the term âintegrationâ kicked around a bit in journey circles. But what is âintegrationâ, exactly?
First, letâs consider where integration fits within the structure of the journey arc.
When I consider working with an individual client, a couple, or a retreat group, I look at structuring through the lens of (hat tip to Tah and Kole Whitty), the 4-I process. That is:
Intake: the *extensive* medical, emotional, past-history on-boarding process. I want to know as much as humanly possible about those who I work with. From the âmundaneâ to the spiritual.
Intent: this can also be thought of as pre-integration. How do they feel about diving into the great unknown? What does the client desire from this process? How will they know when that desire is achieved?
In-service: the actual ceremony (or retreat/ceremonies)
Integration: tying all the pieces together. Making order out of the chaos. Real-world tasking. What does your new âchop wood, carry waterâ look like?
Iâll cover these other aspects of the structure in later posts. For now, though, letâs consider the integration piece.
We speak of âintegrating traumaâ, as well as insights and realizations, quite often in the therapeutic psychedelic realm. But what does that actually mean?
Ask 20 facilitators about their definition of âintegrationâ and youâll get 20 different answers. Admittedly it's a rather nebulous concept. I like to describe integration as endeavoring to flow, with style and ease, between rigidity and chaos. Seeking, in our lives, the middle of these two extremes, which is harmony, balance, and peace.
Our normally rigid, unconscious personality structures, beliefs, and patterns are challenged (to say the least) in the chaos of the psychedelic experience. This chaos and novelty create disruption in oneâs fabric (and even concept of) reality. The experience serves as an extreme pattern interrupt. And pattern interrupts are crucial to fostering habit change and the elimination of emotion tethered to trauma, limiting beliefs, phobias, and the establishment of new, productive, and beneficial patterns.
The psychedelic experience itself will (if properly orchestrated) create an opening for transformation. That opening, however, comes at the expense of taking a wrecking ball to the rigid structures we normally live by and which provide a sense of safety and security. Those structures being as they are, after all, the âknown, knownâ.
The outward manifestation of being bound by a âknown, knownâ is the classic âstuck in an abusive relationshipâ scenario. A shitty âknownâ being a psychologically âsaferâ play than an unknown future. Even if there is a high probability of that unknown future being much better.
The unmanaged human psyche is horrible at this kind of risk assessment. The good news is that it too can be shifted through proper post-experience integration.
Learning how to embrace â and even leverage â chaos and nudging away from rigidity is paramount to this process. Integration is about finding the ease and flow found in that middle ground. That place of balance and harmony that my good friend and fellow facilitator, Tah Whitty, calls the no-larity.
So, what does integration look like? It looks like whatever works for you! As long as it is consistent and focused on bringing those insights, realizations, and learnings from the experience itself and applying them to *this* reality.
For me, that looks like daily journaling. I maintain an ongoing Google doc of every journey I have participated in. And if I exhaust my connect-the-dots narrative from my latest journey, Iâll flip back at random on a previous journey and, inevitably, Iâll have a new insight to add. Another dot to connect.
Another aspect of my integration process is âtaskingâ. Because, after all, we all must âbe and doâ â chop wood and carry water â on this plane and in this reality. Tasking is what brings the nebulous to the dense, material world we inhabit. Wouldnât it be nice if you navigated this density with as much peace, ease, and flow as possible?
And that, to my mind, is what the journey experience is all about. Plumbing the depths of your conscious and unconscious cosmos in order to co-create, along with the universe, a life that is more perfectly aligned with the intent of your higher self. Â
Til we chat again ~