Integration is considered by many to be the most important aspect of a psychedelic journey. This is the lifelong process of understanding and incorporating the insights gleaned from your psychedelic journeys in ways that benefit you and your community. While the actual psychedelic experience is a powerful source of healing, the work to integrate its lessons into your daily life is just as important and often more difficult. Proper integration ensures that the insights experienced on your journey become meaningful, active parts of your life rather than distant memories.
Some of your psychedelic experiences are bound to be more challenging than others. Integration practices can help you ground, find your balance, and move forward confidently with the new knowledge you have gained.
The healing that begins with your medicine experience continues as you practice loving kindness and compassion in every aspect of your life, especially the areas you tend to ignore or overlook. You learn to be gentle, soft, and generous with yourself and others. You practice consciously choosing how you relate and act in the world. Through integration, even the anger, grief, shame, and guilt you may experience can become your teachers instead of your enemies.
While it might be tempting to hang on to the memories of your psychedelic experience like a lifeline, you must continue looking and moving forward. Planning and diligent effort are required for proper integration to increase quality of life while minimizing the risk of retraumatizing behaviors and interactions. Approach your integration with purpose and mindfulness.
Each psychedelic experience allows you to reach a mountain peak. You can sharpen your tools and skills between climbs, allowing you to venture into the next climbing experience with greater perspective and wisdom, and hopefully less suffering.
But where and how do you start the integration process? This can be an overwhelming question, particularly if your experience with the medicine was difficult. Even if you had a pleasant journey, what could possibly recreate the clarity you experienced while you were in it? You may feel the need to change everything about your entire life all at once...but how do you do that? And should you do that?
These are questions to consider as you move through the integration phase of your journey. While it may be best to wait at least a few weeks or even months after your medicine experience before making major life decisions, you are the one who knows best what is right for you. Remember to trust your intuition. Everything you need is within you.
Although many of us think of psychedelics as dangerous drugs, it’s time for a rethink. They are non-toxic, non-addictive, have very few side effects, and could potentially offer relief for people suffering from a range of psychological difficulties.
Dr. Rosalind Watts
