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

by Martha Beck

But honestly, it’s fine. You don’t feel bad, just vaguely anxious, uncomfortable, and disappointed. And it’s perfectly normal that your mind tends to linger on regrets about plans that didn’t work out and doubts that your dreams will ever come true.

If you don’t always feel wonderful, it doesn’t mean you’re faulty or bad—in

In this rush to conform, we often end up ignoring or overruling our genuine feelings—even

we might get sick, and even if we don’t, our energy flattens. Mentally, we lose focus and clarity. That’s how it feels to be out of integrity.

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” Physical pain comes from events. Psychological suffering comes from the way we deal with those events. It can grow exponentially in situations where pain is entirely absent. Even when you’re curled up in a comfortable chair, suffering can make you wish you’d never been born. I know, because I spent years and years right up in it. This is what led me to an obsessive, decades-long quest to find my way to happiness.

I was born with the approval-seeking personality of an orphaned lapdog. Whenever my nature and my culture disagreed, I’d sell out my nature, and hard. It worked! I got all kinds of approval! On the other hand, I could barely tolerate things like, you know, being alive.

Integrity is the cure for unhappiness. Period.

Of all the strategies and skills I’ve ever learned, the ones that actually work are those that help people see where they’ve abandoned their own deep sense of truth and followed some other set of directives. This split from integrity is almost always unconscious.

But no one can sleepwalk away from integrity indefinitely, because things get worse the further we travel in the wrong direction.

Without an authentic sense of purpose, it’s hard to feel that the daily grind of a human existence is worth the trouble.

Whenever you lose your integrity, you’ll feel your own unique brew of bad moods, depending on your personality. You may tend, as I do, toward anxiety and depression. Or you may feel free-floating hostility, itching to punch everyone in your office, family, zip code.

Whatever your repeated or persistent negative emotions, try thinking of them as Dante’s wild beasts, whose job it is to make your life unbearable when you stray from your true path.

psychoneuroimmunology, that focuses on the way psychological stress, including the stress of lying or keeping secrets, contributes to illness.

the greater the concealment, the higher the rates of disease and death.

if you don’t walk your true path, you don’t find your true people.

Either way, your connection with them will be artificial.

When humans meet in the dark wood of error, all of them sleepwalking, the relationships they create tend to be shallow or toxic or both. These “friendships,” “love affairs,” and even familial bonds are rife with misunderstanding, hurt feelings, and mutual exploitation.

The path to true love—true anything—is the way of integrity. No other person can ever find yours for you, much less give it to you. But you can always, no matter what your circumstances, find and follow it yourself.

I’m a huge fan of better living through chemistry, and I will cheer lavishly when you use helpful medications under the supervision of your doctor.

Some of the most common, aside from the dynamic duo of drugs and alcohol, are gambling, sex, intense relationship drama, shopping, binge eating, and staring at the internet day and night without pausing to sleep, eat, or pee.

You’re reconnecting parts of yourself that have been torn apart. Bravely done. You’ve taken the first step on the way of integrity.

“If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, don’t do it harder.”

With a bit more elbow grease and a solid grip on our own bootstraps, we should be able to yank ourselves straight out of suffering and into a fabulous life.

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

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.

Not knowing what to do, we do what we know. We keep a stiff upper lip, or throw emotional tantrums to get attention from our loved ones, or go off by ourselves to brood. We repeat the pattern over and over, even when it doesn’t make us feel one bit better. When we notice that it isn’t working, we do it harder.

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.

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.

When we aren’t distracted by culture, we move directly toward fulfilling our innate longing. When we’re craving things we’ve been taught to want, we lose track of our inner motivations entirely and may spend a lifetime pursuing rewards that never make us feel truly fulfilled.

stop with the hustle.

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. Acting a little bit stupid to avoid threatening others is a hustle. Using big words to impress is a hustle. Wearing certain clothes because you want to look professional, or sexy, or hip, or rich, or tall, or nonconformist, or demure—hustle, hustle, hustle.

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.

What is true?

The Critique of Pure Reason.

it’s absolutely true that nothing is absolutely true, including this statement.

Whenever you go against your true nature to serve your culture, you freaking hate it.

These actions aren’t spontaneous, and they aren’t in harmony with your truth.

Reading is the way I’ve met most of my life teachers, and clients often tell me that just when they felt most confused, the perfect book seemed to “throw itself off the shelf” and into their attention. Sometimes we meet our teachers because someone sees we need help and drags us to therapy, rehab, yoga, or some other environment where we can meet wise guides. Or maybe we catch a snippet of a podcast or an online lecture and become fascinated by the speaker.

At this point, our odds of finding the way back to wholeness all by ourselves are vanishingly small. After all, we wandered off course because of ideas and behaviors we’ve been learning since birth. Most of these errors lurk in our psychological blind spots.

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

A real soul teacher will draw your attention in a way that makes you feel inwardly driven, not dazed by powerful marketing (if you need a review, you can repeat the exercise in Chapter 2).

We make ourselves ready just by realizing we’re lost and committing to the way of integrity.

This may involve jangling us, shocking us, contradicting what we deeply believe.

I call it “spider love,” though of course it’s really not love at all; it’s a predator-prey relationship. And soul teachers never do it. Real love doesn’t want anyone to be immobilized or attached, certainly not in the dark wood of error. It wants—always, always, always—to set us free.

But pay close attention. As long as it liberates you, what looks like harshness or even cruelty may in fact be the purest love you could possibly receive.

Soul teachers often say and do things that just aren’t said and done in our social circles—or any social circles. Their manners, their reactions, their advice may be different from anything we’re used to.

Of course, not everyone who’s strange, rude, or antisocial is a true soul guide.

“All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.”

No flattery, manipulation, or temper tantrum will move soul teachers one millimeter from their own true paths.