How to Integrate
Let's debunk the most important aspect of psychedelic transformation: The integration process.
I think of integration as synonymous with long-lasting change.
It is a long-term process during which two things need to happen:
✨ Make sense of the experience. Understand and decode the insights, the take-home messages. ✍ What do these mean for your life moving forward?
✨ Put the insights into practice. How can you curate your life with rituals, practices, and behavioral changes that continuously weave these insights into your daily routine, walking the path towards long-term transformation?
Two not-so-talked about approaches to integration I coach clients through are the following:
⚡ Maintaining Momentum: Psychedelic journeys create momentum after which it becomes easier to take action. Coupled with the hashtag#afterglow effect of psychedelics, it is crucial to start integrating—or, implementing—immediately after the experience.
When we fall into saying "I'll start on Monday," or "I'll start after my sister's birthday," we miss that window of opportunity, making it extremely difficult to regenerate that momentum on our own.
⚡ The fact that healing is relational: Being held by a trusted psychedelic-informed professional, if not a group (a community) of people, is a crucial element of the process. The other person's holding can help by asking the right questions, so that you continue to deepen, hold you accountable to all the changes you said you were going to make during the ceremony, and help keep that momentum alive.
Overall, healing through psychedelics requires post-journey processing, integration, and that you be emotionally held. Without taking some kind of action, psychedelic ceremonies simply become a memory and a frustration of which once life-changing effects 'wear off'.
I would love to learn your thoughts on this list, as well as what has helped you integrate psychedelic journeys.
🌙 Has there been a method, practice, approach, or individual that has been crucial in your journey towards long-lasting change post-psychedelic experience?
