Olivia MacDonell [00:00:00]:
I think I would like to talk about the importance of integration and what integration is. Different frameworks like privilege to adversity, and then, yeah, those are the main ones.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:13]:
So I love this idea of talking about integration as a topic, and. Yeah. Are you open to just kind of, like, dissecting, starting from basics, and just, like, seeing where this all goes?

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:24]:
I had a feeling that that's what was going to happen, kind of how it goes, so I somewhat prepared for that.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:29]:
Good, good. How are you feeling today?

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:32]:
I'm feeling good. I'm feeling capable.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:35]:
Capable. I like that.

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:39]:
Not always the case.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:40]:
I guess. It's compared to the alternative.

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:42]:
Exactly.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:42]:
That's a good way to be.

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:43]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:44]:
Nice.

Olivia MacDonell [00:00:45]:
Speaking of capable and incapable or perceived sense of incapability, I think I've been struggling a little bit with imposter syndrome. Not, I think I feel like I definitely have with so much unknown that I've been navigating. And I read this meme by Adam Grant, and he says, imposter syndrome is, I don't know what I'm doing. It's only a matter of time till everyone finds out. And then he said, growth mindset is, I don't know what I'm doing. It's only a matter of time until I figure it out. And he said, growth mindset. The ultimate confidence is knowing that you have the ability to figure something out.

Olivia MacDonell [00:01:28]:
And that just, like, shifted everything for me, like, in a second.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:33]:
I love that.

Olivia MacDonell [00:01:33]:
So good.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:34]:
I love that.

Olivia MacDonell [00:01:35]:
No, I can figure this out. That's all I have to remind myself. I don't know yet. I will.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:42]:
That's gorgeous. Yeah. I love that. Who are you? Olivia McDonell?

Olivia MacDonell [00:01:47]:
I am someone who cares more about having a growth mindset than anything else in the world.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:57]:
Nice. Well, welcome to Sacred Conversations. As you know, I'm Vision Battlesword, the host of this audio series, as well as the creator of a few different projects, including Sacred Light and Intentional Autonomous Relating. And you came here today with the idea of a topic, which is super exciting to me because I often refer to myself. If someone would ask me, who am I? Oftentimes, among other things, I might say is, I am an integrator. And I've been super interested and really passionate about this whole idea called Integral Theory for many years. And I also am super passionate about the idea of integration as a part of the kind of work that we do in helping people transform themselves. And so for you coming here with the idea to talk about integration, I'm just really looking forward to this, especially with you, because I know that that's also a.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:56]:
Or at least I have thought that that is a deep interest and domain of expertise for you as well. Would you say that?

Olivia MacDonell [00:03:05]:
I hope so, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:07]:
Taking the idea of a growth mindset to it, yes.

Olivia MacDonell [00:03:11]:
I think that's actually one of the first things that we probably connected on and started collaborating on in a lot of ways and just brainstorming what it is and what it looks like and the importance of it and the lack of education around what it is and how important it is for the majority of people. I think there is a fragmented understanding in terms of most people having like bits and pieces of what it is, but not maybe the whole concept. And I don't think I have the whole concept either, but it is something that I really care about and I'm learning more about every single day. Should we dive into what we think integration is?

Vision Battlesword [00:03:51]:
That's exactly where I want to start. Because, yeah, when you're saying like that, maybe we don't even have a grasp on the full concept, maybe nobody has a grasp on exactly the entire concept. Let's see if we can flesh it out. I mean, I'll start where I always start. What is integration?

Olivia MacDonell [00:04:07]:
So I think on a really basic level, it's the merging of two things. So in technology, integration will look like being able to take two different types of software and merging them together in a way that they work seamlessly with each other. So it's not necessarily the canceling out of one, like away with the old, in with the new. It's more of emerging of both, which requires expansion in order to contain both of those. So oftentimes, I think we think it's needing to become completely new. Right. And then what? We can feel shame or guilt if we have old parts of ourself still present. Not to jump into ourselves from technology, but just taking two different types of information and merging them together.

Olivia MacDonell [00:05:03]:
I think at its core is what integration looks like now with that merging of two types of technology as they work together and merge with each other, I think certain parts of the old technology can become obsolete, but it's more of an expansion of two things together.

Vision Battlesword [00:05:28]:
Yeah, I like that you brought in that word expansion right there at the end, because as you were talking, I was thinking about, certainly we can be talking about information, certainly we can be talking about technology. I think that in some of the roles that we have or have had, a lot of times we're talking about something that's more personal in terms of integration of experiences, let's say, or new ideas, awareness, maybe even psychological parts. But taking one step back from all of the kind of specifics and just looking at it as a general concept, I'm thinking of bringing two things together into something new. Do you think that's right? In terms of if we're accomplishing an integration or integrating, does it inherently mean that we're taking two separate entities and then forming a new third entity from the sum of those parts?

Olivia MacDonell [00:06:25]:
I think by nature of two things coming together, it is creating a new version of itself. I think about the concept of spiral dynamics and how in spiral dynamics, our states of consciousness is increasing or expanding, but that doesn't mean that the original states of consciousness are gone or done away with. We are still an amalgamation of all the parts, if that makes sense. So we can become new while at the same time having all of the parts that created itself in its newness. Okay, I think that's important to understand because I think the idea that people. So you and I are very familiar with the psychedelic industry and the transformation that can come through the usage of mind altering substances. And I think that there's one of the traps that we can get into is, I'm going to take this and I'm going to become a new person, meaning I'm going to become a different person, or I'm going to become, like, this better version of myself, and I'm no longer going to have the other parts of myself. And it can become a trap, because when you find your old habits coming back or maybe old thoughts or mindsets, it can be very discouraging, and it can really bring somebody down to feel like, oh, no, that part of me is not gone, or that, you know, the old me is still here.

Olivia MacDonell [00:07:56]:
We're always going to be ourselves. I think my favorite line almost in any movie is when Doctor Strange, when the ancient one says, we do not get rid of our demons. We just learn to live above them. And that's an important concept for this is like, we don't get rid of these parts of ourself. We love them into integration. We merge them with the new parts of ourselves that could be, in some ways, better able to handle life and better, like, better resourced in a lot of ways to pull that, those other parts of ourself along with it.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:33]:
Mm hmm. Yeah, I love that. And I want to dive deep down that whole thought process or that mental trail, if you will, but just, again, kind of taking a big step back from. I think it's an important point that you made that we don't necessarily lose the identity of the original entities when we go through an integration. But I'm imagining just taking two puzzle pieces, let's say, that have a matching that are compatible in shape. And if you put the two puzzle pieces together, a new picture may emerge that's different than either one of those two things separately, but it still contains each of those things individually. And maybe those things are even separable sometimes. Maybe also sometimes.

Vision Battlesword [00:09:20]:
I don't know. Can it be the case that an integration happens to thats not necessarily reversible? Its like, once its seen, it cant be unseen, or once its felt, theres a new understanding that can never be erased. A different analogy to integration that occurs to me is a chemical reaction. Weve got the two puzzle pieces. Theres two physical objects here that could be separated, or they can be merged together to create something larger and different. But also we could maybe imagine having a beaker or a vessel where we put some different chemicals or substances into it, which then have a reaction and change into something that can't necessarily be separated back into their original components. Again, do you think that there are some aspects of psychological transformation or integration, like reflecting back to what you said about spiral dynamics, that sort of like, once a new phase or stage of development has emerged, using terminology from that model, that it'll always be available to us? Maybe we can regress or express an older version of ourself, but that newer one, once available, is a part of us now forever. What do you think about that?

Olivia MacDonell [00:10:39]:
Yeah, I do a guided meditation before my sessions with clients, and it always includes that a mind expanded can no longer return to its original dimensions. And even though it may seem like old parts of yourself or feelings are coming back, you can never be the person you were yesterday, because once this awareness is gained, it can never be lost to you. So absolutely agree with that? 100%, yes. As we're integrating new information, we're changing and we're growing, even if old parts need to be expressed. Right. So we're not losing anything, but we're gaining, we're expanding. And by nature of that expansion, old, unuseful parts can become obsolete in so much that they are no longer of use to us.

Vision Battlesword [00:11:33]:
Do you think some of those old, seemingly obsolete parts of can turn out to actually be useful to us later on? Maybe even as we continue to progress in our development and perhaps remove, charge or heal certain wounds that affect those parts? That maybe even later on, there's yet another unfolding or emergence of new awareness or information where we recognize, like, oh, wow, this part actually can serve a purpose, or does still serve a purpose for me, or at least it's something that is an inherent and valuable part of my current experience.

Olivia MacDonell [00:12:11]:
I think that that speaks to sort of the integration of shadow, right? And the parts of us that we consider to be bad or unhelpful, like anger, integrated anger. It's a very important part. And once we learn to wield that tool in the direction that we're trying to go, I think it can be extremely useful, like a certain type of fuel turboing your engine when it needs to. And that kind of goes in down another rabbit hole of what we consider to be coping mechanisms like fight, flight, or freeze, and how those can also convert to be our superpower if they're used in the right way. For instance, Martin Luther King Junior, he had to step into the strategy. So I prefer the term strategy to coping mechanisms and especially adaptive strategies. He used the adaptive strategy that he had maybe given through epigenetics to step into fight, and as a result, created change that changed history forever. So each one of our adaptive strategies can be used as a superpower as well.

Olivia MacDonell [00:13:26]:
And that, and our ability to choose that, to hone that, comes through integrating new information. And that leads me to another aspect of integration that I think is important, which today I just got the verbiage for. I was listening to Fred Kaufman's book conscious business, and he defines learning as. And I will read it. I haven't memorized it yet. Learning is the expansion of one's capacity to accomplish results that one was not able to accomplish before. So he says, most people's definition of learning is the taking in of knowledge. He says, learning is your ability to take that knowledge, to accomplish the results, to actually put it into action.

Olivia MacDonell [00:14:18]:
So I was at a East forest live concert, the one he did here in Austin with John Hopkins epic, amazing. Took a little microdose of mushrooms, and I was laying there, and this was when I was just really starting to develop my integration program. And I just got hit with this, like, just this one super powerful sentence. And it was, integration is application. And that just, like, just put all the puzzle pieces together. For me, yes, it's application. It is taking those insights that come through and being able to apply them to your life, having the know how of how to implement them into your life, not just understanding something, not just the awareness. It's the awareness plus the action of it.

Olivia MacDonell [00:15:08]:
So a gigantic piece of integration is actually taking action, applying change into your life, implementing the knowledge.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:19]:
Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that we've always really connected on since we've known each other. You know, your, I think, main project right now, or your passion project right now is called the Activation Project. And, of course, the process, the dream launching, you know, accelerating process that I created and have been exercising for the past few years is called the power activation. And in both cases, I think we agree to that. There's something missing. I think that, look, we've talked about this in the past in terms of what we're doing with ceremony. I think in terms of even sometimes, what we're doing with therapy, what we're doing with.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:56]:
And when I say we, I mean the culture. I mean collectively, what's going on in the mainstream, what we're doing with ceremony, with psychedelics, with therapy, with facilitation, with transformational experiences. I think you and I tend to agree that there seems to be something missing, which is the kind of, now what? Which is kind of like next steps or the great. I've had this powerful awakening. Maybe I've healed some deep trauma or deep wounds, or I've discovered some parts of myself or shadow that I didn't know was there. And maybe now I have new information of how to relate with those things, all of these sort of great experiences that we can have. But oftentimes, like, I loved what you talked about very early in the conversation about kind of falling into a trap of this sort of repetitive cycle of self discovery, healing, spiritual awakening, personal development. But what's actually changing in our life? What are we actually doing differently? Hopefully, we're having a better experience.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:01]:
Hopefully, maybe we're experiencing more peace or happiness or contentment or less suffering. And all of that stuff is great, but, like, what do. What are we actually doing? How do. How do we apply this to making and preserving meaningful change, meaning, like, not falling backwards again or continuing to move forward with creating whatever the life is that we'd like to have for ourself. And I think that we both also agree that integration of experiences that we have in a very. With a very specific meaning of that word I, is important for being able to kind of take that next step beyond okay, I've had new insights. I've had new realizations. Maybe I've gotten access to new information about myself or reality or the universe or God.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:48]:
And then now what? And the integration, I think, you and I both feel, but correct me if I'm wrong, is like the bridge to that next step. What do you think about all that?

Olivia MacDonell [00:17:58]:
Yeah, that's exactly what I think, and what is measurable, what is quantifiable, what is the evidence that we are integrating this new information into our life? I think it's changed behavior. I think it's changed mindset that affects changed behavior that affects the changed life, you know, quality of life, different relationships, better relationships, deeper relationships. And each person has a different goal for integrating and what they're trying to integrate. It's unique to everyone. And one of my favorite philosophies of all time is that there is no such thing as one size fits all. So integration looks different for everyone. People learn differently, they're motivated by different things. And even in terms of where someone starts with their integration, I think if we just distill it down into three main categories, mind, heart and body.

Olivia MacDonell [00:18:49]:
And getting each one of those integrated not only with themselves, but with each other, that looks different for everybody. Also. Some people start. Need to start with the mind. Some people need to start with the body. Some people need to start with the heart. Actually, they only have sometimes the capacity to start with one. Like the easiest barrier of entry for them is the body, right? Going for a walk maybe every day, and that's all they have the capacity for.

Olivia MacDonell [00:19:14]:
But then they start to integrate the body, the nervous system regulating that, which then allows them to access more positive mindset or thoughts or frameworks. Or maybe they need to offload a lot of emotions that they've stored over the years. So they need to start with the heart, which I think involves emotional processing, connection. Connection with themselves or with others. Sometimes. For some people, having that connection with someone where they feel seen, heard, or felt for the first time in their life allows them to move past a victim mindset that they've been stuck on for their whole life. So you never really know which one is going to be the best starting place. That's for people to figure out on their own or with the assistance of integration specialists or people that can help them.

Olivia MacDonell [00:20:10]:
But that's also one thing that I think is important to understand in integration, is that looks different for everyone and the end result looks different for everyone, too. There's no one way that it needs to be. So it's going to look different across the board, and it's about finding each person's individual, unique path to that.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:29]:
Yeah, I love all of that. I love the phrase changed behavior that feels like that's sometimes not for everyone, not all the time, of course, but like there's a. There's kind of a critical mass that I've noticed, and I think a lot of other people have reflected in conversation with me as well, that we sometimes notice we go through. And it could be anything. It could be a ceremony, it could be a retreat, non psychedelic, non medicinal, any type of peak experience. It could be a cycle of therapy. There's all sorts of different things where we may go through a transformational experience, and yet nothing really changed or our behavior didn't change, or the circumstances of our life didn't really change. And it's sort of like wherever we go, there we are, you know? And it's.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:19]:
It's. It becomes this kind of what I call the transformation trap as, you know, like, and I'm not. I didn't create that phrase, but the other thing that she said that I really want to resonate on is there's no one size fits all. There's a phrase that. That I've been resonating with for, like, over 20 years, like, since my early adulthood, which came from a book called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, which is the philosophy of the one right way. And I just feel like there's so much of that that permeates our culture that there's any number of gurus, personal development coaches, or people that espouse any particular theory of how to improve or how to have a breakthrough or what to do. But they many, many times I notice they seem to contain within them this assumption that this is the right way, this is actually the way to do it, and this would work for everyone. If you can just follow my program, if you can just follow my system, if you can just do these steps in this order, you're going to have the same results that I did.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:29]:
And I just don't believe in that. You know, I really don't. I don't believe that there is one right way. I think that there's an infinite number of ways, you know, as there's at least as many ways as there are people. And that, you know, the best we can really do is to help each other to find our own way, that best way for us. And I just love that about your integration philosophy, because that really resonates for me as well.

Olivia MacDonell [00:22:57]:
Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's interesting because. Because when we get more integrated. So my personal definition of spirituality comes down to something very simple. Harmony. Being in harmony or out of harmony. When we're in harmony, we're in tune with the natural vibrations or the harmonious vibrations of nature, of the universe. And you can tell when you're in harmony with it because things are going smoothly.

Olivia MacDonell [00:23:28]:
They're in flow. Your relationships are going well. When you start to get out of harmony or out of alignment with yourself, things start to become discordant, like a discordant sound of a guitar or an instrument where it's like, ooh, it just sounds a little like off to your ears. You start to see that in the way that maybe your body feels. Maybe you're sick. Maybe you're just out of step with nature, the universe, out of time almost. You're in conflict with people. So it's just a noticing.

Olivia MacDonell [00:24:03]:
Am I in harmony or out of harmony? In tune or out of tune. It's very simple. There's no morality there. There's no judgment. There's no right or wrong. It comes down to the evidence of what is happening in your life, in your inner world, as it's being reflected in your outer world. And so as we start to attune to that, what are the unique symptoms in your life for when you start to get out of tune, out of harmony? Mine is that I start becoming more compulsive and impulsive. I have more trouble controlling my impulses and compulsivity with words, with, like, you know, like word vomiting stuff, information that I did not need to be talking about.

Olivia MacDonell [00:24:48]:
You know, I've noticed over time this, the symptoms of when I'm getting out of harmony or out of tune. So recognizing that, then what are the things that start to bring me back into harmony? Back into tune. It's different for everyone. You know, I know that when I get away from my daily routines, my daily practices, I start getting out of tune. My guitar starts getting out of tune. And it's very, like, discordant to the people around me. You know, some people's instruments are louder than other people's instruments. And so understanding like that, knowing the things that can get you back into tune.

Olivia MacDonell [00:25:23]:
Back out of tune. Right. And that's different for everyone going back to the one. Right. What right way? Well, we have different clues in our world. Like, there are common denominators that are in almost every religion, there's common denominators that are in almost every philosophy. Well, that's a really good place to start, is what are the common denominators? But even within those common denominators, some are going to really strike you as your personal truth and some aren't. My favorite verse of the Bible is, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Olivia MacDonell [00:26:00]:
That just means that it'll unlock a knowing for you. It'll unlock an ability for you to take action on something that you haven't been able to before. I think in the world there, we've really twisted two different ideas. One that truth is objective, and one that love is subjective. I personally believe it's the opposite. I think that truth is subjective to everyone, and love should, in fact be objective, and that that should be the only objective truth, that love is the objective truth, and that what love is, is objective. And when we start to see it as subjective to each individual person is when we have wars of religion. And like, I was just listening to a video, a YouTube video with Simon Sinek and Noah Trevor, and they were.

Olivia MacDonell [00:26:59]:
It was really good. They were talking about friendship and the importance of friendship and what friendship looks like and how we should be cultivating friendship more and prioritizing it more. And that's going to be the way that we combat loneliness. And then he starts going into some, like, religious middle eastern group that are bombing people. He's like, actually, you know, this woman was talking about how they're doing it out of love because they want to feel belonging, like, well, that doesn't sound like love to me. That sounds like it's coming from a need, an emptiness of something, a lack of something. And when we're in need or in lack of, we can act in all kinds of types of behavior. I don't think that the foundation of that is love.

Olivia MacDonell [00:27:44]:
I'm going to kill someone because I want to feel belonging with my group over here. Love, it has a completely different quality. I think it's actually something that we can understand objectively, and I'm super open to counter arguments.

Vision Battlesword [00:28:01]:
Hmm. Well, I think there's a whole different conversation, or maybe even like, set of conversations in that whole universe, which are super fascinating to me, by the way. We've never yet done a sacred conversation on the topic of truth, which, I mean, how could I have missed that one thus far? So I'm looking forward to anyone who would like to have that conversation with me. But, yeah, this connection between truth and love, or somehow them being mirror images of each other, but also yet inextricably connected in some kind of relationship, I think is really fascinating. And I'd like to bring us also back to just kind of the main thread or theme here around integration. And you and I have discussed this a few different times, just kind of because we're so interested in it and we both think it's so important. And I just want to do that again in real time right now, just to see what are our thoughts collectively on the whole idea of, well, I guess, integration from transformational experiences. It doesn't necessarily have to be psychedelic integration, although I think that's a big part of what's going on in the culture right now.

Vision Battlesword [00:29:16]:
And there's a gap to be filled there, in our opinion. But let's do it now. Let's drill down that path of. What does that mean? People use this word a lot to say, oh, I'm integrating. I'm still in the process of integrating from this experience, or I need some time to integrate before I can talk about that. Or I am in an integration program to try to bring these new awarenesses or experiences or insights into my life in a practical, meaningful way. But for you, what is, I guess, the main purpose of formal integration or intentional integration from a transformation?

Olivia MacDonell [00:30:00]:
Yes, that's such a good question. Okay, so I think, you know, what I heard you say is different ways that we use, like the verb integration. I need time. I'm integrating what happened, and I need to do that before I can talk. So what I hear there is processing. There's a. I think a lot of people believe that integration is processing. And so when they think about what integration is, it's processing and journaling.

Olivia MacDonell [00:30:26]:
Because journaling helps you process. Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:30:27]:
Journaling is certainly a very, very common tool that people use when they think what they're doing is integrating.

Olivia MacDonell [00:30:36]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:30:36]:
And they might be right. I'm just saying, like, I'm not judging.

Olivia MacDonell [00:30:39]:
Anyone when I say that part of integrating is processing.

Vision Battlesword [00:30:42]:
Yes.

Olivia MacDonell [00:30:43]:
And I would put that under the tool of helping you to process, which is to understand the information that's coming in. Right. So, like, let's say we take these two different softwares and we're integrating them together. It needs time to process that information coming together, just like we need time to process that new information coming in. So let's give a specific example. We'll use the example of psychedelic therapy or having a psychedelic experience, but it could come through having a breath work session. It could come through when you're on a jog and you have an insight come through. So you have the insight come through.

Olivia MacDonell [00:31:22]:
Oh, maybe my parents weren't as nurturing or the caretakers that I thought they were, and maybe I was neglected more than I realized. Right. Because it can take time for someone to have the courage to be able to look at their past and their childhood with clarity and to be able to assign responsibility onto certain experiences that shape their life. Most people don't want to blame their parents. There's two groups of people, which I'll go into that. But let's just say somebody who has always seen something as black and white in their childhood came upon the realization that things maybe were not exactly as they thought. Well, this new insight comes in. Well, they realize that because of that, their ability to love or their capacity to show up for their partner is limited because of the lack of modeling that they received from their parents.

Olivia MacDonell [00:32:21]:
Okay, so now this connection has been made. So this new information is coming in. What type of processing might need to go into a realization like that? And by the way, let's just, like, imagine new information coming in to a space where there was an old framework. Well, that creates an expansion. Right? Because now we need to fit this idea with this older idea that we had. Okay, so let's process that information. And that might involve emotions that need to be felt, that might involve grief or sadness or anger even, or disappointment. There's a whole range of emotions that might need to be processed.

Olivia MacDonell [00:33:04]:
There might need to be journaling that takes place, or reflection that takes place to understand what that means to you. And through that processing, the awareness also comes in there, too. Oh, I'm noticing that I'm treating my partner this way because that's how I was treated, for instance. Okay, so that awareness is there. Well, that doesn't necessarily affect change in your behavior or the way you show up. That is when the full integration takes place, which is applied action. What am I going to do now that I have this realization?

Vision Battlesword [00:33:44]:
Okay, let's pause for a second. I just want to take this one step at a time because we're, like, breaking it down. So we're about to move into applied action. But before we do that, right now, just on, on this first piece, which is processing. So that is a part of integration. We both agree on that. Totally correct. And so, yeah, what I'm picking up from what you're putting down here is we have to, at some, at some point, we've gotten new information dumped on us, or it's, it's been downloaded, it's come up from within.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:19]:
We've had some kind of a reframe about existing memories or old experiences or whatever. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, there's new information, but we don't know exactly what it is yet, or we don't. So what I'm thinking, or we don't.

Olivia MacDonell [00:34:35]:
Know what to do with it yet.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. Like, so part of what you're talking about sounds like meaning making in the sense of the way my parents treated me or the meaning that I made of the way my parents treated me or the way I was treated by other children at school, or this formative experience that I had, or this traumatic experience that I had, or whatever has suddenly changed. Or rather, I've received an opportunity for a reframe, where that reframe is coming to me. And now it's like the new question is, what does this mean? What do I do with this? What do I do with this new meaning? That's kind of the beginning of the process of integration. Like an analogy that I can think of is sort of, if you eat a really big meal, okay, I've just taken in all of this new food, but I haven't actually digested it yet. And there's a process to that of, like, breaking it down and figuring out what's nutritious and what's maybe not. And the actual integration of the meal is it becoming part of my body.

Vision Battlesword [00:35:37]:
And so we're kind of doing that in a mental, spiritual, psychological sense with the new information that we receive from wherever it comes during a transformational experience. Is that kind of what we're saying?

Olivia MacDonell [00:35:50]:
Totally, yeah. There are so many different metaphors that are flooding my mind right now. I just worked recently with an interior designer. Her intention was to create more spaciousness. And through this understanding, we have this expansion and we're able to create more space. So this whole process creates more space within us because it's creating this expansion with the new information that's coming in. So it's like with those realizations, you realize that you were given a certain set of tools to work with. You're given a certain set of furniture, if we want to use the interior design metaphor.

Olivia MacDonell [00:36:28]:
Well, okay, so let's say you were given one of those, like, ornate dividers and you were given some black rocks and you were given some maybe, like, little fountain stream or something like that. Well, maybe those weren't the exact materials you wanted to work with, but what can you do with that in this new space that you have, that you now have? Right. Well, you can design a really beautifully feng shui japanese ornate design room. Okay. Just like for an example, it's understanding the tools you were given and then you making the choice of what you're going to do with that and how you're going to create that. You're given a new operating system. What are you going to code into that operating system now? Right. What are you going to create with that? We're given new space.

Olivia MacDonell [00:37:25]:
Now we get to design. We have more choice over the way that it's designed. We get to move now that couch over into that corner because it looks better. We become the design or architect of the. This new space.

Vision Battlesword [00:37:39]:
Okay, so. And then you also mentioned earlier just feelings, like, the opportunity to feel feelings that are coming up in response to these new awarenesses or experiences. So it seems to me that there's a few different components of processing. There's some component which is really just about understanding, which you could also say. You could also maybe call meaning making. It's like I saw a vision of whatever, you know, I saw a vision of a place, a person, a time, something real, something from my past, something that I've never seen before, whatever it is. What does this mean? Like, what do I do with this information, even just to begin to comprehend it? And then there's also processing of, well, something that may be pretty clear, like, wow, I just had a realization of what my father was going through in that stage of his life when I was at that age. And now I have a completely different level of empathy for him or a new awareness, which I now understand about why those experiences occurred and whatever.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:51]:
But now what would I choose to do with that? How would I choose to carry that into my life or into my experience.

Olivia MacDonell [00:38:59]:
Or into your relationship with your dad.

Vision Battlesword [00:39:02]:
Yeah, or into my relationship with my friends or my partner or whatever. Right. But then also on top of all of that, there can be the opening up of feelings, of emotions. One could even maybe call that just energy, like new energy has been released or is available to be. To be moved, to be transformed, transmuted. It's something. There's something purely experiential, not cognitive, necessarily, about processing, sometimes 100%. Is there anything else as part of that? Spiritual, maybe.

Olivia MacDonell [00:39:39]:
So you have your body, which is your nervous system, which, when you know, you're still kind of in autopilot from the experiences that have happened in your life, and you get triggered, you have a physiological response, tightening of the chest, or, like, retraction contraction, elevated heart rate, blood pressure. Then you have the heart, which is the emotions, the emotions that are stored that need to be processed. And then you have the mental awareness or understanding. I think the combination of all of those kind of coming together in harmony with each other creates a spiritual outcome or experience. Right. Because it becomes, you become more in harmony and in tune with the universe and the world around you. And that's how I bring it back to spirituality.

Vision Battlesword [00:40:25]:
That's interesting. So, in your frame, you don't view spirituality as a domain in and of itself. You view that as almost the emergent property of mind, body and heart being in resonance or being in harmony.

Olivia MacDonell [00:40:41]:
Being in harmony, which then creates this receptor, this clear channel to spirit, to source consciousness to the universe. Whatever makes it easiest for you to understand spirit.

Vision Battlesword [00:40:58]:
Interesting. I love what you're saying, because I think it reflects back to this idea of the one right way or that we agree that there is no one right way or one size fits all, however you want to think of that, because I have noticed, like, I think where we're headed with this ultimately, and youve explicitly said it is, this isnt part of integration in and of itself, just the idea of the integration of these at least three separate domains, mind, heart and body. What I notice is that sometimes there is a perception that one of those ways is right in any given sense. Like we hear cliche phrases like lead with your heart or go with your gut, or the body keeps the score, or these different things that sort of seem to imply, and I've heard it, I've heard people even say it, it's like you really need to get out of your head and into your body. That's where the real transformation is going to occur. That's where the real integration or processing is going to occur, whatever. And I just really prefer your model that I share, that all of these areas are essential, you know, not just important, but like they're essential like each one.

Olivia MacDonell [00:42:18]:
Sometimes you need to get out of your body and into your head, thinking.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:21]:
A little bit sometimes, or even like, what happens when we can really bring those things together simultaneously during processing or integration or experience, etcetera. Anyway, I like all of that, and I wanted to ask you, this is a little bit of a tangent perhaps, but I just want to explore it real quickly. What are your thoughts on energy? Because when we talk about emotions, we talk about things that happen in the nervous system. That's the body aspect of it. We've got this kind of cognitive, psychological, or one might even say psychic space where we have experience. What does the word energy mean to you overall and in the context of integration?

Olivia MacDonell [00:43:12]:
Well, you said something interesting about emotion and emotional storage and then releasing and processing through those emotions and that freeing up energy. Emotions being energy in motion. I think that's a common phrase. When we think of lack of energy, we might think of depression. So it's like a pressing down of a contraction of a weighing down of. And I think that that relates to each one of these parts that we've been talking about, mental, physical and emotional, and your lack of energy or abundance of energy can be connected to one of those things or all of those things. So maybe we've run out of bandwidth mentally, cognitively, because we've just let so much, so many cookies build up in our hard drive or whatever, and we don't have any more space. So there's a contraction there, and that might mean that we need to offload some of the mental pressure that we have.

Olivia MacDonell [00:44:13]:
Conversely, a lot of stored energy in the body, or we've just gotten so disconnected, dysregulated in our nervous system that we're cutting ourself off from our natural ability to tap into our energy because we have adrenal fatigue. You know, we've been burning, burning out by going too hard or emotionally, we've just been suppressing, suppressing, suppressing. Clamping down on. Depressing those emotions into ourself, right? And so by freeing space, I connect energy to space. The more space we create in our mind, in our heart, the more energy is able to flow through us, right? And it's like, I just keep going back to alignment. When something is in a straight line, energy and like. Like a river can go faster, right. If it has a direct route to go through when we're disconnected.

Olivia MacDonell [00:45:09]:
Imagine, like, your head on one side, your body on, on, like a little to the left of that, your heart to, like. If it's not in the align, alignment or straight, well, then that energy is going to have a harder time making its way through. So the more in alignment, the more space there is for it to run through, the more effective the conduit is to pass that energy through. Now, when it comes to the heart and like, the toroidal field, well, the more open your heart is and connected to your body and mind, the bigger that energy field is and the more energy you can project outwards and receive. Right. The more open you are to receiving and giving it.

Vision Battlesword [00:45:55]:
When you're saying open in this context, are you referring to something energetic, like the heart chakra, or are you referring to something emotional, psychological? All of these things. I mean, are all of these things aspects of openness? I'm just trying to track with you.

Olivia MacDonell [00:46:15]:
For simplicity purposes, I would say, because I connect the emotions to the heart, the more space you create there by. By letting go of energy that is contracting or emotions that are like resentment, anger, anything that creates this physiological contraction and closed off ness, because it does create, like, a blockage there. Let's just say it's a blockage, right?

Vision Battlesword [00:46:43]:
Like a blockage. And what we're blocking is like our our ability to feel feelings, our ability to actually project energy in a real, like, physical way in our toreado field, extending beyond our body and our ability to what? Experience forms of connection with other people.

Olivia MacDonell [00:47:03]:
And that is something that has to be, like, done inventory on regularly, because things happen in our life that start creating gunk and blockages in our heart, like when somebody cuts us off in traffic or says something to us that bothers us. Well, you know, if we're coming with a clean slate and we've just, like, done all of this, like, processing, opening, releasing, integrating, and we're feeling great, as is part of the human experience, we're going to continue to have things, conflicts with people. We're going. We're going to get out of alignment. And when we're out of alignment and we're out of tune, we experience more conflict in our life, which can lead to resentments or bitterness or, you know, frustrations and anger that can start to clog and block our heart. Just like a car or vehicle, it needs constant tune ups. And so integration is an ongoing process that needs to continue to happen. And that brings in one of my most important pillars of integration, which is community.

Olivia MacDonell [00:48:04]:
We can't do it by ourself. We cannot know ourselves. So if we were going to define integration in a different way, I would say it's knowing yourself. It's self discovery, it's self awareness. But there's two parts of self awareness, external and internal. Internal being, how well you know yourself, external being, how well you know the impact you have on other people. And we need both to complete full self awareness. And so that comes through our interactions with other people, being able to accept feedback from other people, you know, when we're impacting people in a way that is less than optimal, you know, being able to listen to that, and then also helping us to keep our ego in check.

Olivia MacDonell [00:48:50]:
And even learning how to navigate our ego is an important part of integration as well.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:56]:
Mm hmm. Yeah, there's something interesting. There's a couple interesting things that you just said. I want to just sort of deepen a little bit. One, a moment ago, it seemed like you were kind of starting to lay out a sequence of which, as you said, there's processing, then releasing, then integration, then application, which I think is something I don't want to lose track of because I think we're getting somewhere.

Olivia MacDonell [00:49:20]:
Thank you. Thank you for keeping my ADH brain, ADHD brain organized.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:26]:
I'm certainly not diagnosing you with any form of disorder. I think you're expressing things that are very brilliant, and I'm just trying to keep track of them. Um, and then another thing. But another thing you said there is, you redefined integration as self awareness. And I'm curious, well, I guess my intuition on that or my. My instinct on that is to say that it seems to me that self awareness is an aspect of integration, but they're not necessarily the same thing, universally overlapping.

Olivia MacDonell [00:50:02]:
It's a byproduct. Maybe it's the goal. It's one of the end goals of integration.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:07]:
Yeah. Okay.

Olivia MacDonell [00:50:08]:
Like Socrates said, the highest form of human intelligence is to know oneself. That's to know the things that get us out of tune and the things that put us back into tune. Right. Like, it's. It's the compass or roadmap for understanding how to stay on this integrated path.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:25]:
Mm hmm. But to me, like, there's an aspect of integration that goes beyond self awareness, or rather of which self awareness is a component, but that it continues. I think we're kind of both saying the same thing here, and I'm just wanting to bring us back into resonance on it, which is that there's an aspect of integration which has to do with actually building up yourself, like rebuilding and. Or adding to expanding. Like, you used the word expansion earlier in our conversation. So it's like self awareness is sort of a part of that process in the same way that, let's say emotional releasing is a part of a process of integration, but that ultimately, there's construction. That's a part of it as well. You were talking about.

Vision Battlesword [00:51:15]:
Here's your new operating system. How would you like to configure it? What program would you like to install, or what programs would you like to install? Here, there's an idea of adding to the system, making more features, more capabilities. I think you said at the very beginning that's how you felt walking in here today was capable. And the idea of capabilities, of ways of expressing, ways of manifesting in the world as a part of integration is extending that, expanding that, or adding to it in some form. I'm just bringing that all together because the one other piece that I was pulling out of what you're saying before is, like, what I'm hearing you say is that as you're describing the process of integration in your frame and your. In your model, it's highly integrated. Like, I keep noticing that over and over again. The theme is mind, heart, and body working together synergistically, like you're oftentimes you're describing, you know, you're talking about things that are happening in the mental space, but then how they are reflected in or require some assistance from what's happening in the somatic space, in the physical space, or in the emotional space.

Vision Battlesword [00:52:35]:
And, like, these things are inherently all integrated. You can't, like, there's, there's a sense in which you can't really actually separate them from each other.

Olivia MacDonell [00:52:44]:
And the, and the awareness, and the self awareness is what helps you to keep bringing back to connecting all three.

Vision Battlesword [00:52:52]:
Yeah.

Olivia MacDonell [00:52:53]:
I like noticing when you're, like, when you're a little dysregulated in the body or when you're starting to get backed up from emotions or when maybe you're starting to slip into a mindset that's less than optimal for you. That awareness, that awareness is what keeps, like, increases your capacity or your ability to integrate continuously, to keep fine tuning your instrument, your engine.

Vision Battlesword [00:53:16]:
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I like that, too. That concept that this is a process, this is, or this is a, this is an ongoing evolution of myself, more so than it is a point in time. Oh, I had a great ceremony. I did my four weeks of integration. I'm done, you know, or whatever. Like, I integrated.

Vision Battlesword [00:53:37]:
It's like, well, you're probably going to continue integrating whatever that is, like, forever, you know, in some form or fashion. I think that's interesting.

Olivia MacDonell [00:53:46]:
Just like technology, again, it's like, in order for, okay, let's say we just merged or integrated two fitness tracking apps. I just did that today. Right. I just integrated my Apple Watch with my fitness pal that tracks my nutrition. Well, that information, it's going to continue to need to integrate. It integrate. It needs to integrate every day, every time I log a workout on my watch. Well, then it needs to integrate that new information with myFitnesspal, and that's constantly integrating.

Olivia MacDonell [00:54:16]:
And then the backend people, which we could say is like, our awareness, well, they're, they're continuing to do the updates of the technology to make sure that it continues to seamlessly integrate with each other.

Vision Battlesword [00:54:30]:
That's a great analogy. I love that. And I can tell that your, your mind is very much in the tech world. Yeah. But, yeah, no, that's a great point, though. It's like, okay, yeah, like, take that analogy of a fitness tracker or any kind of data tracker that you may be using to have self awareness of your lifestyle and improve it in some way. But yeah, every single time you get a new data point, another day's worth of data has to update the entire data set. It's like, oh, well, now this whole thing gets recontextualized based on, okay, well, this is how many steps I did today, or this is what I ate today, or whatever that may be.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:12]:
It's. Yeah, it's not just a concatenation. It's always a re integration as we continue to expand our data set, which we could call our lived experience.

Olivia MacDonell [00:55:25]:
Yes, exactly. And so, in the activation project, there's three levels of integration. There's the first, which is activate your life or your mind, which is everything we've been talking about right now. Increasing and expanding your self awareness to help you to continue continuously integrate yourself into this functional, happy, productive human being, or whatever your goal is for integration, as activating your life, what it means to know yourself. And then that second part of self awareness is external self awareness. And that level of integration we cause, or phase of integration, we call activating your tribe. And that's when you start to take your integrated mind, body, heart, being self with this new operating system and learn how to integrate yours with others. Understanding the impact that you have on others by sharpening your communication tools and skills with others so that you can have better relationships, better work environments, better relationships with parents, kids, spouses, colleagues, all the people around you, which make up a very important part of our human existence, because you can be an integrated being.

Olivia MacDonell [00:56:43]:
But no man is an island, right? We're here to be in relationship with other people. That's why there's so many humans, I think, on earth. And so that's the second phase. What you get, give what you learn, teach, is what Maya Angelou says. And I think that that's another important part of integration. And then as that starts to happen, you start to have a much broader understanding of yourself, of the way you impact others and your relationships with other people. That kind of starts to complete this full sense of self awareness, which leads you to the next phase of integration, which is activate the world why you're here, assigning meaning to why you're here, understanding how to live a more purposeful, fulfilled, meaningful life, taking all of your skills and gifts that you've really honed and integrated and started to expand your awareness and understanding around, and applying that into even further action that can have impact on the world, being of service. And that's, again, that's just like a framework that I've created, that I've seen work in my life.

Olivia MacDonell [00:57:52]:
And it's by no means for everybody. I honestly think that some people are here just to keep evolving themselves and not to really have any impact on the world around them, even though that's pretty hard to do. I think some people are here.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:06]:
Do you think? Starting to interrupt. But do you think someone can not have an impact on the world by improving themselves? Like, is that even an option? Can you truly isolate in that way?

Olivia MacDonell [00:58:16]:
I don't know.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:18]:
Would you like to give me just an update on the activation project overall? Like what, what is the activation project and how does it work? What relationship does it have with integration? All this stuff we've been talking about. And just like, where is it at right now?

Olivia MacDonell [00:58:33]:
So we are almost ready for beta testing. It's a software platform that really enables or helps people to integrate mind, body and heart. We've gamified the technology, so there's fun incentives for completing the rituals or the tasks. But essentially, let's say that you just went through a transformative process. You've created space in your life, and now you want to dial in your new operating system. Well, we have the three different components, mind, body and heart. And each one will have a curated list of rituals for each of those categories to help you to integrate the body. So more somatic exercises that can help you regulate the nervous system, for the heart practices and rituals to help you to process through emotions, and then for the mind, new mindset, frameworks and tasks to help you to integrate your mindset, essentially.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:37]:
Nice. What does the word activation mean to you?

Olivia MacDonell [00:59:41]:
Activation to me is like turning on a light bulb in a darkened room. It gives you the ability to see things that you haven't been able to see before. The nature of light is very expansive. You can go if you're standing in a dark room, you have no idea how big it is or how small it is. And just by not even knowing or being able to see how big it is, it feels very small and contracted. Your options seem limited, but by turning on a light in a room, everything becomes more expansive.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:15]:
Okay, that sounds a lot like activation has to do with self awareness, or at least awareness, illumination of reality. Does it have anything to do with behavior change or application in the real world?

Olivia MacDonell [01:00:31]:
Yes. So activation, it also, to me, is like turning the key in and ignition. Right. It's turning on the engine which gives you the ability to go forward and to move and to make choices and to take action. Right. You can't drive a car unless the engine is turned on. So it's the activation of your engine.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:55]:
Where are we driving?

Olivia MacDonell [01:00:57]:
That's up to you to decide.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:58]:
Is that a part of activation is a.

Olivia MacDonell [01:01:01]:
Is helping people to know where they want to go?

Vision Battlesword [01:01:05]:
Yeah, sure. Or just knowing where you want to go. Like, if I'm imagining myself becoming activated, I'm just trying to follow along with your program. And, like, what does that look like for me? So, it sounds like for me to become personally activated, first I'm turning the lights on in the room in my life, so I can see what, see more of reality, see more of myself, whatever that may be. Then I can get in the car and turn the ignition, which means now I have motivation or I have the ability to travel. I have. I can go somewhere. And then my next question, just sitting, sitting from that perspective as a person trying to become activated, would be, where am I going? What am I doing?

Olivia MacDonell [01:01:54]:
Right. So that all becomes clear to you. As you integrate mind, body, and heart, youre self awareness increases and your understanding of your unique skills and gifts and talents. What comes along with that is the direction of where you want to go, and it's completely different for each person. So, going through that process of integration, that becomes clearer to you.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:19]:
Mm hmm. How activated do you feel in your life right now?

Olivia MacDonell [01:02:23]:
Like, how much light is turned on in my. In my room? How open is my heart?

Vision Battlesword [01:02:30]:
I'm just asking questions from curiosity. You can answer it any way you want.

Olivia MacDonell [01:02:34]:
That's a really interesting question. I'm definitely turned on. I think my optimization and integration of my particular vehicle is always going to be a work in progress as I learn new things. Right. As I'm increasing my capacity to accomplish the tasks. It's coming. It's just, that's why I love growth mindset so much, because it's just this constant process of learning. My engine is turned on.

Olivia MacDonell [01:03:03]:
Right, and that's the foundation. Or is your engine turned on? Is the light turned on inside of you? That doesn't mean that you're where you want to go. Yeah, absolutely not.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:13]:
If you're in a turned off car in a dark garage, you're probably not going anywhere.

Olivia MacDonell [01:03:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. To answer your question, I'm very activated, but that's also just the basic foundation.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:28]:
Sure. How integrated do you feel in your life right now?

Olivia MacDonell [01:03:32]:
Gosh, how integrated. So, in the process, I feel like I know myself very well. I feel like my relationships with others and my communications with others are getting better every day, and they are so much better than they used to be. And I think I am on the path of my purpose, my life's purpose, which is to activate people's hearts and minds and to get there through this, these tools of integration and the understanding of integration. So I think I'm doing all of that to talk about some of my. The struggles that I have. Consistency. Consistency is really tough for me or has been periodically.

Olivia MacDonell [01:04:13]:
So just continuing to keep going with the same momentum, you know, I can. I do things that. That really sidetrack me often believing, just continuing to believe in myself, those are some of my struggles that I have. So I. Yeah, I mean, I think just being honest about struggles and where.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:33]:
I'm at, I appreciate your vulnerability, and I'm not trying to put you on the spot. It's just, you know, just kind of like, it's very good for me, just exploring. Exploring these concepts with you, you know, with curiosity. That's all. Yeah. What else is on your mind with regard to integration?

Olivia MacDonell [01:04:48]:
Well, so one of my favorite frameworks that I teach in integration or in the sessions that I do with people is something I call privilege through adversity pathway. And it kind of talks about the process of integration and what the end result is, but I'll go over it really quickly. So imagine an axis, and on one side is the victim mindset, and on the other end of this, access is true privilege. Usually when I give this talk, I ask people what is the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word privilege. I get all types of answers, you know, entitlement, usually negative connotations around the word privilege. So I work with usually two different types of people. The type of person that never wants to look back. They see everything as just like black and white.

Olivia MacDonell [01:05:47]:
You know, my childhood was fine. My parents did the best that they could. Everything was okay. These people tend to be pretty ambitious. They run at full steam until they hit a wall and they just can't go on anymore. They just have reached their capacity. And then the other type of person is the one who are constantly looking backwards, like they are very aware of every little thing that has impacted them, the people that have impacted them, they're very aware of the trauma that their parents have. Have caused and imposed on them.

Olivia MacDonell [01:06:20]:
So they kind of, like, live in that more victim type of mindset. What I have found is that the solution is actually for both of these types of people to start at the victim. So for the one that refuses to go to victim, does not want to be considered a victim, brushes everything under the carpet. Most importantly is for them to return to the beginning a victim. And what I mean by that is to sit in that place where they can fully validate and acknowledge the experience that their inner child went through, where they can sit there and tell their story to an empathetic. Witness, somebody who can listen and say, you should not have had to go through that. That was not okay. You deserve to have been loved and nurtured and not neglected, and all of the trauma that can occur to someone when they're a child.

Olivia MacDonell [01:07:23]:
The same goes for the person who's stuck in victimization. Now, for that person, I would encourage maybe a little bit more of a speedier process through that exact portion because they have spent so much time there. But either way, fully acknowledging, validating, and advocating for the experience that that person had and what they went through so that they can step into that place of, oh, yeah, no, I actually did go through something really tough because oftentimes it's that part of them that's hanging on that's like, hey, I need somebody to acknowledge that what I went through was hard, and that is like the beginning of healing. After that is when all the emotional processing comes, all of the feelings that need to be felt as a result of that. So everything that's been suppressed and not felt and pushed down and disregarded or diminished, a lot of times it starts with grief and sadness, but people's processing of emotions all looks very different. But these are just some examples of emotions that could come up. And so one of the things I tell people is, after, after any type of a psychedelic journey or experience, our. It increases our capacity to feel, but we need to be able to open the valve at both ends of the emotional spectrum.

Olivia MacDonell [01:08:45]:
So in order to feel extreme joy, we also have to be able to experience and allow for sadness and grief. And so just allowing that emotional process, giving yourself tons of space to process emotions, turn the volume up on those emotions. If you feel sadness starting to come, put on some music that'll just make you ball your eyes out. Just let it come through. And if you're starting to move towards anger or rage, find a safe place to process that, or maybe even a safe person to process that with. There's a lot of emotional coaches that help people to just really process through emotions. Rage and anger is a really, really important one for a lot of people to be able to express, especially people who grew up in a household where either their mom or dad was very angry and violent and abusive. Oftentimes those people can have that anger really locked down and unaccessible, which can also limit their ability to take action in their life or to be able to use their voice to advocate for themselves.

Olivia MacDonell [01:09:48]:
So being able to process and tap into these emotions is a very important part of this process. Take as much time as you need to go through these processes. Like Ram Dha says, you know, when he worked, he was working with people that were grieving, you know, the death of people. And he's like, how long have you been grieving? And they said, you know, a year. He's like, oh, go grieve some more. You know, take time. Take the time. No one can tell you how fast or slow is right for you to be able to process through these emotions.

Olivia MacDonell [01:10:19]:
And you'll know when you've kind of spent enough time processing when you reach neutrality. So imagine each of these as little, like, markers on this access point as you're moving towards the other side of. So when you hit neutrality, neutrality is a great place to be because it means that a lot of the emotional charge around these events in your life has sort of come to a place of stillness or neutrality right before neutrality, or right right after neutrality comes the middle of this access. It's the turning point. It's when everything begins to change in your life. That turning point is acceptance, and it's right in the middle. And acceptance acts as a current which just sweeps you to the other side of this access point. Acceptance is so strong that it enables you to literally let go.

Olivia MacDonell [01:11:17]:
So if you imagine yourself hanging on to the cliff of the past and whether you think you are or you think you aren't, even with those first people that I talked about that are always just looking forward, forward, there's a part of them that is still clinging on to the past that doesn't let them move past a certain point, that acceptance allows you to literally let go of that. And what? Imagine letting go of that cliff that you're hanging onto and then just allowing yourself to be swept away through the natural ocean of life, the river of life, and surrendering into that flow and moving towards the life that you are meant to live, the life of your dreams. Right? So then it's letting go, surrender into that. And as you start to surrender, well, then you can start to take responsibility and you can move into ownership. And I have a more lengthy explanation for each of these, but you start to own your life. You start to become the creator of your life. So it's moving from everything is happening to me to everything is happening for me to everything is happening by me and everything is happening with me. And you're moving through, in step in tune with the cosmic choreography of life.

Olivia MacDonell [01:12:38]:
And that starts to empower you. So you're stepping into empowerment until you reach the other end of the axis, which is true privilege at this point, do you understand what true privilege really means?

Vision Battlesword [01:12:55]:
What does it mean?

Olivia MacDonell [01:12:56]:
It means that privilege can only come as a result of all of the adversity that you've experienced in your life, because only that process can give you the things in life that give you a privileged life, which is resilience, grit, gravitas, compassion, empathy, humility. And you can turn around and look back at all of the life that you've lived up until now and realize that you would not change a moment of your life and that everything is perfect, that it can come through all of the adversity. Right. Whereas most people believe that privilege, it comes from socioeconomic status, it comes from the color of your skin, when in reality, people who were born with a golden spoon in their mouth and had everything handed to them usually have the hardest time in life. They're the most fragile. They have the hardest time regulating and getting through tough things in life. So they're not equipped to actually enjoy a quote unquote privileged life.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:05]:
It reminds me of what they say about butterflies, that the struggle of breaking out of the cocoon is necessary for them to actually develop, literally, physiologically, but also, whatever that process, go through that actual process to the point where they come out the other side with the capability to fly and live and be functional. And, yeah, it reminds me of that. It's like if a person is too sheltered or has too soft of an early development, then it's like the butterfly. They haven't had that opportunity to actually struggle and be forged in that process into the full expression of what a human being can be. So that everything that you just laid out, that entire sequence, starting from fully embracing the victim experience all the way through privilege to achieving the experience of true privilege, as you call it, that entire thing. Are you describing the process of integration?

Olivia MacDonell [01:15:16]:
Pretty much.

Vision Battlesword [01:15:16]:
Okay. Yeah. Have you ever written that down, or.

Olivia MacDonell [01:15:20]:
I have written it down, and I teach it in every session that I do with clients. Yeah. At the end of them sharing their life story with me, we get to go through that. And there's one part that I forgot, which is the cheat code. Oh, the cheat code. To get to bounce through that access a little quicker, is gratitude. Gratitude can help you move pretty quickly, because the truth is, is that we don't just get to true privilege and stay there again. We have things happen in our life.

Olivia MacDonell [01:15:51]:
We have disappointment happened, we have heartbreak happen. We have things that can put us back into that place where we need to be able to step back into. Oh, wow. I just went through a really hard painful experience and then move through those emotions again, only each time we have the ability to go faster and faster, and gratitude can move us through those that sequence a lot quicker.

Vision Battlesword [01:16:15]:
That's really interesting, you know, because I've had several different conversations with different folks, you know, in the sacred life community on this series where we've been. We've been exploring things like acceptance, gratitude, resistance, love, a lot of the themes that have come up in our conversation here, but you have a very specific comprehension of some of these terms and how they fit together and where they occur in the process and things. That's not something I've heard before, but it's interesting. It's very stimulating because we've been talking a lot about, especially the relationship between acceptance and gratitude has come up in several different conversations. And continuing to kick that around and refine it and see what we think about it. Is one a subset of the other? Are they two different things that have a relationship? What's the relationship of each of them to love, for example? It's a really interesting thought process. And so for you to lay it out in that way, which is different, I'm going to have to take some time to integrate that whole thought process of specifically, acceptance being the turning point that happens in the middle of the process. That's one thing that I'm picking up that's really interesting I want to think about.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:36]:
And then the other thing is gratitude being a thing that we can use at the. All the different points in the process as an accelerator. Haven't thought about that before.

Olivia MacDonell [01:17:44]:
Yeah, it's so powerful. And speaking of gratitude and acceptance, the way the technique that I teach for gratitude is expressing gratitude by saying thank you. So in tap integration, our software. Our integration software, we have the different categories for the tasks, right? Mind, body, heart. And. And then you get to see which one is connected to integrating your body, your heart, your mind. Well, gratitude is one that we put for all three because there's a way that you can tie it into integrating your mind, body, and heart, and this is the way that I found that you do that. So instead of saying I'm grateful for or I'm thankful for, which is like describing a state, you say thank you for.

Olivia MacDonell [01:18:36]:
Because the only time we say thank you is when we are actively receiving something or actively accepting something into our life. And so a lot of times when I'm first working with people, they have a really hard time even thinking about something that they're thankful for. Okay, what could you actively choose to accept in this moment? Can you actively choose to accept how beautiful that tree is out there, that tree that you get to observe every day for free, no matter how chaotic you feel inside. And can you say, thank you for that beautiful tree that I get to witness every single day?

Vision Battlesword [01:19:22]:
Thank you, tree.

Olivia MacDonell [01:19:23]:
Thank you, tree. Thank you for this delicious water with electrolytes that I have in it because it hydrates me and it nourishes me. And by saying thank you, you feel it in your body because it's an instant association with receiving or accepting something.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:43]:
So here's what I noticed that you're doing. I'm sorry to cut you off again, but I don't want to lose this because it feels really important. What I notice that you're doing is by emphasizing the word active and activation and conjuring that state of being, which is activity as opposed to passivity. What you're doing is you're invoking presence, you're invoking experience. You are becoming and helping others to become participants in their own. In the creation of their own experience, moment to moment. So it's the difference between, there's an element of objectivity versus subjectivity to it, interestingly, that reflects back to the conversation about love and truth. But it's a mindset shift.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:37]:
It's not just a mindset, it's a holistic experience shift from the imagination of something that is not occurring to the participation in something that is occurring when you activate. Like, that seems to be the point or the crux. Why are we interested in activation as a. As an essential part of integration? Does that make sense?

Olivia MacDonell [01:21:02]:
Absolutely. Could not have said it better. Activation, action, taking action. Yes.

Vision Battlesword [01:21:10]:
Yeah, it's all integrating and application. And application, application, activation, integration, action. Yeah, this is all it's all about. Becoming here, now, present, doing the thing, being with the thing, being a participant of my own process. I think we're getting somewhere. I like this. There was something else I wanted to ask you about because you brought up acceptance and gratitude, a part of this overall process that you described. What is the role of forgiveness? Does it have one?

Olivia MacDonell [01:21:49]:
Well, first of all, I think acceptance has to proceed forgiveness in order for there to be that actual internal shift in your state around something. Because even just by nature of forgiving something, you're accepting that it happened. So it's a very similar frequency, actually. If you think about, you're accepting what someone did to you, what does acceptance cause letting go of? And what is forgiveness? It's letting go. You're letting go of the hurt, the pain, and the resentment that you had. Maybe you're not necessarily letting go, but you're releasing it. You're choosing to release it. So I think forgiveness is a combination of acceptance and letting go.

Vision Battlesword [01:22:39]:
There's something that just occurred to me in this moment, which is, do you suppose that acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude in that sequence can be an alchemical transmutation process that converts pain into love? So if I start with pain and.

Olivia MacDonell [01:22:59]:
The understanding of true privilege. Right. I think that is a component, is when you're able to reach gratitude, where you look back and you say, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm thankful for every single thing that has happened in my life because it's brought me here. It's. Exactly.

Vision Battlesword [01:23:17]:
Yes. Yeah. This feels like we've taken additional steps in this whole acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness conversation that we've been sort of collectively having today. That feels really good. I'm looking forward to integrating that and also bouncing it off of some other people as well to get some additional reflections, but that feel like we're putting some pieces together. I feel like we're integrating something bigger picture over time here. It feels really good to me.

Olivia MacDonell [01:23:44]:
Yes. This is awesome.

Vision Battlesword [01:23:46]:
What else is on your mind? Is there anything else that's important to you about integration or a question you'd like to ask me about integration? Anything like that?

Olivia MacDonell [01:23:57]:
What tool? What is one of your favorite tools for integration?

Vision Battlesword [01:24:02]:
I'm a big fan of contemplation. I spend a lot of time in the mental space, but I'm an integral believer. Are you familiar with integral theory? You brought up spiral dynamics, which is closely related to it. But are you familiar at all with the Ken Wilbur integral model? That sort of stuff? So I'm a big believer in, as you are, in trying to do things more holistically and bringing together different domains, whether it be mental, emotional, physical, different realms of thought and experience. But, yeah, for me, I'd say my favorite single tool of integration is energy digestion, which is something I learned from my personal mentor and shaman teacher. And I combine it a little bit with a psychological or somatic experiencing practice that, you know, of that I call sift, which stands for sensations, imagination, feelings, and thoughts, which is just a way of becoming present with one's own experience and kind of cataloging the complete awareness of it. But also, you know, as part of my daily practice, and it certainly is an ongoing, integrative practice, I try every day to get outside and to put my butt in direct contact with the earth and then follow a visualization of energy movement that allows me to return heavier energy to the earth ground literal grounding of that energy and allow new, fresh, clean energy to fill that space that opens up. And I think that a lot of integration happens for me during that time that I don't necessarily need to be fully aware of, or it's not like lightning bolts of like, oh, I understand what this means now, but yet it's happening subconsciously, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, in whatever ways.

Vision Battlesword [01:26:11]:
I always feel just refreshed and active and integrated after I do that.

Olivia MacDonell [01:26:20]:
That's awesome.

Vision Battlesword [01:26:21]:
What about you?

Olivia MacDonell [01:26:23]:
I think gratitude, I think well, and breath work. I think breath work is really, those are probably my two favorite. I really like that. I really like the idea of tap becoming an open source body of knowledge for all the integration specialists out there and everyone getting to upload their favorite integration tools for people.

Vision Battlesword [01:26:50]:
I'm looking forward to participating.

Olivia MacDonell [01:26:52]:
Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Vision Battlesword [01:26:54]:
Yeah. I love what you're doing. I just want to say that clearly to you. You know, I'm so inspired by you. I have such admiration for you, have such respect for you, and just you, you know, going after this thing, like, in the couple of, couple plus years that we've known each other, just, you know, you're relentless. You're, you're going for it. You really believe in it. I believe in it.

Vision Battlesword [01:27:16]:
I think it's very important and I think it's going to be very valuable for a lot of people. So I just wanted to give you that reflection of appreciation.

Olivia MacDonell [01:27:26]:
Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. Yes, that means a lot to me, and I'm. Yes, I'm really excited to open it up so that we can collaborate on this together. I, as you know, need all the help I can get. We're literally just figuring out the very basic backend of this software, but it's gonna, I think once we get that down, it's just gonna start to steamroll and we'll be able to start adding all the features and getting the funding that we need. So that's a really important piece.

Vision Battlesword [01:28:00]:
Well, you've made amazing progress. I mean, I've seen the thing evolve so much, you know, since we, since you first set your vision out for me. And, you know, I just want to give you as much encouragement and support as I can. I think you're doing great, you know, and I, and I always support you and keeping it moving forward. And I want to thank you very much for this conversation. This was super fun and interesting for me. I hope, I hope it was good for you as well. But I think it was a really, really good conversation.

Vision Battlesword [01:28:27]:
And just thank you so much for taking the time.

Olivia MacDonell [01:28:30]:
Thank you for inviting me. This is my favorite type of conversation to have. I'm also down to do the truth is subjective and love is objective.

Vision Battlesword [01:28:39]:
Awesome. I would love to do it again with you anytime, on any topic.

Olivia MacDonell [01:28:44]:
Okay, awesome. Yes. Thank you so much.

Vision Battlesword [01:28:47]:
Thank you.