Episode 3 - Integration

In this episode of the Women Doing Big Things Podcast, Sarah Dusek and Mona de Vestel explore the topic of integration. They discuss integration as being the process of bringing all the parts of ourselves into alignment with our overall mission and authentic self. They explore the idea of aligning our outer personas with our inner selves and showing up as our whole, connected selves. Integration can be challenging because we often feel the need to present a certain image to the world, especially as women in professional settings. However, authenticity and integration are becoming increasingly valued in today's world, and they can be powerful tools for success. Embracing our vulnerabilities and integrating all aspects of ourselves can lead to greater personal and professional growth.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Exploring the Concept of Integration
• 3:35 What are the challenges of integration?
• 9:35 The parts of ourselves we're afraid to share
• 14:07 Integration is our super power
• 20:51 Tools for integration
• 27:39 What parts of ourselves have been muted?

Transcript

0:00

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dusek. And I'm Mona de Vestel. And we're here to have a conversation to talk about how to do big things in the world, but show up as our most authentic selves. And so our topic for today, Mona, What's our topic for today? Today's topic is integration, how to bring all of the pieces of ourselves into one. Now, what does integration mean? I hear you all ask. And what has that got to do with anything? Well, it's a topic that Mona and I have been talking about on and off for over a year, Mona. Yeah. And we kind of felt like integration has been at the heart of all the work that we have been doing together over the last year. So we thought it was time we had a conversation about integration. So maybe to kick us off, Mona, how do you understand the word integration? What does that mean to you? Well, I think integration for me is one of the single most challenging elements in both business and personal life. Because what it means to me is pulling together all of the pieces of my life and bringing them in perfect alignment with my overall mission. Which means I need to understand what my overall mission is both on a personal level and on a... business level and sometimes those two clash for me. And therefore what happens is fragmentation and being pulled in different directions. So for me, integration is about aligning myself into one seamless Mona who goes forth in the world in these different arenas of my life in alignment with my overall authentic self and succeeds. But that requires some kind of nimble, magical ability that I struggle with on a daily basis, personally. So what about you, Sarah? I mean, does this resonate? Yeah. I read something the other day that illuminated it again for me in a slightly different way by defining it as being like the outside and the inside matching. And I quite liked that because it simplified the idea of we have these outer personas. We have this, what we present to the world, how we show up in the world, how we want to be seen in the world. But that might not be a hundred percent how we are on the inside. And we as a world, as a culture have, and social media has been a big piece of this, right? We've got really good at presenting one thing, but it not necessarily being completely all of us. It can be a part of us, right? It can be the outer part of us, but not necessarily the inner part of us. And I, I just love that phrase where it talks about the outside and the inside being the same. or connected and integrated. And so that's what integration for me is about. It's like, how do we bring all of the parts of ourselves and how do we show up and be all of ourselves rather than just a part of ourselves? And I think that's the real challenge with integration. Yeah, I think the key word here is persona. I think that's the challenge. It's because, especially if you're a mother and an entrepreneur, already these two roles are massive, right? One in itself is already a massive role. So when you take on these different personas or compartmentalization of yourself, like little pieces of yourself, like how do we bring those together and make them work to one seamless self, which is authentic, which is, you know, for me, being authentic, being true to myself is essential. But when those two roles sort of conflict or pull me in different directions, it becomes very difficult, you know? And then this approximation of self happens for me. Like I am an approximation of my ideal business. self. I'm an approximation of my ideal mother self, you know? And then it's sort of like leading a diluted life for me anyway. That's the challenge. yeah, it's challenging also because I think it's easy to imagine that actually if we show up as our authentic selves, that that's not going to be good for us. Like there's some kind of like anxiety, I think, around integration because it's like, well, I don't know that everyone wants to see all of me. Like if I show up. As my real self, that could somehow be impactful in a negative way on my life. Yeah, dangerous. Agreed. And I, and I think particularly for women, we have had a strong sense of we are supposed to show up in the world in a particular way. And if we want to succeed in business or we want to succeed professionally, We have to leave whole big chunks of ourselves behind and show up in a very linear way. and that has been almost the sense of like, this is what it's going to take to be a professional success. That's what is required. We don't want to, we don't want to see our whole self. We don't want to see you on a plate. We want to see, you know, a particular image. and a particular persona that is not necessarily all of you. We just want you to do a really great job and be really excellent, but don't rock that boat. And that's, I think, the messaging, particularly that we, as women hear, almost every single day. And I think that's why this whole concept of being authentic, being integrated, is very, very challenging for many of us. But I think that's an old message. That's an old message of we don't want to see your whole self. Like, please, you know, not the whole authentic self. I think there is a new message, which is very clear to me, which is that authenticity is the currency of our times. And if you look at the most successful businesses and the most successful people in the world are people who are usually rooted in authenticity. They are usually rooted in a... I would say heart -connected, authentic self. In other words, there is a clear mission and there are all of these elements in place on a business level, but those are aligned with some kind of authentic heart -centered element. And I think that people are starved for that. People resonate when they see it. They respond. They lean in, they really want that. I can see it. I can see it in my own business. When I push my clients to go further into a narrative, to really be their deepest, truest self, which is terrifying for most people, and to really bring that onto the page, that's when the writing becomes beautiful, brilliant, impactful, connected, engaged. love those words you're using about heart connected. It's like, you know, there's, there's, you know, again, that two concepts of the outer and the inner coming together and the connection is heart. It's like, can we connect our heart with everything that we are doing and saying and being? And you're right. I think, I think that is an old message that we have been used to hearing and that actually we're so sick of fake. We're so sick of superficial and we get fed a lot of junk. And anytime there's a moment of authenticity or there's a moment of realness and there's a moment of connectedness, it resonates really deeply with us and we can see it. We can see it all the time when it shows up in various different ways. And there's a moment of connection that most of us have when we see it. It's like the idea of, you know, making friends. You don't make friends very easily with other human beings, when everything's really superficial. Those are just acquaintances, right? Or they're your network, but they're not friends. And that's what we're talking about is like becoming friends with ourselves. So that actually our engagement with the world is a much deeper level and that we, we get to bring our whole selves. into everything that we're doing and showing up as our most connected self. Is there a side of yourself that you're afraid of? What's that persona that when you think about bringing it forth to the world, you think, no, no, thank you. yeah, hell yeah. I think for the longest time, since I was a teeny tiny little girl, I have known that I have an anxious disposition and like a nervous system that sits, like it's very fragile, sits on an edge. And I have spent most of my life learning how to hide it And that shows up in a whole bunch of ways with wanting to be perceived in a very particular competent, capable, confident, you know, super powered kind of way when actually the struggle with navigating, I have a very fragile nervous system. I struggle with anxiety on a daily basis and having to navigate. Well, what I want the world to see is that I'm strong and capable and powerful and can do anything. And the interior world says, yes, but I'm afraid I'm small. I'm fragile. And it's like, I want, I want to keep those two personas apart and showing up and presenting fragility. or vulnerability or anxiousness, nervousness has always been a massive struggle with my own thinking about myself and my own perception of how other people would then think of me if I show up in that way. And that is super hard, but it's like, you know, the longer I am not friends with me, like all the parts of me. the, the harder it is for me to manage that for one, it's like, it's very hard to live a life when you're trying to present one thing and actually wrestling with a whole bunch of other stuff at the same time. That's, that's exhausting. It's really, really exhausting. But, but that is the invitation of integration, I think is like, how, how do I lean into all the bits of me? Mm -hmm. Yeah. and and be okay with all of that being out there What do you think is the worst thing that could happen if you were to bring that anxious Sarah to the surface, to the forefront? Or just in visible range? I mean, not necessarily to the forefront. I don't know that I ever imagined anything's going to happen, but it's like, it's such a struggle with like, for the longest time, I haven't liked that side of myself because it feels vulnerable, right? It feels, and so having to connect with a more vulnerable side of myself feels intimidating. It feels, it's like, I don't want to be that. So that's, that's... That's a wrestle. It's an ongoing wrestle. And I think all of us have different parts and bits of ourselves that we don't necessarily want anyone to see or know about. And, you know, that can be anxiety, that can be an addiction, that can be like, you know, it can be many things, right? but all of us are multifaceted. All of us have parts of ourselves that we don't show the world every single day. And I am just coming to terms, I'm almost 50. And I am just coming to terms with the reality that this is part of who I am. That wrestling with an anxious nervous system or a highly, highly sensitive internal operating system is part of how I'm wired. part of what makes me me and actually is part of my superpowers rather than something to be ashamed or afraid of or threatened by. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. So in all of our work together, Mona, the challenge I have often said to you with like every time you've pushed me to keep showing up in a more authentic way and keep not like holding everyone at a distance, particularly when I'm writing, I have constantly been saying to you like, why? Mm -hmm. Why is this a good thing? I don't know why this is a good thing. Help me understand why it's a good thing because it's frightening. I don't like it. It's uncomfortable. It's very difficult. Tell everyone how you have helped me keep working through this kind of like, no, no, go deeper. Don't stop there. Keep going. Keep going. I mean, I've seen this with you and I've seen this with countless other people and myself. I think that the places that we push away the most that we are most afraid of showing to the world are actually our superpowers. That is like sort of like the sweet spot of your power of stepping into yourself. When you bring, I've seen you bring all these pieces of yourself together onto the page and step into this major power of yourself because you're claiming all of them. You're not shunning this part of Sarah that's anxious you're saying yeah, there's a part of me that's anxious and actually there are beautiful gifts within that that You know that zone that's part of myself that allows me to do certain things that others cannot that allows me to perceive or sense or make decisions on. I think that when we shun something, it looms larger and it takes over and it actually overpowers us. And when we integrate, when we bring sort of the shadow side with the light side together, they're in harmony. And I think that they work together into a seamless, powerful being. There's a comfort zone for all of us in staying at this level of saying, I'm not going to go too deep and make myself seem whatever they're going to perceive, weak, too sensitive or overly emotional, fill in the blank. Right? For me, it would be like too woo. you know, I have the spiritual side. Now I'm like this woo, woo, woo person. I don't like that. I don't want people to think that, right? So I'm like, forget the spiritual side, forget that, that part of myself. But that's actually, that's my superpower. My intuitive self that says to a client, I think you should go into this area over here. I sense this resistance, this block. What would happen if you were to write about this? exact little element that you just mention in a blip and then quickly overshadowed, a whole world opens up, a whole world opens up into the narrative, into yourself. And that's my superpower, my ability to say, hey, that's the place where I think I sense that you should go into. So I think for all of us, those places that we shun or we want to shun are the places usually... that allow us to really step into the entire magnitude of our power. Which, and I've said this to Sarah, I said, to bring your heart, your whole heart into who you already are in the world, that is the definition of power. That is, and I've said this countless times to you in different ways, and I believe that to be true, because people want that. They want to have a leader who is, connected to their heart. It's kind of like a nervous system. If your hand has no nerves and it's in the fire, you're not going to yank it out of the fire because you can't feel anything. But the same is true for leadership without heart. If you don't have a sense of a compass, of a moral compass, of a heart -centered compass, you cannot pull your team out of the fire. You can't feel it. You don't even see that there is anything wrong with it. I think those two things are true. And I've seen it time and time again. I love what you just said, Mona. So I'm just going to sum it up in like one sentence, because I think you said it so beautifully, which is integration is really about connecting with your superpower and being your most powerful self. And so far from being a diminishing factor, it's like, and it's enhancing. who you are and everything you can be and everything you can achieve and everything you can do in the world. And that is the power of integration. That is the power of integration. And it's counterintuitive. It's than I think most of the time. I think, weakness, terrible, bad, scary. When actually what you're saying is superpower, energized, connected, authentic, on fire. Like you walk in your own alignment, you're bringing it. You're bringing everything that you could possibly bring. Yeah, it's a gift. I mean, those those imperfections slight differentiations that we have are actually our secret powers. You know, if we allow them to be, it seems counterintuitive to want to bring those forth to say, you know, as a leader, you think, if I have an anxious self, you know, I don't want to. anybody to know about that. But actually, when you integrate it, you step into your power. Hmm. Because I mean, I think it was you said that your anxiety was some, it was a self protection. At the root of anxiety is actually a powerful thing. It's an alarm saying, hey, Sarah, watch out for this. And so to learn to listen to that differently and integrate it and say, thank you, anxiety. What would you like me to know today? You know, it's like, As opposed to it becomes a screaming voice all day long, you just have a dialogue with your anxiety for a minute. The anxiety says what it has to say and you say, you know, thank you so much. I'll take that into consideration. And you go about your way, you know, about your day. So, Mona, we are concluding here that integration is a good thing. Integration is a powerful thing, but scary, as I have already said, continues to be scary too. It continues to be an ongoing challenge to show up in an authentic integrated way. What are some of the ways we can help ourselves? I think that integration is an incremental process. It's not I'm jumping in the raging ocean all at once. I barely learned how to swim yesterday and I'm going for it. There's a storm out there. I think it's more about, looking at the pieces of ourselves that we seem to be moving away from or shunned, shunning, or that we're afraid of resisting. Right. resist? Exactly. What are, what am I resisting? What is really challenging for me to step into that is keeps popping its head, by the way, that keeps showing up in my life and then allowing it, giving it a little bit of time each day. I think that exercise that we've talked about in other episodes, which is to have a dialogue with a particular part of ourselves. So for you, it would be anxiety. For me, it would be. my spiritual self, right? What would you like me to know today? How can you help? For me, it would be like, how can you help me integrate you into my life in a way that feels safe, in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming? But it's just to acknowledge that part incrementally and see what comes to the surface. What wisdom can be brought into our life in a safe way. It doesn't have to be monumental all at once. I like that. I think, I agree. I think it's also incremental, but I think it's being conscious. I'm conscious of how we're showing up. And I was at an event speaking about a month ago and some of the ladies in that room had heard me speak before and a handful, like several women who had heard me speak before. came up to me afterwards and said, something's different. I can't put my finger on what it is, but something's different. Hearing you speak this time was incredibly powerful. And I don't know why, because I've heard you speak before, but everything you were saying was like hitting me really, really hard. And I smiled and... smiled again when someone else told me the same thing and smiled again when someone else told me that. And I, because I knew what the difference was. And I knew the way I had chosen to show up and to speak was to be vulnerable and to be honest and to share my own difficulties and my own struggles and my own voice that I hear in my head that I have to navigate and wrestle with. And it was, I knew I was integrating all these parts of myself. And instead of just presenting confident, successful, capable, powerful Sarah, I was presenting vulnerable, fragile, scared, afraid Sarah. And something magical happened in that exchange. And other people could see it and notice it. And were telling me that I was a different speaker than they'd heard before. And that was mind blowing to me, but it was a conscious choice. It was like, I made a decision about how I was going to show up and if I was going to be vulnerable or not. And I think that's a tool. I think the consciousness of. How do I want to present myself? How do I want to communicate? How do I want to share? what do I share and what do I not share was part of my own like transition into being willing to not leave parts of myself behind and actually was so empowering for everyone else that I was with and freeing for everyone else actually to also then not have to pretend and not have to like show up as super capable superwoman. but show up as vulnerable, scared, doubting, worried, anxious woman, trying to do amazing big things in the world. And those two things can be true at the same time. We can want to do extraordinary amazing big things in the world and be scared small little people at the same time. Exactly. I mean, you still are the super capable Sarah, who is also vulnerable and sensitive, you know, and those and scared and those two things are true. love the idea of doing this process incrementally and also watching for people's reactions and seeing the world open up in new ways, That's... sort of the process that I'm talking about with incremental opening up or integrating or pulling together. It's watching the response and then course correcting, watching the response and course correcting. And that, you know, that is sort of so gratifying to be able to see that. and I just smiled so big because I was like, I've been telling you be vulnerable. That's your superpower! Yeah. your voice in my ear going, your vulnerability is your superpower. Your vulnerability is your superpower. But it's like the ability to suddenly show up like that, show up in a being vulnerable state and get really good feedback. Cause the reason we don't do that is we often fear the feedback we're going to get, right? We're fearing reprisal. We're fearing come back. We're fearing it will be negative. And actually... Testing the waters a little bit and getting some positive feedback enables us to like grow and grow and grow and grow in being able to be out in the world as our whole enormous selves, not just parts of ourselves. So I love that too. It's sort of integration step by step. Absolutely. So I guess the question for us all is to think about what are the parts of ourselves that we've been muting? Like, what are the parts of ourselves that we've been turning off? Like the sounds down, nobody can hear, nobody's getting a look in. And to ask ourselves, what would it look like to unmute ourselves, to unmute the parts of ourselves that we've silenced? What could that look like? What should it look like? And how do we explore the on button as opposed to the off button? Yeah, and I think also asking ourselves, what is the worst thing that could happen if I unmuted this part of myself? I think that giving a voice to the fear or the, you know, sort of the catastrophic scenario in your head actually brings the brings intensity down because you're saying, okay, what's the worst thing that can happen? And then you let that story or that narrative run through. And then you also ask, next, you know, what would you like me to know anxiety or woo self or you know, whatever it is, you know, scared self, what would you like me to know today and sort of integrate again, bring those two answers and say, okay, this is my worst fear. But also this is what I just learned from this muted self. Let me see how I can incrementally bring in that bring that to the surface and watch. as people respond accordingly. And of course the reality is the worst thing we can ever imagine is usually not that bad. And I think when we allow to ask ourselves what is the worst thing that can happen, we sort of take away the power of that fear. It just deflates it. It deflates it, you know. It's like popping a balloon, isn't it? It's like, okay. I see you. I see you worst case scenario. I am staring you down. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's, that's the challenge. And can we stay alert enough, to noticing when we're muting ourselves and to noticing when we're not showing up. in a way that is healthy and good and wholesome for us, because then we're really limiting our power. And this is an opportunity for us to step into new levels of our own power, and you experience more of what we're capable of and achieve more of what we're capable of by really allowing ourselves to integrate ourselves and connect with all the parts of ourselves. Yeah, integrating ourselves is our superpower. Superpowers. So ladies, this is about getting your big girl superpower pants on, but by leaning in, leaning into the stuff that we don't want to show up as, or we don't want to connect with, or we don't want to touch. And it's like, let's lean in right there and let's really discover what we're really, really capable of. I love that. All right, so that's our mission. That's our mission for the next couple of weeks, leaning in to integration. Well, thank you, Sarah. That was another fun conversation. fun and scary all at the same time. So thanks for joining us, everybody. It's been great to have you with us. We look forward to seeing you next time back here, right with us. Thank you so much. See you next time.