There are many authors who speak about this and have been for a very long time. Neville Goddard, Vadim Zeland, and Frederick Dodson are a few of the authors I have been diving back into over the last few months.

These concepts are not new to me and perhaps they are not new to you either. Concepts like our thoughts and beliefs participating in the reality we experience. Parallel realities. Consciousness as fundamental. You are the creator of your universe. You are the universe. As within, so without. As above, so below.

And so on and so on.

Some of these ideas are mystical. Some are philosophical. And interestingly, there are places where modern physics has opened questions that, at the very least, make reality feel much stranger than the solid, singular thing I was taught it was.

There is the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, for example, which goes back to physicist Hugh Everett and proposes that there may be many different worlds corresponding to different possible quantum outcomes. It is one interpretation of quantum mechanics, a possibility that we can consciously jump from one timeline into another. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

And still, I find this question fascinating:

And then, I turn toward some of the much older wisdom traditions I study and find another version of this question.

In nondual Tantra, particularly Kashmir Shaivism, consciousness is not simply something happening inside a physical universe. Consciousness itself is understood as fundamental, with the world appearing as an expression or movement of that consciousness.

Now, this is different from saying, “If I think positively enough, I can make anything happen.” This has not been my lived reality, I have tried.

I am interested in what is true for me. What is possible to know from my own lived experienced. I am All In.

For a few months, I have been letting go of constantly questioning these concepts and moving instead into the practical application of the tools and techniques taught by these philosophers, authors, yogis, and mystics.

What happens if I actually try it? What happens if I stop standing outside the experiment analyzing it and step all the way inside?

Something I am finding particularly interesting today is after everything I have studied, so much of it seems to eventually bring me back to the same place.

Which sounds so simple.

Except we are incredibly dynamic beings with minds capable of reasoning, analyzing, remembering, predicting, comparing, protecting, planning, and questioning.

So letting go is much more challenging than simply thinking: Okay, I let go.

Know what I mean?

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If letting go were that easy, we would all be masters at it. We probably would not need to keep talking about it, meditating, breath-working, going to therapy, sitting in ceremony, working with our parts, practicing yoga, or finding a hundred different ways to loosen our grip.

Maybe so much of what we are doing in all these methodologies and modalities is aiming to have the embodied experience of letting go.

Over and over and over again.

And what is all this letting go supporting us to heal or overcome?

What is the grip protecting?

What becomes available when we stop holding so tightly?

The Bhagavad Gita speaks to something similar in its teaching on action and attachment. We are invited to participate fully in life while releasing our demand to control exactly what comes from our actions.

Act. Participate. But loosen the grip on the outcome.

I love this because letting go does not mean not caring. It does not mean becoming passive. It does not mean doing nothing. It means participating without gripping.

Choosing not to question whether everything these authors teach is true or not and instead giving myself a few months to be All In is fun for me.

It feels playful. Like a game with the energy of creation. With consciousness itself. What is possible if I believe that there could be versions of my life I cannot currently see? What is possible if I imagine another existence so vividly that my body begins to recognize it?

What happens if instead of immediately saying,

“That is impossible,” I say: “Okay. Let’s see. Let’s Go.”

And, you know what happens sometimes when I say yes to a new belief system? The old belief systems get really freaked out. Parts of me get really freaked out. No longer believing something I was taught to believe can be terrifying for some parts. Changing what I believe about the very notion of life has been gratifying, freeing, liberating, and completely disorienting.

IFS gives useful language here.

Instead of treating the doubtful, fearful, controlling, irritated voices inside me as something I need to get rid of, I can become curious about them.

Who is speaking? What does this part believe? What is it protecting? What does it think will happen if I actually change?

Because of course some part of me might say:

Absolutely not. This is ridiculous. We cannot believe this. We need to know what is going to happen. And, maybe that part does not need to be fought with. Maybe it needs to be included.

This experiment has been exhausting on some days. And, it has also gifted me some of the best days of my life.

And guess what?

The best days of my life are filled with the simplest pleasures.

High quality food. A slow enough pace that I can savor the clean air and fresh water. The sun. Laughter. Play with people I love. Rest. Movement. Expression of some sort. Sweating. Loving on the Earth.

It is all so simple and basic.

This is one of the things I love most about Instinctive Meditation.

It has taught me how to savor life.

Life is now. Life is here. The meditation tradition I study continually brings me back into intimacy with the actual experience of being alive.

Breath. Sensation. Desire. Sound. Rest. Movement. Wonder. The senses.

The Radiance Sutras and the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra offer meditation not only as what we often think of as meditation, but as recognizing doorways into the sacred everywhere.

Life itself becomes the meditation. Savoring has become such an important word for me. Because I can be completely devoted to this experiment in reality creation without making the life I have now wrong. I do not have to create because this moment is insufficient. I can create just to create. Just to play with life force energy. Just because it is interesting to see what life wants to become through me.

Honestly, why create an existence that is simply an upgraded version of the one I have now?

More money? More success? More stuff? More status?

What interests me is:

How could another reality allow me to become more available to life? How could I be of greater service to humanity, the Earth, the people around me?

Something I notice is that as we grow and heal, we often naturally become more available to help and influence others. Our desire systems change.

Maybe we begin with the I.

How do I feel better? How do I heal? How do I create what I want? How do I become more myself?

And eventually something begins turning toward the we.

How can I contribute? How can I love? How can I support? How can I leave the room, the land, the relationship, the community a little more nourished than when I entered?

As I type this, I think about the people I encountered in India.

It felt to me that there was often more inherent connection to the we before the I. In Western culture, many of us have been taught something different. Develop yourself. Differentiate yourself. Heal yourself. Find yourself. Build your life.

Perhaps our route is often:

Heal the I and then caring for the we follows. Maybe another culture takes another route. Either way, arriving at greater care for the we feels important.

And I know many of us are already there.

I care deeply about being a light, a love, a present being in the world because it feels right in my body. And, because I see how it affects the room.

If more of us are shining a little brighter without being big about it, just going about our days filled with a little more radiance, humor, levity, presence, generosity, and love, that has a certain kind of ripple.

Nothing grandiose. Just a human being who is a little more available/present. I imagine you know what I am talking about. Those days when you have a pep in your step and somehow the whole world seems to respond to you differently.

Maybe the cashier starts joking with you. Maybe someone smiles. Maybe you have more patience. Maybe you notice the bird. Maybe you call the person you have been thinking about. Maybe you actually listen when someone is talking instead of rushing toward the next thing.

Your inner world changes the way you participate with the outer world. And the outer world responds.

This is where I think the idea of “creating reality” becomes interesting even before we get anywhere near the mystical questions.

Belief.

Perception.

Attention.

State.

Choice.

Relationship.

Action.

Reality.

We are participating.

This morning, my All In experiment taught me something about conscious choice. Some of my old beliefs were right there. I started to feel heavy. Annoyed. Bad. Judgy. Sad for myself. And then I was like:

Wait a minute.

Who is speaking right now? What is up? Guess what, I thought. We are changing narratives. And, instead of fighting what I was feeling, analyzing it for an hour, believing every thought, or deciding this was simply how the day was going to go, I laid down. I breathed. I meditated. I got myself into a more coherent state. And all that heaviness lifted. Completely. Gone without a fight.

This All In experiment is teaching me that changing our lives is both embodied and energetic.

We cannot only think ourselves into a new reality. We have bodies coming along for the ride. We have nervous systems. Histories. Parts. Habits. Old expectations. Protective responses.

Sometimes we can cognitively believe something entirely new while our body is still living inside the old story. Sometimes the body needs help coming with us.

We can shift our state through breathwork and meditation. We can practice imagining new possibilities through visualization. We can become aware of the narratives that have been unconsciously directing our lives.

We can practice not obeying every thought that appears.

We can rest. We can move. We can breathe. We can love the scared part. We can savor what is already here. And perhaps, little by little, our relationship with reality changes.

Sometimes reality creation might look like imagining the life you want. Sometimes it might look like catching a thought before it becomes an entire day. Sometimes it might look like lying on the floor and breathing for ten minutes. Sometimes it might look like letting yourself receive something good without immediately waiting for it to disappear. Sometimes it might look like taking a risk. Sometimes it might look like doing absolutely nothing.

Maybe all of these teachings I am studying meet somewhere around here:

And then there is me - right here, right now:

Living it. Trying it. Seeing what happens. That is the part I care about most. I want to know for myself. I am documenting my ride through this All In experiment not because I have figured out the nature of infinite reality. Ha! I definitely have not.

I am documenting it because I am curious. Because I want to see what happens when I stop half believing and half doubting everything and devote myself to an experiment long enough to actually learn something from it.

And perhaps something I discover along the way will invite you into an All In experiment of your own.

Maybe the experiment is not about becoming the master of reality. Maybe it is about becoming an increasingly conscious participant in it. Creating. Listening. Choosing. Imagining. Letting go. Savoring.

And seeing what becomes possible from there.

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Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Want to Experiment Together?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September. Learn more at heatherbriann.com.

Inspired by Sutra 94 and the teachings surrounding it in The Radiance Sutras by Dr. Lorin Roche, this meditation is an invitation into receiving. We begin with a few minutes of spaciousness, placing no restrictions on attention or the body and welcoming whatever is naturall…

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Reverence, can be the feeling that often arises when we encounter a sacred sense of awe and wonder within our practice. Within ourselves.

What are some examples of what can be sacred?

Nature.

The divi…

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This meditation invites you to slow down, listen, and reconnect with the natural currents already moving through you as thoughts, emotions, sensations, breath, and instinct.

Through humming, visualization, grounding, and embodied awareness, you’ll be …

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Mike has navigated vision loss, neurodivergence, major life changes, and periods where he felt deeply stuck. Today, he is back in school after 25 years, making the Dean’s List, running a thriving business, supporting others in the vision-impaired community, and continuing to ask what it means to live in a way that feels true.

One of my favorite moments was Mike’s metaphor about plants:

“You have a plant in the wrong window and you’re giving it the wrong water. It’ll just sit there and droop until it dies. But if you move it to a different window and give it the right water, it can bloom and flourish.”

And then:

“Sometimes you just have to figure out that you’re in the wrong window.”

YES.

Sometimes the work is not learning how to survive our current conditions better.

Sometimes it is realizing we have choices.

Mike said:

“People don’t even realize they have choices… they don’t see so many open doors all around them.”

And when we cannot see the next door?

His invitation was wonderfully simple:

“There’s a world out there. Go get in it. Go wander.”

We also talked about boundaries, community, breathing, curiosity, smelling flowers, getting excited about water, and keeping alive what Mike calls a childlike sense of wonder.

Because integration is not only about tending to what hurts. It is also about coming back into relationship with life.

At the end, I asked Mike the question I ask everyone in this series:

If all of humanity were listening right now, what would you want them to hear?

His answer:

Stack little victories.

Find the better window.

Go wander.

Stay curious — WONDER 😉

There is so much more inside this conversation with Mike.

Take a listen by clicking the play button above. ⬆️

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live to this conversation with Mike! Stay tuned for future conversations. The app is the best way to seamlessly connect to these conversations. ⬇️

Get more from Heather Briann in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Want to go deeper?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September.

Learn more at heatherbriann.com ✨

I have spent over 17 years learning that there are some things we can only practice in the presence of other people.

Being seen. Telling the truth before we have perfectly organized it. Staying in our bodies while we speak. Letting someone witness the parts of us we would rather polish, hide, or explain away.

That is why I keep coming back to these spaces, both as a participant and as a facilitator.

The growth arc I have experienced over these years, put in a playful way, has gone from sweating profusely before and during my sharing time to now having more of a subtle glisten before and during my shares. Ha!

If you are not a sweat-er like me, perhaps this example is more resonant: the almost unbearable feeling of my heart about to pop out of my chest and a bubble forming in my throat that would often trip up my words, probably because I was holding my breath too tightly.

Now, I can acknowledge the heart beating fast. I can feel the sensations. I have the ability to consciously ground and breathe before and during my share. And the only way I have grown into feeling more at home, confident, and empowered within myself in the presence of others is by continuing to show up in these held group spaces.

And that is just one layer of growth. More at home. More confident. More present within myself as a woman in the world, as a human, as a coach, a partner, a friend.

And then there is the content inside of these group spaces that we explore. Concepts that have been passed down from antiquity that we are still as a humanity, churning on, recreating, remembering, and experimenting with in the here and now.

As a forever learner type of human and a coach, I love exploring wisdom traditions from Christian mysticism to Tantra through to quantum physics. What do all of these voices, teachers, philosophers, and traditions have to say about healing, consciousness, co-creating life, moving from fear to love, practicing presence?

I have a ceaseless, endless hunger for these concepts. I think it was just the cloth I was cut from. I mean, I am a Pisces sun sign after all. One degree away from Aries, but still, that Neptunian, liminal, ethereal, universal energy is somewhere I feel very at home.

There are some days when I honestly would love to never come back from my deep, meditative, expansive adventures. Being in this human flesh-and-bone existence is something I am learning to accept and embrace over and over again.

This is another reason why being around other humans is so good for me.

Being around humans who are also curious about their spirits and the Spirit, and yet who express their complexity, laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and who come from different life paths than me — offers fresh perspectives and insights.

It is different than reading a research article or a book about concepts like energy movement, meditation, our Essential Nature, grounding, presence, consciousness, or healing trauma. Don’t get me wrong. The books are hugely important.

AND seeing yourself in the story of another human just has more felt-sense impact. At least that has been my experience. And I have heard this from others too.

This is, in many ways, why I created || Group ||.

Because I know what it is like to have a rich inner world and still need other humans to help me practice being fully myself inside of relationship.

To practice saying what is true.

To practice staying with myself while someone else shares what is true for them.

To explore the big questions about healing, consciousness, love, fear, desire, presence, spirit, and what it means to be a human beings and spirit beings.

That is what we practice inside of || Group ||

We gather. We slow down. We name what is right here - right now. We explore teachings and ideas. We move into guided practice. We notice what happens in the body. We listen to one another without immediately trying to fix, advise, or solve. We practice being honest without having to be polished. We practice letting what is true today be allowed to change tomorrow.

The foundation of the space is simple: truth over performance, presence over fixing, embodiment over abstraction, community over isolation, and trust in the pace of integration.

And then we take all of that back into our actual lives.

Into the conversation with a partner.

Into the moment when anxiety arrives.

Into the decision we keep second guessing.

Into the body that is asking us to slow down.

Into the desire we have been afraid to name.

Into the moment when we notice we are leaving ourselves and have an opportunity to come back.

Not just having an insight in a group call.

Living differently because of what we practiced there.

The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in a few weeks.

It is for people who are curious about these same things and who want a space to practice coming home to themselves while being in honest relationship with others.

Over the six weeks, we explore Essential Nature, meditation and presencing practices, nervous system regulation and restoration, the heart, wounds as portals, desire, and the wisdom traditions that have been asking these same human questions for a very long time.

But underneath all of that, what we are really practicing is something very simple.

Showing up as we are. Telling the truth about what is here. Listening deeply. Letting ourselves be seen. Learning from one another. And discovering what becomes possible when we do that together.

Fall Cohort. 6 weeks.
September 10, 17, 24. October 1, 8, 15

3-4:30pm PST // 6-7:30pm EST

• Weekly on Zoom
• 90-minute sessions
• Guided practices
• Reflection, conversation, and community
• Recorded practices and resources between sessions

$300 (venmo or zelle)

Sliding scale options exist, please reply back if you need some financial assistance.

If you are a YES, simply reply to this email and I’ll send you next steps.

Read more about it in these two places: here and here

With love, Heather ✨

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This meditation invites you to slow down, soften, and receive the nourishment of the earth beneath and around you.

Through sensory awareness, breath, grounding, visualization, and savoring, you’ll reconnect…

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One of the themes that stayed with me was Tim’s description of Integration as something iterative. We take something in. We live with it. We return to life. We notice what happens. Then we get another chance.

“Seeing how it feels the second time around or third time around or fourth time around… it’s sort of lowered the stakes for anything.”

What about trying on the concept of Integration as lowering the stakes. Not needing to get it right the first time. Not demanding perfection.

Learning through experience.

Tim shared that one of his earliest practices for understanding himself came through something ordinary: eating. He began noticing the moment when his body felt almost satisfied.

“If I can tell when I’m almost satisfied with food, that extends to everything else.”

That simple practice helped him become more aware of other internal states too. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. The felt sense of what was actually happening inside him.

We also talked about difficult emotions and the stories we tell ourselves while we are inside them. Tim began tracking how long his hardest emotional states actually lasted.

“Spoiler, it was a couple hours tops.”

The feelings still came, but he began gathering evidence that they would also move.

From there, our conversation moved into work, achievement, parenting, balance, interruption, and what happens when life itself becomes the Integration practice. Sometimes Integration is not sitting down to process an experience. Sometimes it is noticing how you respond when your child walks into the room while you are deep in your work. Sometimes it is realizing you responded in a way you do not love and getting another opportunity the next time.

At the end of every conversation in this series, I ask:

Tim paused. Then after explaining a bit he said:

“If everybody was listening, I’d like to meet you.”

What if we carried that energy into our next interaction?

I’d like to meet you. Who are you? What is happening in there?

There is much more in this conversation about experimentation, emotional awareness, our relationship with achievement, parenting, balance, and learning to integrate through the ordinary moments of a life.

Click the video above to listen to this 8th conversation in the series.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live to this conversation with Tim! Join me and for next Wednesday’s Substack live on this topic of Integration. The app is the best way to seamlessly connect to these conversations. ⬇️

Get more from Heather Briann in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Want to go deeper?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September.

Learn more at heatherbriann.com ✨

The one who spent all her time outside. The one who spoke with the animals, sang with the birds, wandered through the forest, and somehow lived in this effortless relationship with the more than human world. I think it was Snow White, although I suppose it does not really matter.

The image has stayed with me my whole life. A woman completely at home in nature.

The past few months here in Costa Rica have felt like a fairy tale at times. Not because magical things are simply happening to me, but because I have been intentionally participating in relationship with the land and the animals around me.

I know some people reading this will think, “No way.”

Others will quietly smile and think, “Of course. Me too.”

Wherever you land, you are welcome here.

I am not writing this to convince anyone of what is possible or impossible. I am simply documenting my own experience. Sharing stories. Offering a glimpse into the life of the person who arrives in your inbox each week. And perhaps, if nothing else, reminding you to pay a little closer attention to your own life.

There is a hawk who has quickly become one of the main characters in mine.

Well… Jaiya will always be number one. The hawk has graciously accepted a close second.

It is honestly difficult for me to remember exactly where our relationship began. I could pull out my journal and find the first entry, but I am not going to do that in this moment because sometimes stories are less about timelines and more about moments that change us.

Historically, I have never considered myself much of a bird person. That changed when I moved here.

Within my first week on this land, I remember thinking that I must be living inside some undisclosed bird sanctuary. There are birds everywhere. Calls I had never heard before. Brilliant flashes of color moving through the trees. Butterflies. Insects. Plant life unlike anything I had known.

I laughed at myself while I type this. Of course! I am living in one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. I rarely do much research before I move somewhere. I tend to trust the inner knowing that says, “Go there,” more than I trust anyone else’s description of a place.

The birds slowly became part of my mornings. Then one day, she arrived.

I call the hawk “she.” I do not actually know whether she is female, but sometimes she carries the feeling of my grandmother, so “she” it is.

She left me a feather. (pic below)

Not tucked away somewhere impossible to notice, but directly on the path I walk each morning to visit the chickens. She circles the property. She appears during meditation. Sometimes I will call for her, open my eyes, and there she is.

One day during my morning practice she carried me upward, higher and higher, showing me images that somehow felt both ancient and familiar. Whether that happened in my imagination or somewhere beyond it ——- is becoming less and less important to me.

I have decided to be “All In” on the experiment. You might remember reading about another part of this experiment here.

An experiment of not needing to explain every extraordinary moment. Instead, I document it. I notice how I feel when she appears. I notice what I am thinking about. I notice the quality of my nervous system before and after seeing her. I let the experience speak for itself.

This morning I was walking to look for one of the neighborhood cats which is another jungle story for another day.

There she was. Perched somewhere new.

“Hey, Mama,” I said. “Thank you for being here. Are you going to help us find Kitty Kitty today?”

I slowly walked toward her until I reached what she must have considered an appropriate distance. With complete ease, she lifted off the branch, glided into the plumeria tree ahead, and settled herself there.

I love watching her land. There is this tiny wiggle of her tail feathers as she finds her balance. One of those tail feathers was her gift on the path as I described above.

Every time I see her I feel the same thing. Relief. A deep exhale. A surrendered yes.

The feeling is not really about the hawk.

The hawk reminds me of something I am practicing remembering. I am always supported. That is an identity I have consciously chosen. Not because life is always easy. Not because everything unfolds the way I would prefer.

But, because over and over again I experience life meeting me in unexpected ways.

Sometimes support arrives as a friend. Sometimes as an insight. Sometimes as rest. Sometimes as a hawk circling overhead. The hummingbirds seem to have joined the team as well.

Whenever I begin drifting away from that knowing, one of them appears. It is as if they whisper, “You forgot for a moment.”

And I remember.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes that knowing you love the Earth changes you. I think the opposite is also true. When the Earth knows you love her, she begins revealing herself in ways you could never have imagined. Maybe not because she suddenly changed. Maybe because you finally slowed down enough to notice. This has become one of the great experiments of my life.

What becomes possible when we open ourselves to more possibilities?

What relationships become available when we stop assuming we already know what is real?

What conversations become possible when we spend enough quiet time listening?

This is what fascinates me.

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I can spend hours in communion with the Earth.

Walking. Swimming. Hiking. Lying on warm rocks. Watching clouds move across the mountains.

Just the other day I was sitting on a large stone and the only words moving through my mind were, “I love you, Earth.”

Over and over again. It felt less like a thought and more like a prayer. The deeper I fall in love with this place, the more extraordinary it seems to become. Or, perhaps the more available I become to experiencing what has always been here.

That is why I write these stories. Not to persuade you. Not to prove anything. But because perhaps a few of you will recognize yourselves somewhere inside these words. Perhaps you have your own hawk. Or tree. Or whale. Or favorite stretch of ocean. Or morning ritual that reminds you who you are.

Perhaps this is simply your reminder to go there today. Whatever fascinates you. Whatever leaves you feeling more alive. Whatever makes time disappear. Give yourself the gift of following it.

Then pay attention.

Write it down. Tell someone you love. Let yourself acknowledge the sweet tiny miracles that are already unfolding around you. Perhaps they have been waiting for you to notice all along.

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Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Want to Adventure Together?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September. Learn more at heatherbriann.com.

This meditation invites you to reconnect with the elements that are already moving within and around you: earth, water, fire, air, and space. Through sensory awareness, visualization, breath, and gentle contemplation, you’ll remember moments of…

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Many of us have experienced moments that changed us. A meditation. A psychedelic journey. A conversation that opened something inside. A retreat. We leave feeling clear, inspired, convinced that life will never look the same.

And then… ordinary life returns. The dishes. The emails. Parenting/Family. Work.

The nervous system eventually settles, and what once felt crystal clear begins to blur.

This is where integration begins.

Recently I sat down with / Beth, who has spent the last five years intentionally practicing integration. She uses a unique framework.

Rather than trying to make sense of every insight separately, she organizes her experiences through the lens of The Hero’s Journey.

After each medicine journey, she asks herself six questions:

Instead of chasing every insight, she’s allowing each one to become part of a much larger story. Her own.

She shared that she’s currently somewhere between the second and third steps.

She knows what she wants. She wants to become a better listener. Not simply someone who hears words, but someone who truly listens to her three-year-old daughter, her partner, and the people she loves.

She isn’t there yet. And, that felt like the most important part.

So often we discover what we want and immediately expect ourselves to embody it. Beth reminded me that wanting something is simply one stage of the journey. The challenges haven’t fully revealed themselves yet. Neither have all of the resources. There are still parts of herself she’ll have to release before deep listening becomes natural.

Another theme kept returning throughout our conversation.

Cycles.

Beth spoke about learning to recognize the rhythms that move through every part of life.

The changing seasons. The phases of the moon. The rhythms of her own body. The periods when everything flows effortlessly. And the seasons that ask for rest.

Instead of believing something has gone wrong every time her energy changes, she’s learned to recognize where she is within the cycle.

That simple shift has changed the way she relates to herself.

Rather than resisting what is here, she asks,“What does this season need from me?”

Over time, she has gathered dozens of small practices that support her nervous system. Walking outside before the summer heat arrives. Standing beneath the trees. Cooling her body. Making time for nature. At first these were practices she consciously chose. Now they have simply become part of the way she lives.

Maybe that’s what integration really is.

The moment our practices stop feeling like something we do…

…and just become who we are.

Toward the end of our conversation, Beth shared another wise sentiment.

She said one of the greatest challenges isn’t the difficult moments.

It’s forgetting.

Months after a profound experience, life naturally pulls her attention elsewhere. The clarity fades. The insights become quieter. But then, almost magically, they return. There is another remembering. Another cycle.

She smiled as she said, “All circles presuppose they end where they began.”

Perhaps forgetting isn’t evidence that we’ve failed. Perhaps forgetting is simply part of how human beings learn. Which is why community matters so much. Sometimes someone else’s words help us remember what we already know.

Before we ended, Beth left us with a verse from The Radiance Sutras that perfectly reflected the intention she is carrying into this season of her life:

“The ear that is tuned by rapt listening learns to hear the song of creation.”

Maybe deep listening isn’t another skill to master. Maybe it’s a lifelong journey.

One that asks us to move through each cycle with a little more patience…

…a little more curiosity…

…and a little more grace than the one before.

A Few Takeaways From My Conversation With Beth

Because Beth’s audio was a little glitchy throughout our conversation, I wanted to leave you with a few of the ideas that stayed with me after we finished talking.

1. Use a framework to continue your integration.

One of the most practical tools Beth shared was using the Hero’s Journey as a way to revisit and organize the insights from her medicine journeys.

She returns to six simple questions:

• Who am I?

• What do I want?

• What challenges stand in my way?

• What resources will support me?

• What needs to be released?

• How have I changed?

Rather than trying to remember every insight, these questions help her stay connected to the larger story that is unfolding through her life.

2. Learn to recognize your cycles.

Instead of expecting yourself to feel the same every day, begin noticing your natural rhythms.

What season are you in? Are you in a season of expansion or restoration? Energy or rest? Action or reflection?

When we recognize the season we’re in, we stop wasting energy fighting reality and can begin responding with greater compassion.

3. Build your own integration toolkit.

Integration isn’t one practice.

It’s discovering the small things that consistently help your nervous system return to balance.

For Beth, that looks like spending time in nature before the heat of the day, cooling her body during the summer months, and creating rhythms that support her emotional well-being.

Your toolkit will likely look different.

The invitation is to become curious about what genuinely helps you return to yourself.

4. Let your practices become your lifestyle.

At first, our practices require intention.

We have to remember to meditate. Remember to go outside. Remember to breathe. Remember to rest.

Over time, something beautiful begins to happen. The practices stop feeling like another thing on our to-do list and quietly become part of who we are.

That, to me, is one of the deepest expressions of integration.

5. Deep listening is a lifelong practice.

Beth’s intention for this season is beautifully simple:

To become a deeper listener.

Not only to the people she loves, but to life itself.

Deep listening asks us to slow down enough to notice our assumptions, our agendas, and the parts of us that are already preparing a response instead of fully receiving another person.

Like every meaningful practice, it isn’t mastered in a day.

It is lived one conversation at a time.

6. Trust the process of remembering.

One of my favorite insights from our conversation was Beth’s reminder that forgetting isn’t failure.

There are seasons when the insights feel crystal clear, and seasons when they seem far away.

Then something happens.

A conversation. A walk in nature. A moment of stillness.

And we remember.

Click the video above to listen to this 7th conversation in the series.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live to this conversation with Beth! Join me and for next Wednesday’s Substack live on this topic of Integration. The app is the best way to seamlessly connect to these conversations. ⬇️

Get more from Heather Briann in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Want to go deeper?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September.

Learn more at heatherbriann.com. ✨

Subscribe now

This meditation is an invitation to slow down, soften, and remember your Essential Nature.

Through gentle breath awareness, grounding, visualization, and heart-centered meditation, you’ll journey from the activity of the mind into the s…

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This meditation is an invitation to slow the pace of your mind, gather your energy, and remember the steadiness that has always been within you.

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This meditation is an invitation to pause, soften, and discover what becomes possible when you gently offer your heart to life exactly as it is.

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This meditation offers a different path. Inspired by the teachings of Dr. Lorin Roche and the Radiance Sutras, you’ll explore the ancient Sanskrit understanding of aham—the sacred experience of “I am.”

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Beneath the noise of expectations, self-doubt, and endless striving lives a quiet inner light that has never left you. This meditation is an invitation to return to that place within yourself.

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In this meditation, you’ll gently reconnect with the present moment through your senses and your relationship with the natural world. Together we’ll practice welcoming each part of you…

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What is it about the three week mark that seems to bring some kind of challenge, some kind of questioning, some kind of mini dark night of the soul?

And, I do not think this is only true for women.

Many menstruating women are familiar with the shift that can happen during the luteal phase, the days after ovulation and before the bleed. There is often a moment when you know something is different. Irritation settles into the brain like construction noise you cannot get away from. Energy turns inward. What felt manageable a few days ago suddenly feels louder, heavier, or harder to ignore.

But even outside of the menstrual cycle, I have noticed something about week three.

Have you ever started a new routine, training program, healing practice, or personal commitment, only to find that the days leading up to Day 21 feel strangely difficult?

It is almost as if someone has quietly strapped a weighted vest onto your emotional body.

The excitement of beginning has worn off. The new behavior has not yet become natural. You understand what the commitment is asking of you now, and some part of you begins to wonder whether you really want to continue.

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There is not one universal scientific law that says everyone falls apart in week three. But research on habit formation, physical training, motivation, and group dynamics suggests that this can be a very real threshold. Check out authors Pippa Lally, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.

By the third week, novelty is fading. Fatigue may be accumulating. The early hope of transformation is meeting the slower and less glamorous reality of change.

This is often when the resistance arrives. The uncomfortable questioning. The fearful parts shouting that this is all bullshit. The avoidant parts planting their heels as deeply into the mud as possible. The worried parts wondering whether you have gone too far and may never find your way back.

I recently surfaced from the hefty three week mark of an energetic experiment I am calling my “All In” experiment.

My journey through the dark went something like this.

First, exhaustion.

A kind of tiredness I do not remember ever experiencing before. The timing was strange because it arrived a few days after my bleed, which is historically when I feel vibrant and energized. This exhaustion felt heavy, almost like a weighted blanket. It was comforting only because I did not resist it.

I said yes. I trusted it.

I did not create a story about what it meant. I did not try to solve it or talk myself out of it. The need for rest was there, so I let myself rest.

I say that as though it has always been simple.

It has not.

It has taken me years to feel something without immediately resisting it. Years of pushing, forcing, and overriding. Now, I have cultivated the ability to practice something different.

When I am tired, I do not convince myself otherwise.

When I want to hike for two hours after playing pickleball for two hours, I say yes.

When I am not available to look at messages for a few days, I respect that.

When the third week of my cycle arrives and I feel the instinct to draw my energy inward, I create space and let the people closest to me know where I am.

What if week three is not proof that something has gone wrong?

What if it is the moment when the work becomes real?

The beginning has stopped carrying us, but the new way of being has not yet grown strong enough to carry us either.

We find ourselves in the middle.

Farther away from where we were.

Not yet fully rooted in the next rendition.

Of course resistance shows up there.

Of course some part of the ego gets revved up.

Of course our protective parts start asking questions.

Maybe the resistance does not always mean stop.

Maybe sometimes it means rest.

Sometimes it means slow down.

Sometimes it means ask for support.

Sometimes it means feel what is here without turning it into a story.

Let the parts have the microphone for a few minutes.

Listen.

Then perhaps say, “Okay. I hear you. No more storytelling for now.”

We move into the feeling.

We breathe with the feeling.

We journal with the feeling.

We walk with the feeling.

We nap with the feeling.

And then, when the time is right, onward we go.

What if we developed more grace for ourselves during the week three questioning?

What if we expected it?

What if, instead of saying, “Something is wrong with me,” we said, “Of course. I have arrived at the threshold.”

And what if we are not meant to cross this threshold alone?

Maybe this is one reason we need one another.

We need people who can remind us that resistance is not always a sign to abandon what matters. We need people who can help us remember the difference between forcing ourselves and staying devoted to ourselves. We need people in our corner who can say, “Of course this is hard right now. You are not failing. You are in the middle.”

So perhaps before your next week three arrives, you ask yourself this:

Who are the people I want beside me when the questioning begins? And what support can I say yes to now, so I do not have to remember alone?

Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Looking for support?

If you are tired of overthinking every decision, losing yourself inside of relationships, or knowing what is true for you but struggling to live from it, this is the heart of the work I offer. Through one-on-one integration coaching and || Group ||, I support people in coming back into relationship with their bodies, trusting their inner wisdom, and meeting change with more honesty, steadiness, and self-respect. The next six-week cohort of || Group || begins in September. Learn more at heatherbriann.com.

Subscribe now

This week, that sentence came from

“I don’t think safety comes first. I think risk comes first, and you find safety that way.”

I paused.

Because so much of the work we do in healing spaces begins with the desire to feel safe. We tell ourselves we’ll speak honestly once we feel safe. We’ll ask for help once we feel safe. We’ll let someone truly know us once we feel safe. We’ll soften once we feel safe.

It makes perfect sense. Many of us have learned through painful experiences that vulnerability can lead to rejection, betrayal, or heartbreak. Our nervous systems remember. They try to protect us from ever feeling that pain again.

But, what if there are moments when safety isn’t the prerequisite?

What if it is something that is discovered?

Lisa shared that throughout her life she had experienced profound loss, trauma, postpartum depression, and grief. There were seasons where life felt as though it had unraveled. The future she imagined no longer resembled the reality she was living.

And yet, she slowly found her way back.

Not because someone handed her the answers. Not because someone fixed her. But because she kept taking small, courageous steps toward connection.

She joined groups. She sought support. She listened to other people’s stories. She risked letting herself be seen before she knew exactly what would happen.

That distinction feels important.

There is wisdom in creating healthy boundaries. There are environments that simply are not safe enough to share our deepest truths. We don’t pour our hearts out to strangers simply because vulnerability is valuable. But, there are also moments when no amount of waiting will suddenly make us feel completely ready.

Sometimes courage arrives first. Sometimes we speak with a shaky voice. Sometimes we admit we don’t know. Sometimes we tell the truth while our heart is racing.

And then we discover we are still here. We discover that someone stayed. Someone listened. Someone didn’t rush to fix us. Someone simply remained present.

Little by little, our nervous system begins collecting new evidence. Maybe I can be seen. Maybe I don’t have to carry this alone. Maybe this room is different.

Another moment from our conversation stands out.

Lisa spoke about losing both her mother and her firstborn daughter within a year. During each experience, someone offered her the same simple sentence.

“There are some questions that have no answers.”

As heartbreaking as those words were, they eventually became comforting.

How much of our suffering comes from believing we must solve every mystery?

Why did this happen?

Why now?

Why them?

Why me?

Sometimes the greatest act of integration is not finding the answer. Sometimes it is learning to live alongside the question.

To stop wrestling with reality long enough to discover that life can still hold meaning even when it refuses to explain itself. That, to me, is integration.

Not eliminating the grief. Not pretending everything happens for a reason. Not finding a perfect lesson hidden inside every painful experience.

Integration is allowing every part of our life to belong.

The heartbreak.

The joy.

The unanswered questions.

The hope that somehow continues to rise anyway.

As our conversation came to a close, Lisa reflected on something many of us know intimately.

She said that offering compassion to others has become natural. Offering that same compassion to herself is still a practice. I suspect many of us are walking that same path.

Perhaps this is how integration happens.

Not in one breakthrough.

Not in one retreat.

Not in one profound realization.

But through thousands of ordinary moments where we choose, again and again, to meet ourselves with just a little more honesty, a little more tenderness, and a little more courage than we did yesterday.

Until one day we realize that what once required so much effort has become who we are.

Click the video above to listen to this sixth conversation in the series.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live to this conversation with Lisa! Join me and Beth for next Wednesday’s Substack live on this topic of Integration. The app is the best way to seamlessly connect to these conversations. ⬇️

Get more from Heather Briann in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Thank you for being here. You are so so appreciated. ✨

With love, Heather

Subscribe now