What is it?

Integration refers to the process by which the materials accessed and insights gained
(such as truths, realities, and/or parts of ourselves accessed and connected to)

in an entheogenic experience
(or any intense, profound, moving experience that takes us out of our daily lives and conditions) 

are incorporated
(using a multitude of practices and methods)

over time
(integration can take weeks, months, years, a lifetime! No rush, no pressure. Just patience, perseverance, and compassion :) and enjoy the ride if possible) 

into one's life in a way that benefits the individual and their community
(it's not just for ourselves and our own healing and benefit, but for the benefit of others - beings, plants, planet, and beyond!)

REMEMBERING

Integration helps us so we don't forget.

"[Sweetgrass] is honored as one of the four sacred plants of my people. Breathe in its scent and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten. Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we 'remember to remember,’ and so sweetgrass is a powerful ceremonial plant cherished by many indigenous nations.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

During an entheogenic experience, sometimes we come into connection with realizations and truths that may touch upon what feel like a deep knowing within us or perhaps a remembering of something we knew all along and hadn't realized we'd forgotten. That possibility for remembering these divine truths and our true nature is always present, but integration reminds us to keep coming back to remembering, beyond these fleeting experiences.

As well, after living an entheogenic experience that takes us out of our typical daily life and reality, we usually return to our 'regular' life and conditions, and oftentimes, if we don't make the intentional care and effort to weave what we lived in that experience into our lives and apply it, these precious gifts of remembering, of insight, healing, learning, new perspectives or connection to truths that the experience brought, may begin to fade away like a distant dream. 

Integration supports us so that we don't forget. Of course, those things that moved us or that we came into a deep, nostalgic remembrance of, will always have made an unerasable imprint on us. And we will never unknow or unsee what we did. But forgetting is something that happens all too easily, especially when all the things around us in our daily life begin to come back in and take hold. Integration is, in many ways, about finding ways and practices that support us in remembering and staying connected to the important things those sacred and precious experiences, whether joyous or challenging, surfaced in us. 

BEING WITNESSED, UNDERSTOOD, VALIDATED

Integration calls for us to be truly seen, heard, and accepted.

After an experience in which we explore consciousness and witness or access something extraordinary, that very extraordinariness may lead us to question or doubt the realness of the experience. In some cases our experience of the extraordinary may become something that (unintentionally) gets in the way of our connection with others, which can lead to a sense of disconnection and isolation from those around us in the time following the experience.

Important to integration is the seemingly simple yet incredibly powerful act of being seen and heard with love and compassion, by those who may understand. This may also bring about a sense of validation and belonging that is a critical support piece to being able to hold and accept that experience into the greater. Critical to the integration process is finding people and the space for us to speak and share openly and authentically from the heart, and be heard and received from the heart as well, without judgment.

BEING SUPPORTED IN SAFETY

Integration is about cultivating an intentional safer space to explore the experiences.

Sometimes, after these experiences, we may be left feeling confused and unclear, still trying to understand and make sense of it all. Perhaps it was so profound we don't even know where to begin. Perhaps it is challenging or painful to revisit or talk through. Or maybe we don't know who we can turn to to hear us out and who would understand or be able to support us. 

Integration is about cultivating an intentional and safer time, space, and support, to be able to explore things that happened or came up from the experience. Just by being able to safely explore - on one's own, with the loving support of another, or in a whole community - can make a world of difference and unleash much clarity, insight, and healing.

GETTING THE MESSAGE AND HANGING UP

Integration is about doing the homework we get assigned in these experiences.

“[P]sychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with the eye permanently glued to the microscope; (s)he goes away and works on what (s)he has seen.” - Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology, Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness

As with almost anything in this world, we can develop an unhealthy attachment and relationship to these things that aid us in living 'peak' experiences. Sometimes when things are done in the name of 'healing' or 'exploring consciousness', it can get tricky to distinguish when we are being truly responsible and respectful in our relationship to these experiences and substances and when not. When we're thinking to engage in something that may bring about an intense experience, it's always helpful to check oneself and ask where the desire is coming from and if it's really the right time. And have we done our homework from last time or are we just coming back for more?

Integration is about doing the homework that we get assigned in these experiences. It helps us get the message, so we can hang up the phone (Alan Watts), instead of hanging onto the line forever, growing reliant upon these external aids and intense experiences as the answer or solution when they are really just the pointers. 

LIVING A PEAK WOW LIFE vs. A PEAK WOW EXPERIENCE

Integration is about developing and sustaining an enduring lifestyle and expanded consciousness inspired by temporary experiences and altered states.

Integration supports us in cultivating a more sustainable foundational layer that incorporates the learnings and truths we've connected to in our peak experiences and altered states. In this way, over time, perhaps the gap between our ordinary, day-to-day state of being, and what we connect to, remember, and experience in these states, begins to close, and we find ourselves living more and more a life that is aligned with and reminiscent of these expanded states of consciousness. 

The process of integration encourages us to see where we wish to make shifts in our lives and apply the insight and perspective to changes that we want to make - in actions, thoughts, ways of being and showing up in the world.

How do we integrate? 

Integration comes in all shapes and sizes, varying by person and context. However, there are some elements and supportive practices that are tried and true, such as grounding, self-care, and nurturing of the body, mind, and soul immediately post-experience, meditation, soul-nourishing activities, creative expression practices, embodiment practices, reflective journaling, and community. The key is to openly explore, experiment, and find what resonates and works for you.