Integration in our Everyday
As a child, I remember going over to a family friend’s house that always had a puzzle out on the table. Every day, they would walk by that puzzle, pick up a piece, spin it as they studied it against the propped up box top, then gently tap it in place. If it didn’t fit, they’d set it back down and slowly walk away. The large puzzle with all its scattered pieces would sit unfinished for months, but eventually, 5 minutes at a time, the puzzle was complete.
Drove me nuts. I can remember even as a young kid wanting that puzzle to be finished immediately. But not my family friends. It was the daily satisfaction of one little piece finding its place that brought them joy, not the completion of the puzzle.
As a child, I remember going over to a family friend’s house that always had a puzzle out on the table. Every day, they would walk by that puzzle, pick up a piece, spin it as they studied it against the propped up box top, then gently tap it in place. If it didn’t fit, they’d set it back down and slowly walk away. The large puzzle with all its scattered pieces would sit unfinished for months, but eventually, 5 minutes at a time, the puzzle was complete.
Drove me nuts. I can remember even as a young kid wanting that puzzle to be finished immediately. But not my family friends. It was the daily satisfaction of one little piece finding its place that brought them joy, not the completion of the puzzle.
When it comes to integration, it’s taking all the pieces of us—our values, our people, our beliefs, our bodies, our responsibilities, our feelings, our stories, our disappointments, our successes—all of our little pieces—and fitting them together into this picture we call life.
But here’s the problem. We are more overwhelmed than joyful most of the time. We don't want to take the time to spin the pieces. A puzzle is hard to put together when we keep running past it, and many days, running is easier than sitting.
Slowing down to examine our life is worth it. As the wise words of French philosopher Socrates reminds us, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Or as my dear friend, Elyse Snipes said on our Instagram LIVE, “an unprocessed life is lazy.”
Integration requires us to spin the pieces and see how they fit and lay some other ones aside. We begin by asking, like we do when putting a puzzle together, where are the corners? What things ground us? Then, where are the edges? We establish the boundaries that protect and shape us. Then we sort by likeness. One by one, day by day, as the full picture comes into view.
Life can be a bunch of overwhelming, scattered pieces or a beautiful process unfolding piece by piece, five minutes a day. Our choice. Let’s not miss the joy found in every piece.