004 You’re Changing and It Feels Unsettling

In this episode of the SoulLife Psychology Podcast, Dr Toni Reilly delves into the concept of integration, explaining how it signifies an internal adjustment following newfound awareness. As your inner self reorganises, you begin to see yourself more clearly, leading to changes in behaviour and subconscious decision-making. Dr Reilly shares personal anecdotes and practical examples of how awareness disrupts your comfort zone and recalibrates your inner world, resulting in less reactive and more conscious responses. This episode emphasises that true awareness naturally leads to integration, without the need for forced change. Tune in to learn how these shifts can help you break free from old patterns and habits, setting the stage for deeper self-understanding and intuition in future episodes.

00:00 Introduction to SoulLife Psychology

00:35 Understanding Integration

01:53 The Process of Awareness

03:32 Challenges of Awareness

05:43 Real-Life Examples of Integration

11:02 Practical Takeaways and Next Steps

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello, I'm Dr Toni Reilly, and this is the SoulLife Psychology podcast where you'll learn to understand yourself through emotional awareness and soul connection. In the previous three episodes, episode one, we explored awakening and why you're here. Episode two, we explored emotional bruises. And in episode three, we explored the patterns that shape your character and the behaviors that are formed around insecurity. Today we're moving into integration. Let's get started. What integration actually is, is an adjustment. What you're experiencing is part of the process. This is what awareness looks like in real life. It happens after insight when your inner self reorganizes around what you now recognize. Awareness stops being something you have to think about and it becomes the default space that you operate from. So you see yourself much more clearly. Your responses change because your point of reference shifted. The change is subtle, it happens through modified behavioral reactions and new subconscious decision making. Many people expect it to feel a relief right away, but sometimes it doesn't. More often it feels unfamiliar. It's kind of weird, and you can feel out of sorts. Because now your inner world is recalibrating. It's catching up to the emotional and mental process you've lived through. That recalibration is integration. In a wake, I describe periods where insight arrived well before anything shifted externally. Initially, I may not have felt really inspired, but I studied what I was doing. And I'm really intense when it's when something catches my attention. A bit like people watching, but I was watching myself. I noticed myself speaking less, reacting less, and reflecting a whole lot more. And I started to observe my responses instead of them encapsulating me. At the time, it didn't really feel like anything specific was happening. Realistically, this was all completely new to me. Though in reality, everything internal was being reorganized because my perception of myself had changed. The way I viewed myself had changed. And it was only obvious to me in hindsight after the awareness was fully integrated. And that's how it works. And can I say the process of reaching awareness was hard. It's really freaking hard. Considering the foundations in my case, the foundations of my first major integration featured a love story, marriage, three kids, and 16 years with a lovely husband and father. I can still get teary sometimes, even though 20 years has passed. Anyway, let's talk about why awareness can feel unsettling. That's just a nice way to put it. It can really make you feel disrupted, maybe anxious, on edge, at least while the process is happening. But when the awareness changes the way that you see yourself, you begin noticing yourself more clearly. Some of these realizations are so different to how you thought you were, it can come as a complete shock. Some of us have a really warped perception of ourselves. Anyway, you start noticing your reaction to people and situations, you become aware of your habits, your internal commentary happening in here, those voices in your head. We'll talk about those voices in your head in depth in another episode. We actually call it hectic head because it can get so crazy in here. And sometimes those thoughts are downright mean. I digress slightly. But let's get back to what happens as awareness settles in. You start seeing yourself clearly, maybe for the very first time, what once ran automatically is now becoming obvious to you. Like noticing how you get defensive or how much you need validation. It doesn't really matter what you're seeing in yourself, but you will recognize something that's happened within you. That recognition can feel weird because your point of reference has changed. Or in other words, your comfort zone has been disrupted. Awareness is now the default space you operate from, and you're no longer responding from habit. You're responding from awareness. Let me assure you, the process is utterly liberating. It feels like a weight lifts from your shoulders. And it takes some time to get used. Here's a real life example to help put into context recognizing yourself mid-reaction. It might look like noticing yourself about to explain yourself, or justify, or smooth things over, or say sorry when you see the pattern as it's happening. Now you can pause and observe. And that pause becomes recognition. And it's because awareness is now present in the moment. Let me explain how there's no need for you to interfere in the process. Integration unfolds regardless. Though when this insight arrives, many people can feel pressure to take action, to change their behavior, to adjust their boundaries, or to make different decisions. It's like you want to demonstrate your newfound awareness. And that self-imposed pressure can come from the discomfort of seeing or noticing something clearly before it's fully settled in to the new you. The cool part is that understanding restores trust in yourself, whereas forcing change undermines that trust. In fact, it crushes self-trust. So when something is fully recognized, your inner world begins adjusting eventually. And that adjustment happens while you stay present, which means living your everyday life. Here's a little example of when I leaned in and stopped intervening. After recognizing a lifelong pattern of over-responsibility and people pleasing, to avoid any kind of disagreement. So for some context of my stroll desire or need to keep the peace. Um I tell you this, in 16 years with my husband, we never had one argument, not one wild. So when I discovered this pattern of mine, I was compelled to respond differently straight away. I wanted to prove that I'd understood that something had been wrong and that I had changed, and I went a bit rogue. Sometimes my new responses shocked people. I mean, people I was close to, but especially my husband, because my new behavior was not what he was used to from me. But when I leaned in and stopped forcing the integration, the pattern softened on its own. And it softened because I understood it. This is the point where some people might question themselves. They start to feel less driven by old motivations, certainly less reactive, and maybe a bit uncertain. And this happens because your perspective has changed, your mindset has changed, and old coping mechanisms feel less needed because awareness is now present. And when this happens, what you're experiencing is part of the process. Experiencing this process, living through it is all part of your life mission. Let's talk about how integration shows up in everyday life so that you recognize when it's happening, or maybe recognize when it has happened in your life. This is how it shows up in daily life. You'll pause before responding. There's less urgency to explain yourself. Sometimes the compulsion to explain goes altogether. You can't be bothered. You start noticing your reactions before they take over. At the same time, you really might not be bothered to say anything, whereas you would have before. Certain things that might usually trigger you just don't have that effect anymore. They're not doing the same thing. That is recalibration and integration does not broadcast itself in words. There's no announcement. The only way you know is you'll recognize that something has changed in your everyday reactions and real life experiences. Here's a little example of a subtle shift. Let's say someone says something that usually makes you feel. And maybe you usually would yell back in defense or set them straight because that's your usual reaction, but now you're not reacting. Suddenly you don't feel the need to defend your opinion or make them understand. And later you realize that something has changed. Integration has its own timing. Some insights settle really fast, and others take a long time. You don't need to monitor your progress. You don't really need to measure change. Your inner self knows how to adjust in its own time. It just happens. And this is what awareness looks like in real life. It's time for our practical takeaway. I want you to think of something that triggers you, or maybe used to trigger you. And I want you to notice something about yourself and your reaction. You can go deeper if you want to and explore why you had that certain reaction. Anyway, that's all you have to do this week. Pure recognition makes all the difference. Don't forget, if something within this episode makes you want to ask a question, send it through the form in the show notes to be potentially featured on a future episode. Let's talk about what's coming up from here and starting with the very next episode of the SoulLife Psychology podcast, the focus shifts to exploring intuition, learning to trust yourself, and becoming more confident through deeper self-understanding. Intuition is the greatest and most reliable confidence builder that there is. And it is inherent in you. You might just need to understand how your intuition works. And I'm going to help you with that. Thank you for being here. And for those of you who feel called to do this work more deeply, the SoulLife Psychology Practitioner Certification Training begins in begins on the 23rd of February. So it's really happening soon. If you feel called, you'll find the details on my website or even in the show notes. If this show resonated with you, subscribe or follow and stay connected. I'll be back with another episode soon. Awareness is the ultimate activism.