30 Days After the Jungle: On Integration

It has been almost thirty days since I left the jungle.

There is a word for what these thirty days have been. Integration.

Integration is what you do after. After the ceremony, after the breath, after the huge step you take when you sit with plant medicine. The experience cracks something open. Integration is what you do with what came out. It is the slow work of taking the lessons and actually living them, so they become your life and not just the memory of a week in Peru.

I said something to Rachel that I keep coming back to. Running a breathwork business is maybe 80% building the business and 20% teaching the breath in class. Plant medicine is the same. 20% jungle work, 80% integration. The medicine is the small part. What you do when you get home is the whole thing.

And I am not sure how anyone gets through this without it.

The jungle

In the jungle you are surrounded by monkeys and heat. No Wi-Fi, or barely any. Bugs. Raw people sitting right next to you, each on their own journey. You feel like you are floating.

Then you come home and reality hits.

Work pressure. Vendors driving you crazy. Being an adult. Raising a 20-year-old. Two velcro dogs who will not give me three feet of space. And under all of it, the noise in my head from every lesson I just learned, all of it asking to be processed. So many emotions.

The thread that runs back

Of course the common thread you find is your parents. But then you sit with it longer and you see it is not really about them. It is generational trauma, and it runs back fourteen generations.

My parents were not perfect. They were working with what they had.

Last week I found a biography of my mom that I wrote in the fifth grade. One of the things I noted was how troubled she was by what they were putting on TV, how inappropriate the R rated movies seemed to her. Think about that.

Do I still have anger? Yes. Will I move past it? Yes.

I am raising a child too. Some of my decisions are not perfect. I am doing the best I can. I know they were doing the best they could. Could things have been better? Yes. The world was different. They carried burdens, behaviors, the habit of making themselves small, and they passed those down without meaning to.

I am trying to cut that here.

What has changed

Some of it has been strangely easy.

I do not feel the need to drink anymore. If I do, it is maybe one at dinner.

I do not watch TV the way I used to. You name it, I watched it. Now it is intentional, positive shows, or nothing at all. Music still has my heart, but these days it is the calming kind.

I am looking for depth now. Real connection instead of surface.

My diet is leaning toward whole food, less processed. I am not perfect at it.

I have always been curious, always full of questions. Now I am turning the questions on myself and digging deep.

I spend more time in nature. Grounding. Letting the dogs explore instead of rushing them. When I am outside I notice more now: the sky, the clouds, the shapes they make. I process more out there.

I picked up journaling right before Peru and I have kept it going. I write when I wake up, sometimes during the day if I need it, once before bed. One new thing I am trying, from a friend I met on this journey: before I even get out of bed, eyes still closed, I practice gratitude. Finding gratitude first thing changes the whole shape of the day. Those annoying dogs love me unconditionally and wake me with kisses. That kid in the other room who drives me nuts is part of me, and I am part of him, and I love him.

I am also finding my way back to meditation. Sitting in stillness, even a few minutes at a time, just getting the mind quiet.

I still feel God

I have not given up on God either. Do not get me wrong, I am not about to go running to a church. But I feel him everywhere. In the sky. In the trees. In me, and in you.

The hard parts

Boundaries are hard for me. I am still learning to choose me instead of automatically saying yes. Part of it is letting the people I love have their own journey. I cannot control anyone's destiny. Healing is hard, and I cannot do it for you, not even for someone I care about. I can point you in the right direction and hand you the tools, but the walking is yours.

My circle has changed. I keep in touch with people from the retreat because we still understand the emotions moving through each other. I am meeting new people. I am learning something every day.

I also have hardcore ADHD, and I have learned I cannot do everything at once. I used to walk to the kitchen and try to water the plants and put away the dishes and start three other things, and my mind would flood. Now I go slower. I move with grace. I keep more lists. I break the house down into small daily tasks so I do not drown in them. With the breathwork business, I am learning to plan before an event instead of scrambling the night before.

And I am using my voice. Honestly. No sugarcoating. Sometimes it comes with tears. I still cry, and I think that is just me speaking from my heart. That is okay.

Integration - not in a one-hour class

This is the part I care about most, because it is the same lesson for them as it was for me. Breathwork was never meant to be a one-hour class. You come in, you feel the emotions, you let things go, and if you walk straight back into normal life the next morning, the lessons slip away.

I do not want that for anyone. So I keep learning, and I send people home with tools. A few journaling tips. Some breathwork to keep practicing. Little integration practices, the tidbits I have picked up along the way. Enough to keep the door open after they leave the room.

Most people just get lost. I was given a gift, and I am building this business to share it, to help others the way I was helped.

Only forward

When I first got home I was angry. All these lessons I had just learned, I felt like I should have learned them twenty years ago. It could have changed the whole pattern of my life.

But I am not looking back anymore. Only forward. Because why would I want to change anything, when what I have today is exactly what I am grateful for. My kid. My two velcro dogs. My house in Grapevine. The yoga studio that I love, where I get to practice this work.

Thirty days in, this is the real work. Not the jungle. This.

And I am still dreaming of the day I will be closer to water.