A story of integration
This time last year, Mike and I had just returned from a month long backpacking trip across the lands of the beautiful country of Mexico in search of indigenous knowledge, deeper relational awareness, and moments of reverence for the medicines we share with the western world that originate in the mountains of Latin America. This time last year, I thought I knew what integration was. Conceptually, and intellectually, I did; but somatically, was still very much an infant in many ways. So this time, I chose to wander to Mexico solo.
Mike and I had just sat with medicine a few days before the trip, and it unearthed deep DEEP father wounding for me. Integration comes in many, many forms. Sometimes it’s a deep surrender into the cellular upgrades, a sort of relaxing into the afterglow of a big emotional release. Sometimes it’s an incredibly practical journey - literally integrating practices that will help break neurological and emotional patterning. Sometimes it requires deeper reflection to refine priorities; but it always takes effort to make true, lasting change.
When I went into this solo trip, I had expectations of what the integration would look like: Every morning, I would incorporate a practice that focused my mental energy and refined my physical exertion in a way that cultivated long lasting, daily vitality. I would expand in adventure, make new friends, and find an even deeper security within myself. I went in fully prepared to make practical change. Many of my integration processes before this were rooted in a more feminine approach: receiving, resting, creating, expressing. I was determined to incorporate a disciplined approach this time around, but little did I know, Source had other plans for my integration.
The day after I arrived, I started to feel really ill. By the time evening rolled around, my throat was the size of a dime and I couldn’t even swallow water. My bleed started, and I was sharing a room with 7 other men. Not a single woman in my dorm room. Not a single woman in the house I was staying in. I started to experience extreme fear, and intrusive thoughts as I was having a hard time even communicating because of the pain. I know enough Spanish to hold simple conversation, but I had no idea how to communicate what I was going through in word, let alone eat the delicious food that was being offered to me every morning.
The delicious, difficult to eat desayuno
It was around 2am when I woke for the fourth time from pain and fear. I tried calling people I knew back home that could assist me in grounding myself, but to no avail. It was late back in the states and I couldn’t access anyone. That was the moment I decided to call my dad. He answered the phone, at 2am.
My father asked all of the questions I didn’t know I needed. Hours on the phone and a slightly sketchy journey to the marina assisted by a local street drug dealer and I had the medication I needed to treat my illness. Turned out, I had strep throat, and strep throat as an adult is no fucking joke. This was the beginning of a depth of integration I had never experienced before. I was able to see the ways in which I have protected myself from receiving support, asking for what I need with clarity and courage, and allowing myself to be in a true state of vulnerability with the masculine. This was an opportunity to integrate this very core wound.
Although I started to take amoxicillin (for the first time since I was maybe 7 years old), the pain was still very intense. Swallowing was next to impossible and the fear of not getting any better had taken over my emotional body as well as a spiked temperature. A new guest checked in, alas, another male. But little did I know, he would be the man who helped me practice asking for my needs, and receiving with no ill intention. His name was Luis.
Luis, the leo angel
Luis knew without even having a conversation with me that I was struggling. He offered many things, all rooted in love for a complete stranger. He taught me how to make his grandmother’s ‘healing elixir’ recipe, and constantly reminded me that although I felt very alone in my struggle, I was family to him, and he was there for me. He provided a space for me to refine my asks and lean into new levels of trust. I was in a space where I HAD to ask for help, there was no alternate option, and asking for help is not something that had come with ease to me. It felt like life or death to receive a spoonful of honey at 1am, painkillers on an 8 hour cycle, and his grandmother’s recipe multiple times a day to relax the nerves and inflammation in my throat. He provided me with the opportunity to really receive as his intentions were pure. For the first time in my life, I really trusted that. I hadn’t realized how deep the wound with the masculine was, and how I had formulated the belief that intentions were either violent or sexual. I had been living this out subconsciously and was determined to change it.
Every morning I would wake and ask Luis for exactly what I needed. At one point he laughed and ended up calling me spoiled. Although I know he was poking fun, I was truly feeling a deep gratitude for this opportunity to rewrite this narrative. Every morning I would receive what I needed, and every morning I felt a bit better. My cup was starting to fill enough for me to pour back out into others; to lead with curiosity instead of fear, and give thanks over and over and over again. Luis and I ended up becoming like the family he viewed me as when we met each other. He taught me about the bugambillia, ways to make conchas, pan dulce, Mexican coffee, how to take a lowlight photo; we shared moments of deep wisdom, fire dancing, soaking in the most miraculous hot springs I had ever been to, gazing in astonishment at local artists and even ended up renting a car to drive through the dried out river bank to adventure the mountain range and witness one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. Slowly but surely, the dorm room started to balance out. I began to make the friends I had wanted, expanded in my experiences, my Spanish speaking, and my knowledge of the culture. Eventually, I left Mexico feeling like I had birthed roots in a new homeland. In the homeland of vulnerability, trust, and newfound faith.
I left with a peak experience.
Luis and I on a dayventure to Rancho Santa Rita as I started to slowly emerge back into health.
This journey taught me so much more than resiliency and flexibility within the process of integration. It taught me the importance of integration on an almost grueling level. On the holistic level. It taught me that in order to integrate peak experiences, you must land, slowly. It taught me to trust in ways I had never even had the opportunity to before, and to trust that what you need is ALWAYS there for you when you are open to it. Last but not least, it taught me that true family is found in the nakedness of emotional vulnerability. And the rest of the Mexico adventure, is colorful, integrated history.
Luis, I am eternally grateful for your existence on this planet and for everything you have taught me. I could write an entire book about it. But for now, this blog post, passionately woven with thanks.
xoxo,
Ash