HOW WE DEFINE AND APPROACH INTEGRATION.

Integration is all the RAGE these days.  But what is it really about?

The purpose of integration is to use our psychedelic journeys to become a whole, healthy, and embodied version of ourselves; one who is self aware, self responsible, self regulated, intentional, aligned, authentic, grounded and empowered.

This kind of human creates incredible impacts, leaves a lasting legacy, and adds consistent value to those they love most, and the world they live in. 

For us at EPIC the entire objective of integration is to gain deep self awareness of the use, purpose, motivation, experiences, needs, and value of a psychedelic journey, as well as the one taking that journey.  Then be able to apply that wisdom in our everyday lives.  To be liberated, and live amplified!

This process includes, but is far from limited to, gaining insight on and making conscious choices around the type of journey chosen, frequency of taking medicine, facilitators providing the support, the location, setting, intentions, ceremony, ritual, safety, legality, and long term integration.  It includes self awareness, personal growth, spiritual liberation, healthy relationships, quality parenting, clarity of purpose, and so much more.   

EPIC is designed to help journeyers make informed, conscious decisions about all aspects of their psychedelic journeys, both before and after, that foster health and wellbeing in all aspects of their lives.  

From our perspective, integration directly fosters a healthy, conscious relationship with self, the medicine, the journey, the land and people those medicines come from, and the people in our lives, who may or may not have journeyed themselves.  That includes those who know, those closest to us, those we’ve yet to meet, and the greater world we live in.

At EPIC we focus on acceptance, grace, respect for and conscious decisions from a compassionate, destigmatizing support of one’s choices. 

We focus on providing a safe, healthy, ethical and liberating container where we can process our experiences, relationships, and choices.  

This allows us all to reduce harm, increase protective factors (strength, empowerment, consciousness, health and wellbeing), while fostering an empowering, knowledgeable, and active community of support, understanding, and belonging.

The three pillars of integration we use are:

The Functional Pillar

1. Integration is a process of taking our expanded sense of consciousness, a new found and deeper understanding of who we are and what life is about, and then embodying and distilling that insight into practical application into our everyday lives. 

How do I go back into my life and function after I just discovered this intense amount of information, experienced a new sense of self, have all these chaotic feelings arising, and gained wisdom I didn’t even know existed, and still can’t likely put into words?  

That’s where integration comes in!

A psychedelic journey is typically a deep, rapid, and radical transformation, often referred to as gaining 10 years of therapy in one night.  You have a very expansive and intense sense of yourself and consciousness in an incredibly condensed time frame.  An indescribable amount of healing tends to occur, even when we can’t see it, don’t understand it, and didn’t feel it.  It is in fact one of the 10 methods of awakening known to mankind, and one of the most rapid available to us. 

Psychedelic journeys are not one night, one cup of tea, 4 hours in a clinicians’ office, a week in the jungle.  They are a journey into unknown territory, living an adventure of consciousness and humanity, embodying limitlessness, and infusing our souls with unfettered liberation.  To truly cultivate the vast gift of these journey’s is to learn to expand that experience into our whole lives for the rest of our lives.  

This is integration.  

It happens before, during, and after your journey. It’s learnding to let go of time, and lean into the ongoing journey that is life as we now understand it. 

The Pillar of Parts and Pieces

1. Integration is also a process of bringing the various parts of pieces of myself (my various selves) to a conscious light.  How do I gain a sense of self awareness and personal ownership for all of these parts, pieces, and versions of myself so that I can have healthy relationships with myself, others and the world I live in?  

For example, these parts and pieces can include my healthy self, my wounded self, and my survivor self, the various age ranges of me: my 5, 15, 25, and 55 year old selves, it can include the masculine and feminine parts of myself, various roles I play in my life such as mother, daughter, friend, lover, leader, etc., and can even include versions of ourselves on various timelines, life times, etc.  

This part of integration is intentionally and consciously meeting various parts of ourselves, building healthy relationships, having production communication with, and integrating those parts into a whole, healthy, and conscious version of ourselves. 

Integration is also taking all these pieces and parts of ourselves that we just confronted, met for the first time, or encountered in ceremony and bringing them all back home.  

Embodying them.  Embracing them.  Accepting and acknowledging them.  Learning from them.  Growing with them.  Get curious about them.  Helping them to be heard, understood, and respected.  Giving them grace, empathy, and compassion.  Playing with and having fun with them. 

We learn in this pillar how to find these parts of ourselves.  How to communicate with, relate to, and build healthy relationships with them.  How to learn from, resolve, and heal them so that they are not shadows creating unconscious behaviors and irresponsible emotions, actions, or impacts.

This pillar is about how I bring all of these pieces and parts of myself back home and live them in a conscious, healthy, whole and integrated human being in my practical everyday life.

The Third Pillar of Processing the Unknown

1. I had an intense, rapid, and radical transformation.  I left my body, and had an indescribable experience; one I have yet to comprehend, have context for, be able describe, understand, or maybe even like.  I don’t know how to contain, define, or even know if there is, or should be, a container for all of THIS.  There is now this very clear, real sense that myself, the world, and all of humanity is bigger than I can image, or comprehend. 

There can often be this sense of ‘short circuiting’, as if my brain and body just broke apart, my world just exploded, and I’m not sure if it’ll ever come back together.  Some people say I lost my mind, and many masters say “Great!”  It’s as if my brian, body and comprehension are trying to catch up to what I just experienced.  Which is the experience of rapid, deep, intense transformation occurring. 

These experiences can be both deeply confronting, confusing, and uncomfortable, as well as exciting, exhilarating, and joyful.  

The process of integration in this third pillar is one of reconciling the unknown, putting it into context, and then learning how to process and apply its wisdom and insight into our daily lives.  This is a dance between stillness and action, listening and leading.