Whoa, that was one hell of a journey! Now what? Integration.

The psychedelic journey is ineffable - an experience we can't put into words. 

Coming out of a psychedelic journey is just as ineffable! 

How do you orient yourself? How do you go back to “normal life” after such an experience?! 

How do you begin to process what happened and how you feel... to find understanding and meaning?  Or, if it was a crystal clear epiphany, how do you make the changes in your life? 

How do you live in integrity to what you now know is true - what you felt, seen, and tasted with every cell of your being? 

What is integration?

Integration is how you process, contemplate and realize what you experienced in your journey. It’s the ways you transition from the journey and bring the sacred experience into your everyday life. It’s tools and practices that help you along the way - to ground and center, to deepen in yourself and your awareness. It’s the changes you make for lasting impact and to live the life you want .

Integration is the life journey, not a destination.

It is layers and iterations. Peaks and valleys. 

We are always integrating with every thought, feeling, and action. Self-compassion, intention, and consistency are key.

Implications of poor integration

If you have a turbulent and challenging journey and don’t reflect on what we learned, you may continue to have challenges. You may feel stuck or blocked. You may experience fear, disorientation, even psychosis or paranoia.

If you have a lovely and ecstatic journey and don’t integrate what you learned, you may forget it and fall back into old patterns. The journey becomes another fleeting experience.

If you feel you need another journey soon after or have repeated experiences in the journey, it is often a sign of poor integration.

Integration through self-care

To me, true integration is how you care for yourself - how do you show up for and connect with yourself? How do you decompress and express yourself - fully from a place of worth, love and deep knowing of who you are? What allows you to regulate yourself, quiet your mind and relax your body to genuinely rest?  What invites stillness and brings you to the present moment where you can find what matters most? What makes you feel authentically you - where you feel alive, magnetic - simmering in joy and passion?

With taking care of and tunning into yourself, you begin to find your way. You understand what does and doesn’t work for you. The ways that you engage with life and others that feel nourishing or empty will become clearer and you'll allow them to fall in and out of place.

Self-compassion and patience go a long way in healthy progression and achieving your goals. Treat yourself like you would a loved one or pet. Self-berating is often only productive in achieving short-term goals and is detrimental in the long-run.

Notice when you may want to push away, judge or shame yourself and try to be kind and self-soothing instead. Notice what arises and be curious. This is especially helpful in riding non-linear cycles.

Resting for spontaneous integration 

Your mind, body, and spirit all went on a (likely intense, profound) journey! The brain is receiving a boost of serotonin and undergoing neuroplasticity. The body is the subconscious mind and intuition so things may manifest or move on a somatic level. The spirit is evolving and realigning with it all. 

Thinking about the same things without quiet and pause, the mind loops and becomes foggy. The most important thing to do after a journey is rest to allow your entire being to repair and integrate naturally and spontaneously.

This also makes space for freshness and new insights to come in!

Slowing down to reprogram & mindfully integrate

Following a journey, your senses are heightened. It can be overwhelming when old patterns pop up, running on autopilot, and you don't want to do the same things anymore. But the powerful medicine and brain changes bring greater awareness to your thoughts, feelings and reactions.

Be intentional in slowing down your routine or schedule and tune into yourself and surroundings that are a reflection.

This will reveal your automatic patterns and programmed thoughts, beliefs, patterns. With the awareness, you can consciously, intentionally create new, more aligned ones - this is the reprogramming work that is key to aligning to the life you desire.

Practicing being present, in the moment

Thinking about the same things without quiet and presence (being more in the mind than in the moment) causes the mind to loop and “brain fog”. Being fully in the moment is where life really happens - where joy and gratitude live. It is where our deepest truths are found. This is where we can truly meet and allow the fullness of our emotions. The simplest things can be the richest experiences and our fixations or worries may fall away. It can also help you just enjoy being with yourself. The present moment is infinite with potential.

Activities for integration

Doing any activities that get your mind in coherence with your body and spirit - where you can create, move freely and easily is integration.

Writing - whether freestyle or prompted - allows us to really process our thoughts, feelings and what we experienced. Writing slows down overactive parts of the brain and opens other creative networks. In this way, we can recall information and receive insight. There's also a catharsis that comes with processing through writing. Integration can follow naturally.

While writing may not be for everyone, there are several integration activities that work in similar ways. I find meditating in nature, trail running, and stretching/massaging helpful for me. Letting myself be held my nature or on a yoga mat as grief moves through me has been healing and cathartic. The body component is especially potent because the body is the subconscious mind and higher-mind. It carries emotions, memories and wisdom!

Additionally, I’ve had profound remembrance and expression in art therapy - coloring and working with clay. Revisiting journey music while meditating or moving my body has also led to epiphanies re-emerging or deepening in ecstasy.

Holistic integration with an experienced guide

Having a holistic integration approach with support from a guide (an experienced journeyer and integrater) is an unimaginable gift. When I began working intimately with the mushrooms, I didn't know what integration was or how to integrate my journeys. I had many challenges and repeat patterns and journeys from improper integration.

Through consistent study and work, and dozens of solo journeys and trial and error, I tapped into lifetimes of knowledge. I unlocked immense wisdom and guidance as I gained healing, greater awareness and allyship.

I work with my clients to talk through their experience to process it and find insight. We notice what arises emotionally and somatically - sometimes simply allowing and noticing is integrating. Sometimes, digging deep, exploring similar experiences or patterns and synchronicities also helps. In this way, we may find correlating messages and discover more.

We discuss methods and activities that feel most supportive for reflections to shift subtly and consistently into what they desire and with the flow of life.

My integration guide for your self-empowerment

Based on deep study, healing, trial and error, and unlocking wisdom and remembrance, I've created a guide to support my clients for ease in integration and to avoid pitfalls.

It includes tips and best practices, introspective questions, and activities. The questions support journaling, self-reflection or conversation with loved ones. They relate to pre-, during and post-journey experiences and consider the mind, body, and spirit. The activities include suggested prompts (and post-activity questions) to guide you as you engage. Hint: do so intuitively with ease and permission, being more in your heart than in your mind! :)

True integration is self-empowerment,  regardless of the nature of the journey. My intention is to support my clients with tools so they can be autonomous in their post-journey integration. And freely align their journey to their life, as life is truly the integration journey!