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

by Martha Beck

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Fortunately, I can direct you to a surefire next step, the single step that will put you squarely on the way of integrity. It has never failed me or any of my clients. And it’s so simple: just tell the truth about how lost you are.

“If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, don’t do it harder.” This applies in every area of life, but most of us don’t seem to realize it.

When we realize we’re off course, the best thing we can do is slow down or even stop in our tracks. Then we can take stock of the situation and eventually find our way back to safety—a process you began by taking the quiz and trying the exercise in the previous chapter.

Listen: the problem isn’t how hard you’re working, it’s that you’re working on things that aren’t right for you. Your goals and motivations aren’t harmonizing with your deepest truth. They didn’t come from your own natural inclinations. They came from the two forces that drive us all off our true paths: trauma and socialization.

By “trauma” I don’t just mean horrific tragedies like war or child abuse. I mean any painful experience that makes us feel blindsided and out of our depth.

I see Mount Delectable as a symbol of all the ways to be “better” that we learn from our cultural context. For most people, this involves money: piles and piles of money. This basic golden substrate may be topped with layers of dazzling physical beauty, intellectual brilliance, artistic perfection, fairy-tale romance, or all of the above. “That! That! That!” we think.

At the heart of climbing Mount Delectable is what psychologists call “social comparison theory.” It means that we tend to measure our own well-being not by how we feel, but by how our lives compare to other people’s.

Mount Delectable is built on the uniquely human characteristic of assigning “achievement” value to random things. It’s all about culture, not nature.

Your true nature loves things for their capacity to bring genuine delight, right here, right now. It loves romps, friends, skin contact, sunlight, water, laughter, the smell of trees, the delicious stillness of deep sleep.

Something advertising made me want:

The last thing is a nut milk maker

Physical sensations:

Excitement to get the box in the mail, open the item, dread to figure out how to use it and clean it and find room to store it.

Emotional sensations:

Excited that I will continue to support my effort to make my own things, diminish waste and on the “path” to sustainability.

Something I yearn for when I’m quiet:

Time to read, connect with people without screens, smell delicious food, taste delicious flavors, look into people’s eyes, hug someone for longer than 5 seconds, move my body without shame, laugh uncontrollably, do things I used to do as a child: color, draw, sing, ballet, listen to music, learn new lyrics and learn new words, share things I love with people I love, write letters, write on my journal, go to the library. Smell books.

Physical sensations:

Peace, joy, a sense of stillness - like things are exactly as they need to be.

Emotional sensations:

A feeling of belonging and deep appreciation for the present moment. Like there’s nowhere I’d rather be.

This next point is important: to the extent that you’re divided from your true self, you’ll find that your wanting and your yearning are directed at different things.

But they all yearn for just a few things, and those things are remarkably consistent, even among people from very different cultures. They include peace, freedom, love, comfort, and belonging.

And here is how to leave Mount Delectable behind: stop with the hustle.

Humans are so tuned in to cultural values that once we start craving our way up Mount Delectable, we may go completely blind to our own real desires. We can’t lose our true nature, since it’s in our DNA, but we can divide ourselves from it to get better at various cultural games.

You can see a portrait of modern Western culture in this single word. Our social definition of “success” is all about hustle. We must rise above others, and that entails: (1) embodying confidence and self-determination, (2) going very fast, (3) pressuring other people into doing what we want, (4) selling ourselves, and (5) swindling and cheating. That, my friend, is how to climb Mount Delectable.

Anything you do solely to influence others, rather than to express your true nature, is a hustle. Being polite to get approval is a hustle. Flirting with people to make them feel special is a hustle. Sitting solemnly in church, consciously exuding piety, is a hustle.

Mind you, hustling doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means you’re well socialized, cooperating beautifully with culture. But it also means you’re split from your true nature. In millions of small ways and some huge ones, you ignore what you naturally yearn for and hustle along to get the things you’ve been taught to want. Here’s a little thought exercise to help you get a sense for this.

Make a note:

The thing that’s coming to mind for me is the tea party with Claudia, Dennisa, Mary and Anita. It was such a fun time to see them, hear from them, laugh with them. I’d love to do that more.

Next, recall something you did during the past week that didn’t thrill you. How did you feel, physically and emotionally, as you approached the task? How did you feel while doing it—depressed, tired, confused, annoyed, distracted? Write it down:

Learning the new decks at work has been a big source of irritation to me. It’s taking away from other priorities and it was imposed. Also, I feel like the timeline they gave us was unrealistic to adjust to all these changes.

Considering the two activities you’ve just used above, notice that there’s only one reason you did the unpleasant thing: at some level you thought you had to. Maybe you did it out of fear, dreading what would happen if you didn’t. Maybe you were trying to please someone. Maybe you have a whole set of acculturated rules sunk so deep in your brain that it never occurred to you it might have been possible to avoid this activity you dislike.

It requires nothing of you except to recognize when you’re doing something because it’s prescribed by culture, and when an action arises from your true nature. At this point there’s no other action step.

Kant believed that our minds create all our experience, including space and time. There may be a reality out there, but we can perceive it only through the filter of our subjective perceptions, which means that no one can ever know what’s absolutely true.

EXERCISE: Detecting your hustle If you found out that some of the things you do every day come from culture, not your true nature, you’re hustling up your own version of Mount Delectable. Are you ready to get radically honest about that? Then ask yourself the following questions, and pause after each until you can feel the real answer. (Again, you don’t have to do anything except allow for internal recognition of the real situation. Just notice the difference between things you genuinely love to do and things you do for other reasons.) Do you ever hang out with people you don’t truly enjoy? Who are they? Do you consistently make yourself do anything (or many things) you don’t really want to do? Make a list. Are there things you do solely out of fear that not doing them will upset someone, or lower your value in someone else’s eyes? What are they? Are there any times in your daily life where you’re consistently pretending to be happier or more interested than you really are? In what areas (relationships, job activities, places) do you tend to do this? Do you ever say things you know aren’t true, or things you don’t really, truly mean? What are they?

Just notice how much of your life is spent hustling.

I admire that very much. It takes incredible self-discipline to go against your nature. If I scolded you about this effort, I’d just be administering another dose of punitive socialization. I’m not condemning you in the slightest. But I do want you to notice one thing: Whenever you go against your true nature to serve your culture, you freaking hate it.

The only change to make at this point on your way of integrity is to admit—just to yourself—that some of your actions are designed to impress or fit in with other people. These actions aren’t spontaneous, and they aren’t in harmony with your truth.

We tend to meet teachers after we’ve realized we’re wandering in a dark wood of error, after we’ve tried and failed to get out of it by climbing Mount Delectable, and while we’re still being dogged by the wild beasts of our painful emotions.

no external teacher can ever be the answer to all your problems. The role of soul teachers is crucial but limited.

When we first encounter true soul teachers, they often appear anomalous, annoying, incomprehensible, or downright weird.

Anyone who tries to force-feed you advice isn’t likely to be a competent soul guide.

A real soul teacher will draw your attention in a way that makes you feel inwardly driven, not dazed by powerful marketing