Integration and the power of slow

     I had a wonderful, soul feeding conversation with a dear friend last week.  We talked about change  Integration is a bit of a buzz word. It gets thrown around a lot in relation to healing and being in process, but what does it mean?

and integration, among other things.

     What is integration? It’s the process of moving beyond the surface layer of an “ah-hah” or an experience. Integration incubates meaning. It allows the experience to become part of and change you. It’s also a way of honoring your experience.

   No matter how deep or amazing the initial experience was, without integration it becomes two dimensional. My mind will hold it as a memory snapshot that the rest of me has little access to. Even the most incredible “ah-hahs” become trite if I don’t integrate them.

    When more change is happening in me and around me, my need for integration time is greater. I feel the pull to slow down and hibernate. When I begin to feel disconnected from myself, it’s time to be still and catch up. The space to do that rarely just presents itself. I have to create it. No matter when I choose to slow down, there will be something else I could be doing. The dishes aren’t done. There is email I haven’t answered. There is a project I want to start.

   Stepping away and letting those things go undone can be a challenge. We live in a culture with a heavy utilitarian bias. To varying degrees, we’re all conditioned to believe that if we’re not producing something “useful” we’re being lazy. Useful usually means something concrete and tangible. Integration doesn’t produce a tangible thing.

    A day spent integrating won’t give me something I can point to and say “look, I did that.” However, if I let the busy deter me, what am I really doing? What is being productive worth if most of what I’m producing is just a way to distract me from me?

     Integration takes time. A whole day where I can slow down and be present with my internal landscape works best. Staying with that interior focus requires unscheduled time where I can move, in solitude, to my own internal rhythm.

     Often my stepping away from the external means I stay in my pajamas, don’t take a shower or engage in the other things I do to meet the outside world.

     Staying with the integration process involves letting myself be uncomfortable. Even if I’m not aware of what’s happening, I’m stretching to encompass something new and let it find its place inside me. That’s uncomfortable. The discomfort deserves my attention so I sit with as long as I can.

     Sometimes the discomfort spawns restlessness that calls for movement. Actions where my body is in motion but my mind is not work best. I take a walk. I do the dishes.

     What I chose to do on an integration day is less important than allowing my actions to come from inside rather than from my “do” list. Sometimes I watch three movies in a row. Often I’m drawn to being creative. I write, draw or make a collage. I find music that creates a soundtrack for where I am, lie down on the couch and just listen. Sometimes I drink coffee, watch birds and stare at the sky. Sometimes I do absolutely nothing.

     Integration invites stillness and silence deeper than the mere lack of activity or sound. I used to believe I had to go out in the woods or away somewhere to create that. However, the most profound experience I’ve had with this state occurred in a hospital room.

    Several years ago a close friend, Katie, was dying of cancer. For a couple weeks she drifted between conscious and unconscious, between this world and another. I often sat with her at night as she drifted. The hospital was noisy and busy with nurses, other patients and visitors.

    One night as I sat in Katie’s darkened room, something else began to gather around us. Katie’s door was partially open, but the hospital sounds faded away. I sat in awe as the silence deepened and expanded around us until the whole Universe was there, in that little room with us. In the presence of that sheer vastness I felt wonderfully small in relation to Bigger. A hospital room was the last place I expected to encounter the Divine and exquisitely vast silence.

     That deep silence can come anywhere, but it rarely enters uninvited. I have to be still and issue the invitation. Although I haven’t since experienced deep silence like I did in Katie’s hospital room, I can still invite in the Bigger. For integration I need that connection. The Bigger, the Divine, the Universe, my soul, my higher Self or whatever you want to call that, already has a place for what I’m stretching to encompass. When I am reminded of my right size in relation to Bigger I can step into that place with more ease.

     In the silence I can hear myself better. Life is loud. During most days I’m occupied with interaction, conversation and the sounds of a busy world. My internal dialogue is generally quieter. It’s easy to miss the whisper in the noise.

        My slow days are rarely filled with revelations or even a conscious awareness of what’s coalescing inside me. Integration takes longer than a single slow day. I rarely wake up the next day filled with revelations. I do usually wake up feeling clearer. The magic of a slow day is that reconnects me to my experience. The engagement somehow allows all of me to keep digesting the experience as I move through my daily life.