integrated

Deep confession: I don't know how to *relax.*

As a yoga teacher I've struggled with this for over a decade. I thought I just needed to do more breathwork, meditation, or nothing at all - but honestly, as someone with sensory processing disorder and a history of trauma, these things can feel triggering and invalidating at the best of times.

The state of calm feels inaccessible. Whoever is managing calm these days well, I think I'd like your algorithm. Daily, I watch entirely avoidable devastation happen to people and the planet because of a collectively normalized greed that puts money first and each other never and I don't know man. Tuning out and turning off feels like a call to dull my senses in a time I’m certain they should be sharp. I got some qualms about calm.

The language of a “regulated nervous system” itches my britches for the same reason. The etymology of the word regulate means “to control by rule” or “to direct in a straight line.” And oh, how sexy the idea of control feels when everything is upended in the world. But it has this subtle undercurrent that my spirited emotions just need to be pacified. That I should work with them until they are transformed into something more palatable and productive.

Yet I know I need an opposite direction to turn when I so often feel anxious, agitated and, you know - fragmented in time and space. So, what instead?

I've been working with an Occupational Therapist (HIGHLY recommend for neurodivergent folks btw) who suggested I try this word, integrated: to render (something) whole, bring together the parts of. What’s so validating about “integrated” is that it squarely locates the root of my problem: I am fragmented because of the chaos around me and, by extension, within me. With the problem properly diagnosed, the solution became apparent, too - to work with modalities that help orient me toward my ground zero, wholeness.

My OT proposed a dressy scarf I can wear to work but that can convert to a full torso sock when I need to feel contained; or, a weighted blanket. Sometimes though, what I need isn’t an input but an outlet.  I don’t need a Tibetan singing bowls playlist, for example; I need to punch a pillow or scream out loud to a RATM album or swim approximately 47 laps in my local pool to get the shake to settle in my hands.

These small actions are rewiring how I think. For decades, when my body registered a threat that my brain dismissed, her instincts went underground. They surfaced at inconvenient times as rage and resentment and a kinetic kind of anxiety that I’d figured must be my personality.

What’s been harder than anticipated about this integration work is to “go against my instincts,” the way an addict in recovery must do to unlearn the compulsive habits that have become second nature. All my life, I’ve passively consumed messages that told me the way to recover from chronic burnout and overstimulation was to separate myself from that chaos. Lo, how many well-meaning mindfulness teachers have told me to “leave my worries at the door!” The messages imply that it’s possible – and desirable (!) - to separate myself from my too-complex or difficult parts. The problem they suggest I’m solving for, then, is distance from myself, not integration; and by extension, that some parts of me are meant not to be embraced, but rejected – as if that was the design all along.

Perhaps my aversion to statements like" “just relax” was warranted.

Amos Wilson said, “if you want to understand any problem… you need to focus on who profits from the problem.” What a coincidence that the business of escaping myself kept me beholden to billion-dollar industries and their well-marketed solutions that claimed settling my deep unrest was perpetually just one purchase away. Blowing the cover on this illusion (a.k.a. stripping chaos down to its studs) helped me understand that chaos is a profitable myth. And practices which foster my wholeness threaten the bottom line.

The glorified picture we see of folks using mindfulness tools like meditation and breath work is they’re relaxed and free. However, research shows that unless mindfulness tools like meditation and breath work are grounded in self-awareness, they can serve to reinforce our biases and conditioning. I might, for example, think that my inability to get relaxed is due to some personal failing of mine, which would lead to me on dead-end side quests, further reinforcing my dependency on external solutions. By contrast, when I’m clear that the goal of using these practices is to pull myself back together, I don’t chase calm. I allow it: the way I allow fury, because it’s what my body and mind have decided is warranted. Both hold value and wisdom equally.

Now I won’t lie, this integration stuff is unglamorous. It’s confusing, unpredictable, taxing, and inconvenient – but it’s also honest. Permissive. I’m furious and rageful far more often than I am calm, but I also know unbridled joy and connection because of it. I am alert to myself and learning how to intentionally choose who I become – and I think that’s a whole lot better than eternally calm, anyway.