MY STORY: what is integration? [part 7]

It’s Christmas Eve 2024. It’s been two years and three months since my last teacher abandoned my physical self.

I now know that he was my greatest and most cruel teacher. I now know that he has sacrificed his life in this time to teach many, many people. I don’t believe that his physical self is aware enough to know, but his soul knows the gift he gives. And that’s how some of us learn.

I have changed the pattern of needing painful lessons to learn going forward.

Fear and worry have been like sticky fly tape, staying around while I have been spiritually skirting them in a resistant war dance. Feeling deeper into both, I find my past identities crying, “You can’t let those fears and worries go. Please don’t abandon us.” I comfort them, letting them know that I now know how to graciously defend us.

I turn to find a huge anchor that I’ve been dragging along, collecting more and more abusive memories. I smile in appreciation as I see its mass. Its elemental metals are glowing and shining as a symbol of survival—fears and worries that work as a massive warning not to venture too far into happiness because something might happen. Fear.

We drag our anchor along and come face to face with my biggest point of resistance: abundance. I’ve defended my standpoint on abundance for years. Abundance is not limited to what we perceive as good. Abundance can take on a life of its own in the not-so-great realm. The not-so-great abundance has been the one I have played with for most of my life: an abundance of lack, fear, and worry. I used to say, “Be careful creating abundance. Be very clear on what you want to be abundant.” Yes, I had a healthy fear of that state of being. Yes, I had abundance all along.

Some say ego is the one with the fears and worries. I don’t really think that I believe in ego in that definition of the word. I have had many identities of myself—versions that performed certain aspects of life: daughter, mother, worker, cook, healer, artist. It’s semantics, I suppose, but for my purpose, I needed to make those parts of myself become one; thus, the word "identities" worked best for me.

I gathered the group of identities that have been the many iterations of me. I now present as the leader of this group. I assure them all that leaving behind worry and fear will allow us all to thrive. We discuss how together we can make abundance work for us. We realize how we can be aware together, with each of them having the ability to poke me lightly in the gut, heart, or mind as a reminder if I, the guide in the present, need to pay attention and course correct. You see, I am now aware of myself. I trust myself and my intuition!

It has taken a brutal teacher for me to become aware that I had become numb. I could not feel any messages that my body was trying to send me. I could no longer reason. Perhaps that’s where ego could appear, under duress, to aid us with remembering our boundaries. Ego is the bulldog standing in defense as a last-ditch effort for each of our identities. But what is being defended? Insecurity.

I understand what integration is now. Integration is allowing all of my identities to come together and feel seen and heard. And therein appears graciousness. Ego, with its emotional dysregulation and disorganized energy, is no longer out front, snarling in defense and scaring everything and everyone away. We no longer need to defend because we know.