What is Integration?

tldr: Lessons learned on what Integration is, and why it is important.

Scroll down to the end for an invitation to be part of an “Integration Circle.”
On a different note. I look forward to seeing you on Friday, May 25 from 2:00-3:30 East for our next talk on Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
Many of us have been working on ourselves for a while. And now here we find ourselves. The time has come to test our mettle. We are living through times of disruption. Trying to find our way through volatility and uncertainty.

We are having to recalibrate. We are trying to find our footing. Many of us are uneasy. Some of us are scared. Most are anxious.

So what about the fruits of all that work we’ve been doing on ourselves?

I see the impact of that work too. I see folks who are finding their ground in times of turmoil. People who are finding right perspective. Levels of clarity. A wise blend of faith and courage.

And the truth is most of us oscillate somewhere between the poles. Moments of freak out at the latest headline. Or the latest raid. And moments of connection, root, breath and the next right step.

That’s why I want to talk about Integration.

The often spoken but rarely understood term in the world of personal transformation.

More and more of us have more access to peak experience. Transformational workshops. Life changing coaching relationships. Yogas. Meditations. Ancestral practices. Scaling the seventh heavens using all sorts of psychedelic compounds. Or scraping the depths of hell using all sorts of psychedelic compounds.

We also get meaningful insight from our therapists, counselors, healers and somatic practitioners.
In these times of loss, grief itself becomes a potent and inevitable ritual. It has to be dealt with, and it has to be integrated. Grief is the gateway to wisdom. Grief is also how we heal. But we live in a culture that does not know what to do with grief.

We don’t know enough about how to integrate any of the above. We don’t really have good structures for the hard work of integration. We don’t have great structures for turning insight into a part of our daily lives.

Most of us don’t live in tribal contexts. We are less connected to land and lineage. We are not embedded in initiatory cultures. We are not part of communities defined by ceremony and ritual. Our system is not designed to facilitate a lifelong process of integration.

My Own Experience

Some months ago, on September 11, 2024, I celebrated the 20th anniversary of my initiation. It was a baffling, unexpected and unsought event. I was dragged into a path I knew nothing about and had no attraction to.

It was the beginning of a two year wrestling match with the Divine. Until evertything came tumbling down. Spirit forced me into surrender. And changed the course of my life.

It wasn’t the beginning of my spiritual journey.

Nor was it the end.

There seems to be no end.

I have devoted so much of myself to this search for awakening and liberation. To this desire to “fix” myself. To be a good person. To ease my own suffering. To ease the suffering of others. And, most importantly, to stop hurting others.

Sometimes it feels like I try, and I try, and I just keep failing. I keep coming up short.

It feels like no matter what I do, my shadow can still get the best of me. It can feel like my shortcomings are just too big.

Ritual and Ceremony. Workshops. Medicine Work. Teachers. Therapy. Prayer. Meditation.

All of it matters. All have been essential to my healing and my growth. And at the same time, they have not been quite enough. At least not for me. Maybe I’m going about it all wrong? Perhaps. I don’t know.

But here is what I do know. Over the last year and a half, as I take a closer look at myself, and at my impact on others, on my society and the world, I know what is helping me the most.

I have started to meet with others, for an hour a day.

Every.Single.Day.

I get on a call, I follow the format. I share honestly and from my heart. I make myself accountable. And I listen. What I mainly do is listen.

Every Day.

Every day I am reminded that I am not alone. That I am not the only person that has hurt others. I am not the only person that hurts themselves. That I am not the only one that has been working on their healing and yet still has a lot to heal.

Everyday I am reminded that there is Grace.

That there are steps I can take. That faith matters. And honesty. And taking responsibility. And learning about humility, which is still hardest for me.

It’s working. I’m a baby on this path. But something’s working. Something powerful about getting on those daily calls.

I’m still doing the other things. The prayer and the meditation. The service, the therapy, the spiritual and psychological work. But it is all brought together by the medicine of this group. The daily dose of these calls.

I’m not inviting you to do the same thing. But this is where I’m learning most about what integration actually means.

I have scaled the heights of visionary states. I have been blessed by extraordinary experience. I’ve heard the voice of revelation.

But there is a way to get lost there too.

I’ve been lost there. Lost seeking peak states.

Life is right here. In the mundane experience of each and every day.

It is right here that we come to know Grace.

Life is in how I choose to honor the other, which only happens when I can actually honor myself.

Failing to do so tends to lead to a world of pain.

So what do we mean by Integration?

According to the dictionary integration is the act or process of combining two or more things so that they work together.

Our culture, still an industrial culture, is designed to compartmentalize our lives. To separate everything from everything. To build categories, and subcategories. It is the opposite of organic. Dominant culture wants to be more machine than ecology.

It separates us from our own selves. We set vital parts of ourselves aside. Nature, the arts that bring us life, the connections that make us who we are. We are told to put what’s good on hold.

But our souls don’t forget what we’ve set aside. To heal is to remember our wholeness. It is the experience of bringing ourselves back together. It is a process of integration. Of making what is essential essential again.

Integration is realizing that there are no bad parts to us. That no part of us can stay in exile. It means bringing our parts back together. It is to know our Self as whole.

We know that we are truly integrating when we start living in integrity.

Martha Beck, one of our wise teachers, defines “integrity” as being in harmony with ourselves. She says integrity is the key to a meaningful and joyful life.

“Integrity is the cure for psychological suffering. Period.”

Those are big claims. Serious claims.

I go to daily meetings because I’m tired of falling out of integrity with myself. I go because when I am out of integrity I hurt myself and I hurt others. Sometimes in very serious ways.

Integration is the process of bringing insight into your body. It is a way to live in practice. It is about embodiment. A way of bringing what you know to be true, good and beautiful into the very way you move. Turning what you learn into who you are. And into how you are with others.

No one can do it alone

I need my daily reminder. I need help.

I have not been able to pull this off by myself.

No one can.

Seriously.

Don’t fall into the trap of the isolated self. The illusion that you can discipline yourself into freedom.

There is a central error with the dominant approach to the transformational experience. The fact that it's still couched within our hyper-individualistic culture. The work is still “all about me.” Our personal journey matters. Our soul’s most authentic expression is uniquely ours. But our journey is never ours alone.

Therapy culture. The culture of self-care and self-help can be a good launch pad on our journey of awakening. But it is always an inch away from the post-modern narcissism that keeps us trapped in our small self.

I am so blessed to support others as they have experiences and insights that can start to change their lives.

I see lives actually change.

I see people get more free. Find fuller expressions of their most authentic selves. Strengthen their families. Build communities. Learn how to love themselves. How to be better partners. How to walk gently upon this earth.

I bear witness. And I hear them testify to the healing. The change. The sense of freedom. The unfolding growth.

I see what works. And what does not work.

This is how it becomes evident to me that the peak experience, the moment of insight, will never be quite enough.

These can be essential. They can unleash and they unlock. We see things that can never be unseen.

But they are simply not enough.

We live in this shit show of a culture. And our wounds are really deep. Multigenerational. Cultural. Personal. And deep.

There is addiction and distraction everywhere. There is a persistent energy that keeps drawing us back into bondage. A power that feeds on confusion, dishonesty, incoherence and deception. This energy is bigger than any of us. And yet we keep trying to deal with it on our own. We fall into unhealthy habits that are just ways for us to cope. But we can also fall into patterns that can become truly harmful. And wrong.

Insight is not something you get “once” and you're done. It is not something you “refresh” by going from one peak experience to the next.

It’s something that has to be integrated into your every day. It has to be brought from the sublime to the mundane.

The liberating vision is integrated through a series of “one degree turns.” You come back down from the mountain. Find community with others. And learn the perennial path of wisdom. One degree turn at a time. One day at a time. A letting go. A surrender. A turning over. An act of faith. Of Compassion. Service. Gratitude. Generosity. Atonement. Amends. Forgiveness. And mutual care.

We can only do it together.

Let’s try it. See how it works.

What is an Integration Circle?

Put simply, an Integration Circle is a space designed to help us integrate insight into our everyday lives.

It is a space for community. For the practice of mutual support. For the possibility of co-evolution through friendship.

It is how we work with our realizations and understandings. It is how we bring our “aha moments” into our bodies, and our daily life.

It is a space that helps us move from compartmentalization to wholeness.

Integration is meant to bring us into integrity with our most honest, authentic Self.

This is an invitation to a somewhat weekly Integration Circle.

It is an experiment. So it is also free of charge.

It’s a “drop-in” space.

You don’t have to commit to showing up every single week. You can drop-in when you have the need.

I have been called to make this offer for a long time. But my irregular schedule has held me back. So, I decided to fix the problem by making the offer on an irregular schedule. I know it would be better if I invited to join every week, on the same day, at the same time. But that’s not how my life works right now.

So, instead, we are going to learn whether you can join on an irregular cadence.

While integration is a defining term of the psychedelic renaissance. Please note that this integration circle is not just for people who work with psychedelics.

Our Integration Circle is for you if:

  • You want to stay connected after we’ve done coaching together

  • We’ve done healing work together

  • We’ve sat in ceremony together

  • You are part of the Evolutionary Leadership Workshop, or the Evolutionary Relationships communities

  • You are looking for support and connection after we’ve been through a meaningful facilitation

  • You’ve been following our work and you are looking for a way to plug in

If you are interested, sign up here and we’ll send you the calendar invites. And all future communication about this unfolding experiment.

We will not have a circle this week. Join me for my talk on Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.

Wednesday, April 30, from 2:30-3:30

Thursday, May 8, from 3:00-4:00

No Circle Week of May 11, I’m facilitating

Wednesday, May 21, from 4:00-5:00

No Circle Week of May 25, I’m being facilitated

Thursday, June 5, 12:00-1:00

Gibran RiveraComment