Integration: Where the Real Work Begins

There's a phrase you hear a lot in the world of ancestral medicines: "The medicine opens doors, but you are the one who has to cross them." And that, friends, is integration.

The ceremony shows you. It reveals to you. It opens you. But the work of taking what you saw and applying it in your life, that work is yours. And this is where many people get lost. They have incredible experiences in ceremony, profound revelations, and then… they return to their life and it all remains as a beautiful memory but without real impact.

Integration is the bridge between the vision and the life.

What You Receive in Ceremony

When you're in ceremony and you enter these very deep states of consciousness, you can find many answers that come from very deep places within yourself.

The medicines can show you what it would look like to live with integrity, with love. They show you how you could live life in a very beautiful way, in ways you perhaps never would have imagined. Because sometimes, when you're so blocked, you can't even think about that. But when you're in these medicine states, you can not only imagine it but also feel it. And that's the difference. It's not just an idea in your head, it's a visceral, complete experience of what that more aligned, more loving, more integral life feels like.

You receive new information based on love, on wellbeing, on the desires of your heart. And there come very clear instructions about things that need to be done to change, things that need to be released, patterns that need healing.

Integration is Action

You receive all that information in ceremony, and from there comes the day to day. That is integration.

One of the things I learned after ceremonies was to not waste time but to apply the instructions immediately. What used to happen to me in ceremony was that all this information would come and I would start making a mental list:

• Call your mom, tell her you love her

• Get rid of things you don't need

• Send that email you've been avoiding

• Have that difficult conversation

• Start taking care of your body

• Begin that project
  

Very specific, very clear things. Right when the ceremony ended, I would write everything down in a notebook, like a to-do list. And from there I would immediately start executing it.

The more I got used to that dynamic, the more changes and the faster I would find them after ceremonies.

For me, that's what integration means: being able to follow the instructions, being able to execute them, take action on them.

Beyond the Mind: Embodied Integration

Not everything can be processed mentally. In fact, some of the most profound things we receive in ceremony cannot be understood by the mind,they have to be lived, embodied, integrated through the body.

This is where practices like these come in:

• Playing music, dancing, ecstatic dance

• Yoga, movement practices

• Meditation

• Painting, drawing, creating
  

Art has great value here. It can truly be for healing, for applying these teachings, and for getting out of the mind. Because there's something much wiser when you can enter into intuition, into feeling, into the heart.

The First Days: Sacred Territory

The first days after ceremony are sacred territory. You're still in that more open, more sensitive state. Use that time wisely.

• Keep a gentle diet for 1-3 days

• Give yourself space to rest—you don't need to immediately return to the frenetic rhythm of life

• Write, journal, capture what comes

• Walk in nature, sit in silence

• Avoid big decisions immediately
  

Yes, in ceremony you may have seen clearly that you need to make a major life change. And maybe it's true. But give it time. Give it space to settle. The medicine can show you profound truths, but integration requires patience.

Community and Practices

Share with trusted people who understand the path. Sometimes, by putting your experience into words, you find more clarity. Community is medicine too.

Keep your contemplative practices. These practices keep you connected to that deeper place within you that the medicine helped you touch. You don't need to wait until the next ceremony to access your inner wisdom—you can cultivate that connection every day.

Be Patient With Yourself

Integration is not linear. Some days you'll feel incredible, connected, clear. Other days you'll feel confusion, return to old patterns.

That's normal. That's human. Don't punish yourself. Simply observe, breathe, and choose again consciously. Each time you choose again, you're integrating.

Signs of Good Integration

How do you know if you're integrating well?

• You're taking action on what you saw you needed to change

• Your relationships are improving

• You have more clarity in your decisions

• Your old patterns have less power over you

• When you fall into an old pattern, you recognize it faster

• You're living more aligned with your values
  

The Gift of Integration

Integration is where the magic really happens. The ceremony gives you the vision, but integration gives you the life.

It's in the day to day, in the small decisions, in the moments where you choose differently, where the real transformation occurs. It's when you have that difficult conversation. It's when you get up to meditate even though you don't feel like it. It's when you choose to take care of yourself.

The medicine shows you who you could be. Integration is becoming that person, step by step, day by day, choice by choice.

When you start honoring the teachings you received, when you start taking action on what you saw—your life changes. Not overnight, but in a profound and lasting way.

That is the true power of this work. It's not only in the ceremony. It's in what you do with what you received.

Honor the gift. Live the teachings. Cross the threshold.