Life is Integration
Integrating psychedelic and other non-ordinary state experiences are a natural extension of integrating that we do all the time as a part of life. When facing new circumstances, learning new things, and pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone we have to both extend ourselves into the unknown, and consolidate what we have learned back into our life mission, core, and familiar sense of self. Growth happens through the positive inter-relationship between our Edge experiences, and our Center, which allows us to expand our sense of who we are, the world we live in, and what is possible.
The Balance
Psychedelics bring powerful energy to this relationship and can quickly push us to a very far and foreign Edge, where dramatically different rules seem to exist. This injection of energy and information can enormously amplify the dichotomy between Edge and Center, and even prompt an unbalanced relationship where our central persona feels too overwhelmed and undermined by the intensity of the new experience. One can feel a sense of loss of meaning, depersonalization/derealization, or a constant sense of distraction from the looming imprint of unresolved experience. Many nervous systems instinctually respond by suppressing the new experience and doubling down on familiar patterns in order to alleviate the anxiety, which usually is a spotty solution as the stability doesn’t quite materialize.
This is the inverse of problems in normal consciousness, where familiar and sometimes unhealthy patterns get rigid and stale, lacking fresh input. For many, this is the big draw of psychedelics, the capacity to disrupt entrenched unhealthy patterns of thought and emotion, so we can re-evaluate them, identify the root cause, and envision new possibilities. Dr Robin Carhart-Harris describes this through the metaphor of “shaking a snow globe”, where once fixed paths carved into the snow, representing our well-worn mental habits, are refreshed and made new with a little motion. I tend to think of psychedelics as “psychic Robitussin” agents which loosen our minds enough so we can cough out the “phlegm” of what doesn’t belong.
Good Friends, Working Together
The integration process only works when there is bidirectional communication between the Edge and Center, when they are working together and shaking hands. We need the Edge experiences to shake up our habitual ways of seeing things and allow us new insights and possibilities. And we need the Center to ground, and contextualize those edge experiences in our heart felt sense of ourselves, our relationships, and our bodies. If like a kite, we get too untethered by the strong gust of wind represented by a powerful non-ordinary state experience, it’s our Center self, our emotional, biographical, and personality core that reels in the line and brings us back down to Earth. In the integration process, this side tends to be the most important, taking what we’ve experienced, curious, ecstatic, or hellish, and owning it in our hearts, making our experience once again more human, and unlocking the energy and potential to move forward with what we’ve brought back from the trip.
We want harmony between our different states, our different parts, and diverse inner experiences, to provides a strength and wisdom that is greater than the sum of those parts. We want to encapsulate all of it in what is personal and heartfelt.
Towards Wholeness
The big process is about bridging dichotomies and reconciling different conflicting elements of our selves, our emotions, and memories. Along with the dichotomy of the Edge and Center come others: the Grounded and Transcendent, the Fluid and the Stable, the Personal and Transcendent, the Head and the Heart, the Individual and the Collective. A tapestry of different themes, memories, personas, and motives that live inside us, conscious and unconscious, seek to coalesce and find harmony and meaning within an expanded, strengthened, and less defensive Self.
This concept is encapsulated in Dr Stanislav Grof’s descriptive term “Holotropic”, which derives from the Greek words “holos” and “tropic”, and together meaning a process of moving towards wholeness, particularly mediated through non-ordinary states of consciousness. Through that opening and integration we bring forth hidden parts of ourselves and experience that seek to be reconciled into a more conscious and complete Self.
Carl Jung calls this the “Transcendent Function”, which he describe as a union of our conscious and unconscious parts, born of an inherent yearning for connection and wholeness. This process of inner illumination and reconciliation, is the primary engine for psychological change and transformation.
Expanded Self
When we have integrated a larger constellation of inner experience we feel more complete, and less alone. With an expanded range of Self we have much better balance, stability, and ultimately resilience. We find we have less unresolved baggage weighing on us and quietly eating away at our attention and emotional availability. We feel bigger, with greater confidence, and greater access to our emotions. And along with that feeling capacity and breadth of experience comes an increased capacity to empathize with others, and greater capacity for connection outside of ourselves. And with greater connection, context, and awareness, we can find greater meaning in our lives.
So as chaotic as this process can sometimes feel in the short term, the driving goal behind it all, from within our core selves, is simply to be happier, more stable, and harmoniously adapted to our life circumstance. And as ever, to keep life engaging and interesting.