The Integrated Self is a concept that explores the awareness you have for who you are. It is about thoughtful intention, observation, and expression of your essence by giving yourself the freedom to live without pesky negative habits and limiting beliefs.
1. Higher Self – is the tether to our future self, they are the wise guiding force that sparks intuition.
Our Higher Self has been defined by different teachers as your Spirit and/or energy’s existence on a higher dimension. Ultimately, your Higher Self is the future you, which means that present-moment-you is the Higher Self to your past. With this wisdom, you can travel to the past and bring love and guidance around the pain of experiences.
2/3. Inner Child & Inner Parent – are aspects of our human life and come with the instincts programmed into these vessels that we call bodies, they often require thoughtful attention on the healing journey.
The Inner Child & Parent are a necessary combo. The Inner Child can become fragmented and/or stunted due to lack of emotional regulation teaching, however, it is also the part of us that wants to have fun, be curious, and live freely. As we age the Inner Child becomes the body because the body is what stores all of our emotional memories. The Inner Parent is a version of ourselves developed later in life that helps guide, comfort, and support the child when it is in need. This can and should take thoughtful time to develop, especially if parenting involved punishment and subtext communication (subtext = not direct and clear communication) when you were a child.
4/5. Ego & Shadow – Who are you? & Who are you not? Why? The Ego is our sense of “I am” & The Shadow collects the rejects of that, which can include positive traits!
The Ego has been classically labeled as the bag guy & something people try to avoid being called out for. However, I like to see the Ego as our necessary companion, because it is the Ego that allows us to have likes and dislikes, passions/goals, and ultimately works at keeping us alive. The Shadow follows the Ego and collects the pieces of the “rejected self” that we become unconscious to, i.e. If I find people who seem to be “perfect” super annoying (because this is my Ego talking) then my shadow will carry the traits of my identity, that I deem myself as “too perfect and annoying”. This is where Shadow Work gets involved.
6. The 7 Chakras – are the energy centers (that influence our perspectives based on experiences) that are to be individually fine-tuned, like the strings of a guitar, so that they can come together and harmonize.
There are more than just 7 Chakras, but we do have the 7 main Chakras within our subtle body. Meaning, that these Charkas are our core energy centers that we are meant to become aware of and notice when they are operating efficiently or deficiently. They impact things like: how safe we feel, our emotional regulation, self-worth, acceptance, free speech & thought, critical thinking, and ultimately our reception signal to the Higher Self.
7. The Aura – is your specific electromagnetic field that your essence creates around you, this often is expressed in the 7 colours of the Chakra system and can change with time
It is important to ground the Aura and cleanse it daily i.e. with a Selenite/Satin Spar wand, your hands, incense, meditation, or anything you desire really. Just paying attention to the quality of your own vibration.
8. The Light Body – is this vessel’s imprint, within this one existence, that is here to experience itself and achieve “enlightenment”
Our Light Body AKA the Merkabah [Mer (light) Ka (soul) Ba (body)], is your specific vehicle of light to ascend through. It is the access to your divinity while living a human experience. However, we don’t want to get lost chasing “enlightenment” one really only becomes enlightened when they realize the power of their Shadow.
9/10. The Divine Masculine & Feminine – are dualities that are not about gender, and more about HOW energy is created and matured in life. The Masculine is our structure and The Feminine is our movement
The Divine Masculine & Feminine are our 12th Universal Law. The Law of Gender. However, this is not to create separation between the different sexes of humans. Gender is the expression of our will of creation. With the Divine Feminine, we have the wild, raw, and expressive & the Divine Masculine helps us to build structure, commitment, and create order. One cannot exist without the other.
How do you Integrate?
What does this list of ten terms have in common? They are essential to recognize within yourself and balance if you are committing to a healing journey.
All Ten? Yes, all ten! This is also not an exhausted list and yours can look different than what I have discovered. Committing to discovering these “ingredients” of the self is how one learns to integrate the wounds of the past.
How do I heal and/or how do I know when I am healed? These are two common questions asked when starting the self-discovery journey.
I think it is important to ask yourself, why am I healing? What does healing mean to me? And what is the intention of starting this journey?
There are 2 key elements when answering these questions: are you committing to this journey for YOU & is your intention to live a more fulfilled life?
When we get to this level of questioning we start to understand that this healing journey has ALOT more existential meaning waiting to be plucked from our subconscious.
When I started my healing journey I felt like I came back to the same realization more than once, but each time from a higher space of understanding & perspective.
What do I mean by a “higher space”? Well quite literally, on this healing journey, I have felt like I had made so much progress just to be triggered by the same wounds. It was then that I realized, it wasn’t quite the same trigger, it had just evolved with me & the concept of “me” was essential to why something was triggering.
I experienced this exact feeling heavily this September. The turn of the leaves, the hush of Pumpkin Spice, and the screams of the Halloween to come have not been bringing the “vibes” or “harvest full” feeling they typically do.
This September instead has been full of subtle agitation, a weird pit in the middle of my stomach, & despair with goals that I know I am passionate for. What could this all mean? I asked myself.
It wasn’t too hard to see as soon as I was willing to get still, slow down, and pay attention to myself. My Higher Self was quick to answer, “It’s last year you at this time”. Last year at this time, I was preparing for Salvage Chemo, to then be followed by Industrial Chemo & Stem Cell Transplant. It was a very sick and scary time in recent history.
My body signaled this trauma with the sights, smells, and experiences that Fall has to bring – despite my reality right now being far more favourable in the present – she still remembers.
Understanding these 10 ingredients/aspects of myself, helped me find where my imbalances are and what I could do to provide support during a triggering time.
Here is how I personally went through these aspects
- The Higher Self – is helping me step into the present to remind me that I am my Higher Self to the past version of me, so I have done some meditations sending love to some of the darkest times of last year
- The Ego – just wanted to help me survive & started classifying things as gross & “not into anymore”, throwing old favourites into the shadow so fast.
- The Shadow – pumpkin spice is gross? For now, it maybe is. *however not truly in the shadow as I recognized what my Ego was rejecting* This was an invitation to pull a past version of me out of the shadow – one that is scared that life will be too short for her.
- The Inner Child – is my body. My body comes first, so lots of stretching and yummy food that makes me feel warm and energized
- The Inner Parent – helping regulate the agitation and fear, providing comfort to these harsh ideas by allowing, premissioning, and validating my thoughts and outward expressions.
- The 7 Chakras – went from root to crown balancing and moving out unnecessary beliefs for this present moment and invited in my guides to help
- The Aura – took a cleansing bath & put up some new psychic protections/charged the old
- The Light Body – I interviewed myself about how this was impacting my idea of a “timeline” and what this experience was on an energy level
- The Devine Masculine & Feminine – I let go of structures of ridged work and found more flow with the now. I invited in time to listen to music and just let myself feel the moments I was having.
I hope this inspires you.
x.o.x
& What aspects feel natural and what ones feel like a challenge?
