Along my healing journey I often heard the word integration. The way integration was talked about, it seemed like it was something to strive towards. That it was a sign of transformational healing. I had no idea how to define integration. I could not identify it, or know if it was happening to me. With time I began healing enough to feel more in my body. Only then, was I at the precipice of understanding integration. I learned that integration takes place on many levels. Including the body, mind, emotions and, especially for me, with the aid of Reiki, on a spiritual soul level.
I began to understand, that as my body healed I could integrate it with my emotions. This might look like crying when I was talking about a sad experience. Where as before, I might laugh. Or, have no reaction at all. I learned that integration connects my mind, body and soul in mutual communication for increased awareness. Awareness that allows me to make better choices and heal more. I found that integration could help me express myself in more authentic ways.
Now, this was just the very beginning of understanding the importance of integration. For example, what I said I was feeling would also match my facial expressions. What I committed to would match my true desires. I could feel my body, emotions and soul communicating. This felt like feeling more relaxed in my body, confident and happy in my mind. Feeling more fulfilled, showing more alignment with my soul. Soon, other signs of integration began to surface.
My ability to create boundaries increased. I found myself in places I wanted to be more often. Increasingly, doing more activities that brought me joy. A joy that I could feel as an openness in my heart chakra. Before, I may not have been aware of my heart chakra (a bodily sensation in the chest area). Or, I felt only tightness and restriction there. On my own, without having to consult friends or family members, I began to make decisions. I might even feel the excitement of making a decision to do something I really wanted to in my stomach and sleep well that night. I recognized anger, or sadness and identified where it was in my body. Then I would breathe or move to relax that body part. Next, I began to be able to communicate what I was truly feeling.
Before, a feeling like anger would have stayed as tension in my body. Through integration, I would talk about my anger or communicate it appropriately when needed. Interestingly, a sign of integration became being able to share how I felt as a child with the awareness that I was not my child self anymore. I understood, I could choose to separate my adult and child self. This meant that my reactions to situations in my life became based on my integrated, more healed, adult self, than from a disassociated child self.
Further more, with recognizing integration I could see where resistance was in my mind and where it presented itself in the body. An example of this might be a migraine arriving the day of an event I committed to. An event that I didn’t really want to go to. Therefore, I would recognize that this might be a signal that a part of me was not fully integrated. I might ask myself, what is the emotion I am truly feeling? How can I express that? Am I seeing this as my child self? Is this a trauma response? I might ask a soul question like, what do I really desire now? In this way, I was able to recognize if what I was feeling was relevant to the situation I was in.
Before integration began, I would not have questioned a migraine or had any awareness to ask the questions above. I would have suffered in bed for a day. As a sign of integration, I can now feel a migraine as it begins in my body and link it to its source. I then make a more integrated decision. This usually eases my pain and increases my joy.
In conclusion, through integration I feel more connection between my body, emotions and soul. Therefore, I am able to entrain to new healing energy frequencies. I have less pain in my body, less confusion in my mind and my soul has a voice. They have begun to integrate.