You’re Not Lost. You’re Integrating.

So... I left you with integration in August, then had to do my own integration and take a pause. 

What I need to hear myself, and want you to remember: you’re not lost. You’re integrating.

If you’re feeling tender, tired, unclear, or like the fire you once had has gone out…
You’re not broken.
You’re not regressing.
And you definitely don’t need to push harder.

You’re probably just integrating.

The least glamorous, least shareable, least performative part of growth—
And the most important.

What Is Integration, Really?

It’s the part of the healing process that no one talks about enough.
It’s what happens after the insight… after the breakthrough… after the massive clarity drop.
It’s where all that awareness settles into your bones and decides to stick around.
Not because you force it, but because you live it.

And it often feels like:

• Pulling inward

• Feeling emotionally raw or flat

• Needing more space than usual

• Releasing the compulsion to explain yourself

• Watching things fall away without needing to chase them

It’s quiet work. Soul work. Invisible-to-the-outside-world work.

Which is why we often mislabel it as being “stuck.”
We try to fix what was actually asking us to rest.

This Is Where We’ve Been

For the past month, both Rachelle and I (hi, it’s Shonna writing this one) have been deep in the belly of this slow integration process.

💠 Rachelle returned from her months in Europe expanded, cracked open, full of new insight. But when she landed back home, the answer wasn’t “now go make something big out of it.” It was “let this become part of you, quietly.”

💠 I’ve been navigating a grief portal. A space of deep honoring, shedding, and remembering. Not the kind of grief you write in clean metaphors about. The real, messy, embodied kind that asks you to soften and surrender. Over and over again.

Neither of us had answers.
But both of us had presence.
And that’s where the magic of this season began to hum.

Integration is the Sacred Middle

We are taught to crave the aha.
To pursue the breakthrough.
To keep going. Keep healing. Keep hustling our way to “wholeness.”

But what if wholeness was what you feel after you stop trying so hard to be healed?

Integration is not a step backward.
It’s where wisdom becomes your way of being.

If You’re in It Too… Here’s What You Can Do

You don’t need to rebuild your morning routine.
You don’t need to clear out your closet.
You don’t need to force clarity where there is still fertile fog.

Try this instead:

1. Give Yourself a Nonlinear Timeline

Healing isn’t a staircase. It’s a spiral.
You will revisit old lessons with new awareness. Let that be sacred, not shameful.

2. Ask: What Wants to Stay With Me?

Look back over the past few months. What insights feel like keepers? What patterns are done? What wisdom do you want to live, not just know?

3. Choose Embodiment Over Explanation

You don’t owe anyone a polished version of your growth. Let your actions be the proof of what you’ve learned. Let your softness speak.

4. Let the Season Teach You

We are entering a season of slowness, shedding, and turning inward.
Let your rhythm match the Earth’s.
You are nature. Let yourself move like it.

Final Thought

You don’t have to be blazing with clarity right now.
You don’t have to be “doing the work” every minute of every day.

You are allowed to let the work do you.
To be reshaped by what you’ve already learned.
To rest in the becoming.

You’re not lost.
You’re integrating.
And you’re doing it beautifully.