The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

by Martha Beck

As your no-lie challenge moves along, you’ll find yourself making a lot of judgment calls. Are there times when you feel you’re lying with silence, or by performing actions that feel wrong even though you’re not speaking? What truths must you tell to feel completely honest, and when? No one else can answer these questions—it’s up to you and your inner teacher. Do and say whatever feels like harmony in your body/mind/heart/soul. You’ll know the truth by the sense of solid alignment that comes with it.

don’t think that missing your old life means you should go back to it.

The first and hardest step is to stop lying to ourselves.

Even when we’re feeling hurt and angry, we can follow the basic integrity process: (1) observe what’s happening inside us, then (2) question our thoughts. This will show us if we’re stuck in the same violent, righteous mindset others are using to attack us. Our own blind rage will rise into clear view. Then choose to either stay on the path of violence or (3) move away from the ranting righteous mind and follow the way of integrity.

“empowerment dynamic.”

If we can find any way to see ourselves as creators, no matter what our situation, we can turn drama triangles into empowerment dynamics.

We have the freedom to respond to every situation with creative thought or action.

I know a psychologist who sums up the way of integrity with this succinct prescription: “Know what you really know, feel what you really feel, say what you really mean, and do what you really want.”

Every day you make thousands of tiny decisions about what to do with your time. Every single choice is a chance to turn toward the life you really want.

Start by noticing the amount of time you’re spending with specific people or activities, and see if it matches the amount of time you really want to spend with them. Shift your schedule by a few minutes each day, spending a little less time doing things that don’t appeal to you, and a little more doing what you love.

Everything that truly makes us happy is limitless and multiplicative, not scarce and divisive.

As they travel the upper reaches of purgatory, where souls are cleansed of sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust, Virgil explains something that stuns Dante. All these “sins” are actually based in love. Sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust are simply unbalanced relationships with rest, abundance, nourishment, and sex. We can err by either compulsively indulging or rigidly repressing our natural relationship with these things. This lack of balance doesn’t come when we allow union with our true nature, but when we split ourselves away from it. It’s misguided thinking, not natural behavior, that causes us to stray from our innocence.

“I am meant to live in peace.”

peace is your home. Integrity is the way to it. And everything you long for will meet you there.