I’ve been thinking a lot about integrity recently. It’s a word that has taken on a strong meaning for me in recent years. To be in integrity with yourself means to be integrated: as one with oneself.
When we don’t feel right within ourselves it’s a signal that we’re out of alignment somewhere. Most often it means there’s a part of ourselves which we’re denying, not acknowledging or disregarding in some way through our behaviour, thoughts or feelings. We may not always have all the different parts of ourselves in alignment and integrity doesn’t always mean we have to have all our parts agree – there is often some ‘in-house’ disagreement about the best way to do things, but pushing out or rejecting parts of ourselves never feels good. It also leads to doubts and self-recrimination because you can’t honestly stand 100% behind your actions.
Being in integrity with myself means getting radically honest with what I’m experiencing. It means acknowledging and voicing (even internally) the different feelings and thoughts I’m having, then consciously making a choice from a place of full awareness. Knowing I’m choosing in alignment with my values (if you don’t know your core values I’d highly recommend spending some time figuring them out) means that even if there are parts of me that don’t like the choice I’m making, I’ve heard them out and explained why I’m choosing the other option. This means that whatever response I may get externally, I’ve already done the inner work to stand behind my choice and feel good about it. I remain in integrity with myself.
If you struggle with making decisions or backtracking / questioning yourself once you have, approaching decision-making in this way may be really helpful for you. If you’d like to understand the process more and have some support around learning it, feel free to check out the work with me page for details on how we can work together.
Integrity
