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

by Martha Beck

Here’s an exercise based on a technique Hayes uses to help clients escape destructive anger. Start by thinking of a verb and an adverb that combine to describe the way you want to live your life. It will be a phrase like “teaching compassionately,” “loving courageously,” or “serving honorably.” Think for a few minutes about what verb-adverb combination best sums up your core values. If you could always live this way, you’d feel that you’d lived an honest and meaningful life. Got it? Write your value here: The verb-adverb phrase that best describes my core value is: Just focusing on this phrase (“learning joyfully,” “caring generously,” “creating unabashedly,” or whatever) will change your internal state. Feel how different it is from moral outrage, how it settles and relaxes your body, mind, heart, soul.