In my last post, I wrote about how I sometimes hate the slow pace of long-term integration, and I realized I should back up a half-step to even let you know what integration means to me. Integration of self feels like a true unification and embracing of alllll the parts. The beautiful parts, the shitty parts, the proud parts, and those that elicit shame. And integration of experiences of insights means incorporating all of them into life. The fun ones, the boring ones, the ones that leave scars, and those that heal those same scars.

I’m learning to live this balance between true acceptance, really embracing it all, and striving for change that feels like the crux of the learning in long-term integration. In studying the teachings of Buddha and Buddhists for years, I’ve learned that acceptance is necessary, but this does not mean being resigned to living with whatever circumstances arise. It’s like saying, “Alright, here I am, in this particular situation. Now what?” before making thoughtful decisions about what happens next. 

Moving forward with acceptance. Love.

Aaaaaaand, let’s be real. I get triggered. I throw tantrums like a two-year-old when things don’t go how I want them to. I have expectations and end up kicking and screaming when they’re not met. Turns out integration is hard. Not just once, but over and over and over and over. 

I tell myself these things:

•  Sometimes, it’s choosing the hard thing and deciding that, because you love yourself, you will do what you’ve had the brilliant insights to do. 
• You will hunker down, saddle up, and be like the beaver you need to be to just get shit done. Not by gritting your teeth and doing things you know you hate fully from the depths of your being, but actually by doing those things you *need* to do in that same depth of being. It’s IN you to do these things, just like it’s IN a beaver to build dams. Only in doing these heart-driven things will you be honoring yourself and your experiences. 
• And by doing some things that may not feel great in this moment – or not as great as the thing that will just assuage the underlying discomfort – there may be payouts. The moments where you choose what you really need over what you really want. (sure, cue Rolling Stones…) 

Sometimes my nervous system seems to want comfort, regardless of how many pep talks I give it. And if I provided that comfort in the quick-and-easy ways I’ve come to prefer, I’d be shoving my face with comfort foods, guzzling liquor, and engaging in a whole Rolodex full of other things. Trying to get full. But those things only fill me up in one or two ways, while often ignoring the totality that contains physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual hungers. 

So I’ve been doing this. When I go to reach for something, I sometimes stop and ask myself the question, “Is this what you really need?” Sometimes, I can gently answer, “Nope, I actually am just tired,” or, “You’re right, wise human. I’m lonely.” And other times, another inner voice will rage, threaten, and say, “Yeah, it’s what I fucking need! SHUT UP!!!” It squints its eyes at me and hisses, “Watch this,” as it tears into meals typically consumed by families of four and guzzles amounts of alcohol pounded by houses full of frat boys. But this side has become so increasingly rare. It is learning it no longer needs to try to protect me from discomfort, albeit in ineffective ways.

There are so many cliches around these concepts of really needing to feel things. The only way out is through (Frost). What you resist persists; what you embrace dissolves (Jung). If you want to know what you are numbing from, stop the numbing behaviors (someone else). It is what it is (some jackhole). 

I know that no amount of the wrong thing will fill the hole.

As Pascal wrote about what has come to be referred to as “the god-shaped hole” (which, side note, didn’t start as a biblical proclamation but has been co-opted by the Christians):

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII(425) 

Some days the hole is there, threatening the next best step I’m trying to take. And some days I can barely even believe that it ever even existed. And on both of these types of days and all the types in between, I do the best I can to integrate all the voices, all the desires, all the lessons. Some days that best doesn’t feel like much, and other days I amaze myself.

This is the non-linear work of long-term integration.