I started April already feeling drained — emotionally raw, heavy, and confused. It was like my heart was still catching up to all the changes I had been making. I knew this month was supposed to be about integration — that’s what the energy reading at the beginning of the month said. April was meant to help me bring all my parts back together, to move from fragmentation into wholeness. I thought that would feel peaceful, empowering. I thought I’d be soaring by now.

Instead, it felt like I was falling apart.

At the start of the month, I had big intentions. I wanted to use April to work out more, feel strong in my body, lose some weight before my trip at the end of the month. I was ready to take action. But right around my birthday, I got hit with food poisoning out of nowhere. I had no choice but to slow down and surrender. It was a moment that made me realize just how much I do for others — how often I put myself last. And for the first time in a long time, I wished for something simple: peace.

The whole month, I found myself asking: Why is this so hard?
Choosing myself — choosing rest, choosing gentleness — felt heavier than I ever imagined. I thought freedom would feel light, happy, expansive. Instead, it felt like grief. Like standing in the ruins of old versions of myself.

And when the rubble cleared, the parts of me that stepped forward shocked me.

I didn’t meet the free-spirited, peaceful version of myself I expected. I didn’t meet the “healed” shaman-self I thought would be waiting for me on the other side.
I met the critic.
I met the voice that tells me I’m lazy.
I met the part that demands I suck in my stomach at the beach, that whispers I’m not enough no matter how much I do.
I met the old judge — and instead of fighting her, I listened.

Integration, I learned, isn’t about becoming the perfect version of myself.
It’s about making room for all the parts of me I tried to exile.

It’s about seeing my anger, my exhaustion, my inner critic — and letting them have a seat at the table, without letting them run the show.

April was hard because true integration is not about transcendence. It’s about embodiment.
It’s about bringing the rejected parts back into the heart of who I am.

Not to glorify them.
Not to obey them.
But to love them back into wholeness.

As this month closes, I realize:
I’m not falling apart.

I’m not falling apart and
I’m not soaring away.
I’m falling deeper into myself — into the parts that used to scare me.
Even though the ground feels muddy, I’m not afraid to keep walking.
Something in me has changed.
I don’t have all the answers, but I trust myself enough to stay.
I’m grateful I sat with myself through it all.
And that makes me stronger than I’ve ever been.