the messy middle: what this integration taught me

After a few months of continued microdosing, I intuitively felt the call to put the mushrooms back on the shelf and give my system space to unpack the work it had been doing.

If you've worked with me specifically around microdosing, you know integration is one of the key pillars for success. So these past several weeks away from the mushrooms, I've been walking my talk and doing my own integration work.

This time around, my integration has included the following:

• Spaciousness and time with just myself, when I can,

• Reflection via writing,

• Meditating and connecting with my Self,

• Supportive movement beyond my usual routine. I've come back to the yoga mat focusing on twisting + opening postures,

• Fascia release through foam rolling and tuning forks,

• I'm back in learning mode. I often feel like a dehydrated sponge ready to absorb lots of information during integration, so I'm intentional about my inputs. I've recently finished 5 books (yes, this includes audiobooks) and started studies to grow my practice and offerings,

• Lots of time in nature,

• And probably one of my biggest supports: getting energy work done on myself.

Three main themes have been coming up during my integration. None of them are groundbreaking but they've arrived with a fresh perspective and deep relevance for this particular moment.

1. A little bit of mess is kind of the whole point.

Like many of us, I'm a recovering perfectionist. It's something I've been actively working on for years. Just when I think I've gotten a handle on it, I experience life from a new lens and that bad boy gets reactivated like there's no tomorrow.

Take becoming a mom. No one warns you that you'll be faced with a whole new beast of trying to do things the "right way." You now have the most precious thing in your hands — the wellbeing of your (fur) child(ren) — and you surely don't want to f*ck ANY of it up. But news flash: there will never come a day when someone hands you an award for being the best mom or parent there is.

In fact, there will probably be a lot of days where you feel like you're miserably failing on all fronts. BUT THAT'S OKAY.

Dare I say, that honestly feels like the point.

What I'm learning to embody is that the messy middle is exactly where life happens. It's how you respond to the challenges. It's how you notice yourself in the moment and what you choose to do next that counts. Because oftentimes, the tough moments are followed by growth and expansion… and sometimes even bliss.

It's where tears are alchemized into belly laughs. Where the struggle to get dressed in the morning becomes a full-blown fashion show. Where the fight to eat dinner becomes an impromptu dance party in the kitchen.

It's in the struggle that you find the beauty, and the exact opportunity to relax and surrender into life's perfectly imperfect mess. And to remember that when things aren't going perfectly, it's usually because there's growth in the works.

2. Emotions must be honored. Full stop.

I really thought I learned to honor waves of emotion as they arise. But this integration has revealed to me that I'm still fighting at the edges more often than not. Conditioning runs deep, man.

This showed up most recently when I noticed I try to stop my three-year-old's tears at the moment of onset. Every single time I scramble to figure out the trigger and how I to get her to stop as quickly as possible.

The average emotion passes in about 90 seconds. While my three-year-old's tantrums certainly feel lifetimes longer than that, I experienced firsthand that there's a wave that just needs to be ridden out in these moments too.

The other day, as she was bawling for no discernible reason and none of my usual bag of tricks was doing the job, I decided to just hold her in my mama-bear embrace, and let her wail her little heart out.

Out of nowhere, the crying suddenly stopped. Like someone shut off a faucet. From screaming to silence. And then I heard the most unexpected sound: she began to giggle. My nervous system nearly broke its neck from the whiplash.

Then I remembered, THIS is riding the wave. And this is exactly what our bodies are designed to do.

Her tiny body had accumulated a chunk of unexpressed energy, and it was simply time for it to move. Like a well-oiled machine, her little being knew exactly what to do to clear it out. My only job in that moment was to create the safe container for her to do so. And just like that, she was back to her old self.

I wonder how many times recently all I've needed was a good cry, but instead stewed in frustration, angst, or insert any other displeasing emotion here. Probably a lot, if I'm honest.

When we don't allow emotions to pass through our systems, they get frozen — either in our energy fields, or in worse cases, our bodies.

The other week I gave a talk on what frozen energy does in our fields, and in preparing for it, I was reminded of all the physical manifestations unprocessed emotion can take. For example, that hump many older people carry on their back, a la Quasimodo? That's a manifestation of years of "stuffing" emotions down. So if for no other reason than to avoid the old-person back hump, I vow to cry it out when the time comes.

3. It's imperative to honor natural rhythms.

Every living being has them. We as humans have hormones that cycle with the sun, and the moon. Plant life cycles with the seasons. The Earth cycles with the cosmos.  So why, oh why, do we insist on shaming ourselves when we aren't doing something that aligns with the natural rhythms of our own energy cycles?

It's remarkable how many times and ways I found to get down on myself for not doing something the moment I realized it needed to get done, or within some arbitrary deadline I'd set for myself. And then I'd have the audacity to convince myself that any delay in action was somehow procrastination, or worse, laziness.

And let me tell you, my friends and family would call me anything BUT lazy.

What I've come to learn is that I wasn't procrastinating for the sake of it. I simply didn't have the bandwidth, mental capacity, or energy to tackle the thing in that moment. And hell, I walked away from a 16-year career in finance TO slow down. So why was I still forcing myself into motion when my body and energy were sending me every signal not to?

When I really let myself sink into that, and honored my energy levels and natural rhythms, things started flowing much more seamlessly. My to-do list kind of diminished on its own. It turns out, in a lot of ways, I'd been staying busy for the sake of it. When I let my body lead, my priorities came into focus and the next steps felt effortless.

Integration is where the actual transformation happens. The direct experiences with the mushrooms in many ways are like a life and soul excavation. Whereas, the integration is the settling and space that allows the freshly aware energy to drop into place. From here is where we can choose to show up in a new and intentional way.   

With proper care and integration, we can transform our reality.