Below is a transcript of the episode as generated by Otter.ai. (*please note, this transcript has only been edited to put in line breaks for easier readability and may contain errors where a word or phrase got lost in transcription.)
[0:13] Integrating change and growth.
Aloha and welcome to Your Heart magic and illuminating space where psychology spirituality and heart wisdom meet. Here's your host, Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright, the clinical psychologist with a mystic mind.
Hello, hi, everybody. Welcome to Your Heart magic. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky. Wright. And we have a mental health toolbox episode today we are talking about the topic integrating change. So let's break this down and look at like, what does that even mean? When I was coming up with the title for this episode, I was trying to figure out a way to put in the title what this episode is about.
But everything that I started to write just felt too wordy. And I went with integrating change because it is part of our process psychologically part of our process spiritually is humans, that I think tends to be one of the most challenging when we are going through identity shifts and growth and ending one cycle and beginning another. I feel like this is the part of the process that for many of us feels darker, it is harder for us to see where we're going.
And it's where a lot of people start to feel lost and wonder if like they've lost the path or they're missing something, or they should be in a different place right now than where they are. So it's a space of our psyche that can feel really uncomfortable when we're in a space of integration.
And integration is kind of the piece of our puzzle that happens between some form of a beginning or a significant life change. And what happens because of that life change, or like how we change because of that life change. So for example, when I said I am going to move to the island of kawaii that was the seed that was planted.
And then there was the actual moving here, which was the most tangible, new beginning that at least one of the most tangible New Beginnings that I think I've definitely experienced in my adult life, then there was this whole, I'm moving here to do these things. And I've talked about this a lot in the podcast.
But one of the missions of self that I set out to do was I said, I'm coming for reinvention. And I want to live more intuitively more spiritually and more creatively. And I knew that I wanted to somehow bring into my professional work. More mediums like speaking and teaching, I wanted to be able to work with color more, I wanted to branch out beyond just doing private practice work and one on one work, I wanted to be able to talk about the Akashic records, and all the fun spiritual, Mystic cosmic stuff that lights my heart up.
And I didn't want to lose my psychological anchoring, or all the work that I poured into that part of my development. And I wanted to, on a personal level, be a different BethAnne than I had been able to be back in Alaska, not because I wanted or thought that I needed to change as a human, I really liked that version of self. But because I was listening to something inside of me that felt really trapped or felt stuck or felt like I kept falling into these old grooves in my life.
[4:01] Integrating life changes and personal growth.
And I was struggling to what I now would say is meet my unmet selves and self actualize in a bigger way and create space to do that. And so when I said I'm gonna move and actually did the move, and then I got over here and was like, Okay, now what, and I kind of pointed my compass in the direction of what I thought my true north was and where I wanted to go.
And that was supposed to be like the next phase in the cycle, right? I'm writing this new book, this story. And then the integration piece was this massive integration of everything. I just left behind. Everything that had led me to coming to the island in the first place and listening to that desire in my heart, and all the new experiences that I was starting to have. And that was a phase that at the time, I knew I was going through. I think I I wrote about it and transformations of the sun. And I kind of analyzed my own experience itself and put some language to it and talked about going through this re identification.
But I didn't really realize how long it would truly take to integrate, where I've been, who I was, where I'm going, and what I'm stepping into, and bring those things together to help better inform who I continue to become, I am still doing that integration work. And it's not quite as far back now as it was when I first got here, perhaps, but I still will work with my own self practices and kind of look at these energies of how did those first formative years on kawaii like, how are they still impacting me now? And how are they informed my choices and my understanding of my path and my journey? And how does this inform who I keep becoming.
And so that's a personal way that integration has showed up in my life. And it's a big example. It's not always that dramatic. Sometimes it can be something smaller, where we leave something behind and start something new. And we're trying to reconcile who we were and who we're becoming.
And it doesn't always happen on such a grand scale. But like I said, when we have those in between places, when we have gone through something that shifts our identity, maybe we shifted geography where we live, maybe we've changed a job or relationship, maybe we're going through a spiritual awakening are going through quite a bit of growth, and we're seeing the world around us with new eyes, maybe we've learned a new skill or people and our life around us are changing.
And we as a result of that start to change to in order to accommodate the relationships and how things are flowing, and the ecosystems of our partnerships or families or business relationships. So there's a lot of reasons why we might be going through integration.
And I actually think if we stopped at almost any given point of time, we could probably look at what am I origin in right now? Like, what new seats Am I planting? What have I transformed or release? Like, what cycle? Do I feel like I've ended? Or what's an old way of being that I really feel like I don't identify with I have left this behind? And what am I integrating? Like, what am I kind of melding together.
And I think that that process is something that they don't necessarily happen in a linear way, all three of them can be happening at once. But when we have gone through something big, and we come to that space of needing to assimilate, and sift and understand our own change, and how that keeps affecting us, that's a confusing place to be. And so that's what we're focusing on today is just putting some more dialogue around it and talking about some perspectives and tools for how to work with those times in life.
So we don't fall into the trap of feeling like we've missed the boat, or like we're doing something wrong or feeling that we should be somewhere sooner than we are. I definitely can say that. I think I've told this story before, but it's been a while. And that first year on the island, I remember receiving an Akashic reading from the woman who used to do them for me, way back in the day.
And part of the guidance that came through that first year was that I was in such a hurry, like such a hurry to do the thing. And that's a great way to think about my first four years on the island would be to think about myself as a freshman in high school or college and that the next four years were going to be like this ongoing continuing education. And I was so bummed out to hear this gradients, y'all. I have to tell you, there's times that the things I've gotten from the records are so uplifting and they're really exciting.
But at the time I just turned 40 I had successfully run a brick and mortar practice in Alaska. I felt like really proud of myself that I was like I set out to do this dream I did it I'm here in kawaii I made this move. I had a couple of books out. I had a doctor in front of my name for crying out loud. And to be told it's gonna be like being a freshman was really humbling for me, but that is exactly what it felt like when I look back on that time.
Sometimes they call it the cold years when adolescents are growing up and they grow into their bodies really fast and they feel really gangly and awkward and they don't quite know how to use the changes going on in them.
Those felt like the cold years I was learning so much about creating new spiritual practices so much about working with the records and how to share that information with others in a way that felt grounded and approach verbal, so much about myself and having to clear out old things that I didn't even know were there.
And now all of a sudden, I had all this new space that had opened up. And I was coming face to face with more shadow work inside of me and self doubts. And I had a lot of grief that had not fully been processed in relationship with my brother, there was all these things I was able to access as I was going through those first few years. And so I felt messy and vulnerable a lot.
[10:32] Embracing the mess and integrating big change.
And that's the first point that I want to share today is that understand that integration is messy. It's not sitting down in your journal for one or two good journaling sessions, where you talk about where you've been, and where you want to go and who you are. Now, those are helpful things to do. But truly living an integration when we've made big changes in our life, it's a messy thing.
And some common things that we might feel is feeling really displaced, like a sense of I don't know who I am anymore, I not that person over there, I don't quite identify with the old way I used to be, but I don't know what I'm stepping into. And feeling like we're in this void space, this nebula and we don't quite know who we are, we sort of forgotten ourselves because we were meant to forget an older self. And we haven't remembered the new truth that we're meant to step into yet, we haven't had that moment of epiphany and insight.
So that can also feel really vulnerable. Sometimes we can feel quite just placed or out of place in our own life, or really out of sync, we might feel off our game, we might have an urge to fix it, or to control it, or try and contain it, and say I'm just not myself right now. And so I'm going to take this self improvement program and you know, do these things to get myself back on track.
Sometimes those things are helpful. Sometimes they give shape to us and that process and give us a way to harness our energies, and to continue to have a sense of momentum, while we continue to do the work of psychological change and integration. And sometimes those things aren't helpful at all. And we say, Gosh, I wonder why this isn't working. I don't understand this has always worked for me in the past, you know, why is this not working right now, or this feels kind of superficial, are one dimensional, and I used to really enjoy it, what's going on with me.
And if we've been through some big change, then there's a good chance that in terms of our soul and psyche, and in our world, our river beneath the river is shifting inside. And that might be something else that we feel like there's something deeper going on in us, or that something bigger is happening, but we feel like we can't quite access it. It's like having a layer of ice frozen, but it's thin.
And you can see underneath there that the river is flowing, the waters moving there's life in the water, but it's not quite ready to show what it is. I wrote a poem, when I was going through the loss of my brother called New Shell.
This was probably about three months after losing branch. And I could feel something was happening in me with my grief. Like I had a felt sense of felt sense, meaning I could almost feel in my body. Like if I had to put words to what's going on in my inner world. What am I feeling, I felt like something was shifting, I kept having these images in my mind's eye a baby chicks about to hatch and pop up out of their egg,
I could feel that my grief was leading me somewhere. And that if I just stayed with it, it was going to lead me into something new. And so there was this sense of things shifting inside of me. And if I had to draw a picture of it, I might have drawn a picture of ice with water moving underneath it, or the earth that's still mostly frozen.
But underneath that layer of ice, what you can't see is there are these little tiny sprouts and shoots that are getting ready to these bulbs. And they're going to sprout and shoot up once the sun comes out. And it warms. Those are the kinds of images that I would have put to what I was feeling emotionally and sensory at that time. And that was an integration time for me I was integrating the initial stages of the loss and what was going to come from that was the urge to move to Hawaii, and you know, do this big life change.
And that middle stage that integration was what was going on in my inner world. And so integration is something that often happens in our subconscious. It happens in our inner world. It is something that we might access more when we are journaling or working with something that drops us into our inner world like taro cards, or music or coloring, or art or something like that.
[15:05] Integrating life changes and trusting the process.
And so I find it helpful to create a container where we can explore what's going on inside of us. But I also know that sometimes integration happens of its own accord. And we can also trust and not control the process and just know that our soul and our inner self, it has a process and a timing all of its own. And that timing is syncing with spirits timing and the timing in our life, so that everything truly does come together and make itself clear in divine time.
So that messiness is an integral part of understanding this process of integration. And just giving ourselves permission to let it be messy, know that it might feel vulnerable, a little bit uncontrolled. And we want to find that balance between giving ourselves containers and healthy ways to shape it or express it. That could be writing that could be therapy, or talking to somebody that you trust and putting it into language, yet at the same time, also just letting it have its own space for it to happen.
And knowing that, we're probably going to spend some days where we feel like we're wandering in the wilderness and can't quite see the forest through the trees. And I think if we know that, that is part of our psychological process, and makes it easier for us not to attach to it, and not to attach a wrong interpretation, like I've lost my way, or I missing something, or some sort of negative self message.
And instead, we're able to trust and say, I think I'm going through some real integrative stuff in my life, right now, I just made these changes, it hasn't been a lot of time for me to sit with it, and to bring it into myself. And so I can trust and know that things are moving together inside of me. And I will feel more clear and more certain in the next part of my soul cycle or in the next part of the season. So that is why it's so important to give ourselves, I actually wrote the words down the necessity of time and space.
And that comes back to expectation, putting expectations on ourselves, and also trying to carve out space to understand what's going on inside of us. When we've been through some sort of a change. It's interesting to me how often I might talk to somebody and they'll tell me these big things that have gone on in their life.
And then they can't understand why they're feeling out of sorts, or why they're still feeling out of rhythm. And I'll say, Well, you had this big loss like five months ago, and you know, this big thing happened, and this is going on in your life. Well, but yeah, but that was five months ago.
Is it really still impacting me now? Like, yes, yes, it is. All of it keeps weaving into whatever comes next. So sometimes we really want to rush the process. And I, as much as I love being able to put something in the oven and have it cook really fast, or you know, some people might zap it in the microwave, or have instant gratification, right?
If I want to read a book, I've got a Kindle, all I have to do is go online in order for my Kindle. And within 60 seconds of having the thought, Oh, I really feel like reading the new book by so and so that can be downloaded. And I can be reading the new book by so and so without having to even wait for it to come in the mail or have anything like that. And that is the page that our modern world moves.
And so we expect ourselves to move at that pace as well. And that is not what happens. We are not the technology of this modern day world, we do not move on a soul level at that fast of a pace. Usually we move at a much slower pace.
And so even if our life circumstances have moved quickly, we can still be processing those circumstances processing our change, putting pieces together sifting through feelings, oftentimes, when we had been through something major in our lives, and then justice finally settling is oftentimes like when the trauma or the grief or the feelings might come up.
And that's confusing, too, because people feel like well, why wasn't I feeling this six months ago when I was going through my divorce, like why is all this coming up now. And a lot of times it's because psychologically, our psyche knows that now it's safe to process it. It wasn't safe to process it when we were living the change.
There wasn't emotional bandwidth for it. There wasn't space for it. There was no time for those feelings to come up. It might not have been appropriate to access them or we wouldn't have found what we needed to survive and work with the change. And then the dust settles and all of a sudden we've got space.
And space allows us to receive from our inner world. And that's when we realize that, oh, there's all this stuff there. So we can't rush our process. And we have to have realistic expectations around what that process looks like and creating time and space.
And just thinking in terms of the phrase time and space telling ourselves, I need time and space, how can I create space? How can I give myself time can be a very freeing thing to do. So we step away from self judgment, or again, attaching to an expectation that we should be somewhere other than where we're at.
Because when we have that kind of an expectation, not only does it rob us from presence in the given moment, but it keeps us from perhaps tapping into the psychologically rich and fertile soil, in our in our world when we take the time to harvest our experience and integrate it.
[20:59] Integrating personal growth and self-awareness: giving it time.
And I was thinking today before I hopped on here and started speaking about when maybe you've made soup, and you put it on the stove, and you let it simmer, and it tastes really good that evening. But when it sits overnight, and it's reheated the next day, maybe even two days later, there are certain soups and dishes that tastes even better. Why is that? Why is it that the longer it sits together and mixes into one another that somehow the flavours complement each other more and they blend and it deepens, enrich.
And somehow, that is the alchemy of cooking. And it's a great metaphor for the alchemy of us. And why sometimes we just need time, we need things to mix together and blend a little bit more and find ways to take disparate experiences itself and blend them that says, Okay, this is who I am now, I was here.
And now I'm here. And both of those things can be true for me and coexist within my ecosystem itself. And that is the last point I want to talk about today. It's all a part of your whole, even if you have moved away from an old behavior that is no longer you, let's say you have stepped out of an addiction, some sort of an addictive cycle are toxic relationship.
And for your own boundaries, you have to be very clear to yourself and say I am not that person anymore. I am writing a new story. And in this new story, I don't fill in the blank, I don't drink, I don't do this activity. I no longer am involved with this person, whatever it is that felt toxic or addictive to you. And I think it's important when we're moving in a new direction to let ourselves know I've made the change. That is not who I am anymore. At the same time, it is helpful to say but it was who I was.
And I can learn from my own history to help me understand where I came from, to better inform where I'm going. So even if we're moving in a new direction, it is helpful for us to understand where we've been and why we've been there. And it's all part of our whole.
So even if we've stepped away from something that isn't healthy for us, or isn't good for us, or we really don't like who we were, and we're trying to make changes and become a better version of ourselves. It is 100% okay to say I am not that person anymore. I was. And now I'm doing it this way.
At the same time, I think it's really helpful to realize that there's value and what we've already lived through. And even if we feel like we weren't creating a good path for yourself, how can we work with that part of ourselves that part of our history and find compassion, and forgiveness? And how can we learn from our mistakes, we can't just cut it off and say, I really didn't like who I was then.
And so I want to deny this part of me and pretend like it didn't happen and kind of shun that part of my history. It takes a lot of courage to face ourselves when we have made choices that we don't feel good about. But at the same time, that's where the good stuff is. And that's really where we can dig through that darkness and dig through that history and find the gems of insight that help us feel more empowered to keep choosing a better way.
So all of it is part of who we are, even if we've gone through a significant identity shift. And we feel like that's not who I am anymore. We can work with who we were by drawing a big giant circle in our journal and writing down. How did I understand myself then who was I then? What were my choices? What have I learned from them? And we can write down? Who do I want to be? And where am I going? And who am I trying to be now? And maybe what steps do I need to get there.
[25:09] The good, the bad, the in-between, it is all a part of our wholeness of being.
And we can put all of that together, and just join it by the word. And instead of looking at it, so black and white and detaching or dissociating or denying that part of ourself. So it's all a part of our whole, even if we are feeling really lost, and I think these are helpful frameworks to understand the process of integration.
So when we find ourselves in that space in our life, we feel more empowered to work with what's coming up for us with a little bit more self grace, self compassion, and definitely more patience for the process. Thank you so much for joining me for this mental health toolbox episode on integrating change.
We will be back next week with a new episode and it will be an Energy Update for the month of May. It's the first week of May and so we always do an Energy Update at the month ahead and look at what are the energies coming up and what do we need to know to navigate them and work with them.
So that is next week's episode. In the meantime, have an amazing week. Be well be love, be you and be magic.
You've been listening to your heart magic with Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your life