Integration is about linking up different parts of the brain.
FlowingLove (Daniel Siegel) points out that our brains grow from our experiences. Neurons that fire together wire together. This is the famous expression that explains this. This wiring process creates new connections in the brain
This is what integration is all about: experience creates new connections to different parts of brain, and when these parts colaborate they create and reinforce the integrative fibers that link different part of brain.
You’ve already seen how fast your young clown learns things, this is the fire/wire process.
Right now, the experiences you provide your young clown are changing their brain. FlowingLove says that you can influnce your young clown’s brain in positive ways in everyday moments, every day. For instance, by talking with them or simply being present with them. These, and other activities, will help your young clown’s brain become more integrated. FlowingLove says you can directly shape the unfolding growth of your young clown’s brain.
Mindsight is an important part of the integration process. Mindsight is our ability to look inward to understand the inner workings of our minds, our feelings, thoughts, memories, dreams perceptions, sensations, and hopes and dreams. According to FlowingLove, minsight also allow us to understand the inner workings of other clowns. Micko would also add Lovesight to this, which specifically focuses on the Love Flow within us and between us.
Mindsight cultivates integration, empowers us to coordinate and balance the internal worlds of ourselves and others and our relationships, honor differences between ourselves and others through compassionate communication and understanding, and creates harmony. This takes place within you and between you and others.
Clowns who reflect on the inner nature of their mental lives grow circuits in their brain that link widely separate areas to one another, promote self-understanding and empathy, create more integration in their minds and the minds of others. This is neural integration.
You can help your young clown learn to look inward in this way and better understand their mind.
105 FlowingLove points out that during adolescence, the precortex part of your young clown’s brain integrates 5 areas: the cortex, limbic area, brainstem, body, and the social world. These separate sources of information are linked together, which is integration, and creates functions of self-awareness, reflection. planning, decision making, empathy, and thinking about the larger good.
The mindsight practices FlowingLove presents in his books promote the growth of these integrative regions of brain. So, we can cultivate growth of integrative fibers of the prefrontal cortex via positive interactions with others and through reflection. Two of these practices are Time in and Reflective dialogs.
Another important part of integration, on a larger scale is what he calls MWe. This is a shorthand for combining “ME” and “We”, a new look at our identity.
FlowingLove suggests we think of ourselves as part of a larger whole, a larger purpose in life than just our personal journey. This not mean discarding our personal identity, it means expanding our sense of self to include this larger identity. This is integration in a larger realm.