@integration journey
Thank you brother.
Sufism is hard to understand, because it is a secret thing, like most of the Sufi knowledge is to be taken from a lineage, and also Salafism takes all the online presence.
I don't have a lineage, I am not into orders because from what I observed, it becomes very Cultish, though I plan to take initiation, and continue on my own.
Going into Sufism is not easy at all, you will have to learn a lot, read a lot, practice a lot, but I can tell you it works very well once you get it, it is a form of Bhakti yoga in Hinduism, the four yogas in Hinduism are: Bhakti Yoga (devotion and love type shit), Jnana Yoga (self inquiry type shit), Raja yoga (meditation type shit), Karma yoga (being a good person), these are the 4 pathways to union with god according to Hinduism.
Now, Sufism is easily Bhakti yoga (divine love and devotion to Allah), and Karma yoga (Perfection of character and purifiying the self)
Add in some sort of meditative practices (Buddhism maybe) for Raja yoga, and Self inquiry for (Jnana yoga).
Sufism actually has meditative practices in itself, which is Dhikr, or rememberence, similiar to mantra chanting, you just repeat a phrase like "Allah" or "La Ilaha Ila Allah", for long, which quitens the mind, you probably know this, and it is stronger than any mantra chanting because it is accompanied by feelings of love and devotion, and a focus on the meaning of the words.
As for Jnana yoga, the prophet himself used to do something like self inquiry before getting "the message", which is asking about what is god, rather than what is self in traditional self inquiry.
So you can quite literally use Islam to fulfill all of those, couple it with Fasting, Khalwa (Islamic version of retreats), daily prayers, and other stuff, and you are good to go.
My approach is to use Kriya yoga + Self inquiry in the calm state after Kriya, while doing my daily Islamic prayers and rememberence of god whenever able, and sticking to Islamic rulings.
I chose Islam just because I am from an Islamic culture so it probably suits my subconscious conditionings.
Now if you want to practice Sufism, Sufism is concerned with Ihsan, the perfection of worship, and there is steps to religion according to a funny Hadith
Islam: Practing the 5 pillars of Islam, which are daily prayer, giving charity, fasting, beliving in god and prophet, and primiliage to mecca if able Iman: the practices above induce faith or Iman, so they are no longer just practices, you grow in belief in god. Ihsan (what Sufism is concenred with): The perfection of worship, worshipping allah as if you see him. The end goal of Sufism would be Fana', which is like, ego death.
So basically you can't have Sufism without Islam as it is built on it, though many in the west do that, so you can try that too.
I know believing in Islam is hard, because a lot of it seems like dogma, but I just *choose* to believe in it, for now at least, Ibn Arabi held the belief that the Quran's meaning changes depending on how spiritually developed you are, and the more spiritually developed you are, the more you see wisdom in it, some Sufis have taken a lot of stuff in Quran is metaphor, and are considered heretics lol, other Sufis were very strict, so find your ground.
Ibn Arabi also believed in Wahdat Al Wujud (nothing exists but Allah sort of stuff, and we are all a reflection of his existence, sort of like god standing in front of a mirror, and the whole world is a reflection and embodiment of god's existence, but not exactly god)

To actually practice, do your 5 pillars, do all of them with a feeling of love and devotion, do Dhikr, extremely slowly, focus on every word and letter, read Sufi poetry, stick to Islamic rulings, maybe join a Sufi order, also I will share some good resources.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sufism/comments/1cn1kah/tassawuf_without_a_sheikh/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sufism/comments/gmcljv/general_resources_for_learning_more_about_the/
https://youtu.be/a-fzYJcpuyI?si=iFmWjUXt3-_0s_0l
https://youtu.be/Yc9k9nvIHOU?si=MXxqZtoIKmjH7rd8
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTgDm4XwxaRIJCWyAO-isyCku250Q4mTd
https://youtu.be/0Y6N2e4ED10?si=uRbXN4O-QjJfa4T6
 
As for books:
Anything by Rumi Secret of Secrets by Abdul Qadir Gilani Beginning of Guidance by Imam Ghazali Revival of religious sciences by Imam Ghazali (huge book, actually books) Bezzels of Wisdom by Ibn Arabi (way too advanced, I couldn't understand this to be honest) Or read watered down western books on Sufism, you know Arabic from what I remember of your posts, so it would be better to read in Arabic, not translations, a lot is lost in translation. Yes it is too much, these will take years to tackle lol, so go slowly if you choose this path, just focus on the basics and feeling divine love, stay away from "sins", but don't repress anything, let the divine love melt your bad desires away, slowly tackle material and you will be well.
For me, the main difference between meditation practices and Sufism, is that Sufism makes me feel extreme feelings of love, to the point of wanting to cry, meanwhile the eastern practices just make me very calm and concentrated, so they work well with each other, and actually there are certain sufi methods to do Dhikr in a pranayama like way, in certain orders.
I don't consider normal Muslims Muslims even if I go by their definition, because they are simply brainwashed into it (the ones born into at least), they don't actually use it to better themselves in anyway.