Embodiment & Integration: The Space Between Becoming and Being
Somehow, August has already folded itself into September.
We’re only a week into this new month, and I’ve found myself reflecting on just how much changed in such a short amount of time.
This season has given me two words that I keep coming back to:
Embodiment + Integration.
For so long, I thought growth was about becoming.
Becoming the teacher.
Becoming the healer.
Becoming the mother who could let go.
Becoming the woman who trusted herself.
Becoming the person I knew was somewhere underneath all the layers.
But lately, I’m realizing there comes a point when we have to stop becoming and actually embody who we have become.
And then comes integration.
That part is a little messier.
Three Kids. Three Different Places.
This August marked another shift in motherhood.
For so many years, my children were under one roof, part of the same daily rhythm. Now, I have three kids moving through three very different chapters of their lives.
Stella started 11th grade.
Luna began her freshman year at Loyola and is now living on campus, beginning a whole new chapter of independence.
And Sebastian has been living his best life in Ocean City, Maryland, as he prepares for his senior year of college.
Three kids.
Three different places.
Three completely different seasons of becoming.
And a mom learning what it feels like to love them just as fiercely while giving them the space to become who they are meant to be.
There is so much pride in that.
And if I’m being truthful, there is grief tucked inside it, too.
Because sometimes the most beautiful changes still require us to mourn what was.
And Then There’s Me
While my children are stepping into their next chapters, something has been shifting for me, too.
I was recently hired to teach Yin at one of my dream spaces, Yoga Centric in Bel Air.
And there’s an added piece that feels especially meaningful: I’ll be bringing my sound bowls into class, creating a signature sound-infused Savasana.
Yoga. Yin. Sound. Stillness.
The threads of so many things I have studied, practiced, dreamed about, and slowly built are beginning to weave themselves together.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.
And I am also going to tell the truth:
The integration of all these changes has been a lot.
Because embodiment doesn’t mean everything suddenly feels easy.
Sometimes embodiment is standing inside the life you prayed for and realizing your nervous system still needs time to catch up.
Integration is allowing yourself that time.
It is resting without believing you are falling behind.
It is noticing the space left behind when your children begin building lives of their own.
It is walking into the room as the teacher while remembering all the moments you once wondered whether you belonged there.
It is allowing joy and grief, excitement and fear, expansion and tenderness to exist together.
Blue Sky Mind
This season keeps bringing me back to the words and ideas that became my book, Blue Sky Mind.
When I wrote it, I was writing about something I was learning to understand:
Beyond every passing cloud, there is always blue sky.
Now I feel like I am being asked to live it.
The clouds aren't necessarily problems to solve. They are transitions, emotions, endings, beginnings, uncertainty, excitement, motherhood, growth.
They move through.
The practice is remembering the sky underneath them.
Maybe that is what embodiment really is.
Not becoming someone new, but coming home to yourself.
And maybe integration is giving your mind, body, heart, and spirit enough time to recognize that you are already there.
As August settles behind me and September begins, I’m trying not to rush toward whatever comes next.
I want to be here.
To witness my children becoming.
To step into the teacher I have worked so hard to become.
To play my bowls and feel their vibration move through the room.
To honor the endings.
To celebrate the beginnings.
To let all of it integrate.
Because perhaps growth isn't always about reaching for the next version of ourselves.
Sometimes the practice is simply allowing ourselves to embody the person we already worked so hard to become.
And underneath every transition, every emotion, every passing cloud…
the blue sky is still there.
☮️
Sophia
Threads by Zensetter
