My friend says to me, “that word, integration sounds like so much work!” Her face contorts into a little tight stressy mess.
Right? Right!
God it does.
Laborious. Like something to achieve.
Laboring away at sewing something into an already overstimulated person with a packed-full life.
Like the second stomach we jest about saving for dessert. Do we really have another cavernous space in our bodies that we have saved for integration?
Ask mostly anyone what they do for integration and you’ll literally get an amorphous answer. Because we aren’t really sure. We don’t know what integration even is half the time and when we do, we don’t know if our efforts work either — reliably anyways.
But it occurs to me- in the wake of this dawning realization, that the all-hallowed integration is actually something that happens when we Let It. Not Do it.
But there is a little doing involved, like a commit one needs to make — in so far as one needs to get to a place where they feel ready to “let”, ready to witness the unfolding, ready to be changed by “the it” — whatever it is that is integrating. If you want to enjoy the ocean, you need to get yourself to a coast — then the opportunities are ripe to enjoy it. This process is like getting to your coast, your edge — and then welcoming the atmospheric shifts.
It’s like 2 parts surrender + letting go of control + trusting the Great Mystery. And 1 part putting yourself in the flow of the seeds being sowed in your soil. In the flow of your river of nourishment, of what expands and evolves you.
Our lives have oft been reduced to phrases or tasks within our calendar. Little blue or orange slots of time that we allocate on the 5 or 0 to one activity or another. Where will I fit in integration? Maybe if I get there a little bit before the 5, I can integrate for those remaining minutes? Or there is that slot between the post office and lunch with a friend.
Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash
But integration isn’t an errand. And it can’t be reduced to a time slot, IF we wish to truly welcome it.
And I surmise that we do… because typically whatever we are trying to integrate is a learning, something that has expanded us, changed our perspective or broadened our awareness. There might be a spark in it that has inspired us, that has healed us, or that has turned everything upside down in a way that we are curious about. The emotional response we have is a leaning in. There is a shift, a change - it could be subtle or it could be sudden and abrupt — but it is a change. When we become ripe to it, the time has arrived for integration.
We are allowing the entrance of the change & the adoption of it into our breath, into our saliva, our blood, our skin and internal organs. Our very cells emote it and think it into our postures.
Walking the changes in one’s life. Letting them rise up from the seeds that have made their way in-- in this way they establish root systems, rise up & sprout.
We talk of holding space for one another, or for ourselves. This is a favorite practice of mine. But what is this mysterious practice and how does it relate to integration?
Holding space might most succinctly be described as the practice of acknowledging a larger container for ourselves than the ins and outs of our day and those nitty gritty details. A larger container that encompasses the minutes before the 5 and 0, and then the cadence of the entire day, and week, maybe month. Holding space is not allowing time to feel like a hangry animal that devours a path through your life. It means befriending time, standing with time and seeing the view it has. Being able to both live in the precious present moments filled with nuance and also hold the bigger picture for yourself, or another. It is to allow enough space for the ebb and the flow to happen - knowing that it will quite possibly be excruciatingly painful at times and also may offer moments of buoyant joy. The holding space for all of that ^ brings a weaving of wisdom to its patient sentinel.
Holding space is giving yourself, or a dear one — space to grieve, space to process, space to shift, space to arrive. It looks a heck of lot like space to integrate. It is letting and it is making space for a weaving. It is being both the weaver and the woven.
Photo by Flash Dantz on Unsplash
My guides reminded me yesterday that if the universe is always conspiring in our favor — which they vehemently say it IS, then we get to always be in a posture of curiosity and interest about what the opportunity is with each thing that feels like it happens to us.
^THAT is my aspiration. To live like this, whilst honoring the ebbs and flows. That feels like the biggest expression of integration that I currently know.
Now for all of those who really NEED A RECIPE. How do you integrate? Well, it really is a letting. SO the things that will support the letting and the changing of the guard in your life situations are the things that are integration. Simple actions like a salt water bath afford you time to relax while salt cleanses away what is no longer needed AND while water is the most magnificent friend to equalizing and balance, to bringing the ebb and flow right into your body. A walk in nature attunes your senses to the natural world in support of your health and balance, always offering gifts to line your path and grounding to resource you. A walk paying attention to each step, meditatively — to notice how different you are with each step, with your new awareness and changes — helps to “walk the changes into your life”.
Photo by Calum Lewis on Unsplash
There are many possibilities in the realm of integration, of surrender, of inviting in the shifts. In the work I do — my guides suggest sometimes elaborate prescriptions and at others, simple. They have a keen sense of how to work with our human nervous system by soft invitation that will be honored.
But perhaps the most important thing I could leave you with is a question you might pose to yourself when you undergo shift, change, learning, healing, inspiration…
What if you simply pose one question, asking yourself - aloud and maybe even in the presence of your favorite natural setting —
How will I best claim this as my own?
How can I best attune to this expansion and carry it with me in an active way?
How can I shift my posture to incorporate this newness?
How can I best honor myself and this new change?
Who am I and what do I look like wearing this new freshness?
What is one new step that I can take to BE this change?
And then maybe you just listen… breathe deeply and listen - receiving your answer on the wind and drinking it in with your very next breaths.
Maybe you let that magic weave. Feeling each new breath arriving with the freshness of new aliveness within you.
Hi, I am Melissa — a Shamanic Coach, Healing Practitioner & Alchemist. But at the heart of it all, I am Mystic & Mage.
My co-workers, Raven & Rue, 2 pugs, can sometimes be heard snoring softly or pacing a bit — they enjoy story time and love that they can be included in some small ways.
More about my work can be found at spiritmedicine-lifecoaching.com
Hope you enjoy the short shares, podcast style here. They sort of dance around life, experiences throughout my time here on this planet, and the work I do.
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