Integration
Making sense of it all
Quarter 1 (is that what the cool kids are calling it) has been a whirlwind.
After finally settling into our home, I was quickly off for the month of February to lead our 5th 200 hour yoga teacher training in Mexico. I then had about two weeks at home to rest, settle, and get back on a plane to lead the 3rd Being & Becoming Retreat in Guatemala.
It’s a rhythm I’ve come to know well. Arrive. Open. Witness. Hold. Watching people meet themselves in ways they never have before.
Much of the work I lead in retreat and training spaces brings people into conversations around integration. People show up and have deeply profound experiences. Active breathwork sessions where they have visualizations of loved ones coming to them sharing words of wisdom and love. Sitting in circle where they are finally able to be vulnerable and feel fully seen. Silent mornings watching the sunrise. Daily yoga and movement. Sometimes it is a single moment, something said or felt, that shifts a perspective and stays with them for years.
I have watched those moments happen in real time. The kind that quietly, or sometimes loudly, changes the direction of a life.
And then, just days later, I’m back in the Costco checkout line trying not to get my heels bumped by the cart behind me.
So how do those worlds intersect?
How do I honour what opened, while also honouring the life I return to at home?
The answer I keep coming back to is integration.
But what exactly is integration? A quick Google search defines it as “the action or process of integrating,” which doesn’t really help.
If we look a little deeper, integration is the process of bringing two or more things together to create something new. It is taking what you have learned, what you have experienced, and weaving it into your present life. Letting it actually shape how you live, not just how you feel in a moment.
In psychology, integration is the process of unifying separated, conflicting, or fragmented parts of the self into a cohesive, functioning whole.
In lived experience, it feels more like not leaving parts of yourself behind.
I have come to realize that you do not need world travel or deep retreat experiences to feel like your worlds do not line up.
Integration is needed everywhere.
After a breakup when who you were in that relationship no longer exists.
After moving to a new city when nothing reflects you back yet.
After loss when the world keeps spinning, but yours has shifted.
In co-parenting learning to hold love and separation at the same time.
In becoming a mother meeting a version of yourself you’ve never known.
In quitting a job when identity loosens and possibility rushes in.
Integration is needed anytime your past reality no longer matches your current day to day. Which, for many of us, might be happening more than we realize.
So how can we practice integration? Start small.
For me, it looks like weaving in slow mornings when I can. Turning to writing. Letting myself hold multiple things as true at once, missing a place while also feeling grateful to be where I am. I try to seek out spaces and people close to home that remind me of what I experienced or what I learned.
I create small moments of ceremony where I can. Pausing. Setting an intention for the day. Doing my best to stay connected to it as I move through my day.
Nothing dramatic. Just gentle, consistent ways of not leaving myself behind.
Some journal prompts to explore:
Where in my life do I feel a gap between what I have experienced and how I am living?
What part of me have I recently met that I have not fully brought into my daily life yet?
What would integration actually look like in one small, tangible way this week?
Where am I rushing back to normal instead of allowing something new to take root?
What part of myself am I being asked not to leave behind?
Curious about Retreats and Yoga Trainings?
As wild as it sounds we are already planning for 2027. Yoga Teacher Training details will launch soon - so sign up for our waitlist if this is something that peaks your interest.