Integration is the process of absorbing and implementing the knowledge and experience into the various facets of one’s everyday life after deciding to use ayahuasca for therapeutic reasons and attending an ayahuasca retreat. Integration begins before attending a retreat and continues after the retreat has concluded.
Integration is an important part of getting the most out of an ayahuasca retreat as it provides a means of contextualizing and personalizing the experience for each individual participant. Integration is unique for each participant based on their intentions, personality, tendencies, struggles, aspirations, and a myriad number of other considerations.
Because ayahuasca retreats are almost always held in the indigenous regions where the plant medicine grows, the surroundings of a retreat experience itself are for most people in sharp contrast to the surroundings of an attendee’s everyday life. A jungle environment with limited to no contact with the outside world, careful dietary planning, the sounds of nature, foreign languages, and time spent with new acquaintances, all set the stage for a retreat experience that is powerful, often life-changing, and which comes and goes with limited time to process it all mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
In addition, a fundamental understanding about the importance of integration is that ayahuasca’s therapeutic effects do not abruptly stop in the hours or days after a retreat comes to its conclusion. While the temporary increase of neurogeneration and neuroplasticity subsides, the new connections made during the ceremonies continue on, and the medicine itself continues to act subtly long after the retreat is over.
Finally, participants often find that they face challenges of one sort or another when they return home. This is only natural after their travel, exotic surroundings, and profound journeys with ayahuasca’s plant spirit. These challenges can be related to relationships, professional path, personal identity, and many other facets of life, and they are most often related to the intentions that participants set before their retreat when considering ayahuasca as a therapeutic measure in their lives.
For these reasons, integration exists to ensure that the benefits that retreat participants receive do not come to an abrupt end with the end of the retreat and their return to their everyday lives. It is a means through which every step along the way during the ayahuasca experience, from first considerations to long after attending a retreat, is connected and meaningful for the individual.
In general, integration of ayahuasca begins with setting clear intentions for the experience. This occurs before attending a retreat and can sometimes begin months or even years before. Setting intentions is a process in and of itself, whereby an individual reflects on the reasons that they are drawn to ayahuasca as a healing medicine and puts these reflections into understandable terms whereby the purpose for attending the retreat is clear and purposeful.
During retreat, integration is ongoing with various means of reflecting on and processing the experience as it happens. This may be done through consultations with facilitators or the curandero, through the use of writing, journaling, conversation, or creative expression.
After the retreat’s conclusion, reflection and comprehension continue through various exercises. A follow-up conversation from a facilitator or integration specialist may be conducted. Participants should, at this point, be self-enabled with tools to continue the integration process for as long as they feel appropriate to ensure that their ayahuasca experience finds a place deep within them and the benefits of their experience continue long into the future.
