Today, we are talking about a word that has been coming up this week. I have been rereading "The Big Leap.” If you have not gotten a copy of this, I highly recommend it if you have not sunk your teeth into this masterpiece by Gay Hendricks. It is a great read. There are so many nuggets. If you've ever heard someone mentioned the zone of genius or upper limiting that comes from here. The theme that we're talking about today is integrity.
I wanted to come back to this because, in his book, he talks about integrity breaches. And this is when we bring ourselves down. When we're feeling levels of success beyond what we think we deserve, we kind of do things we have behaviors that challenge it. So it can be related to lies, broken agreements, withheld truths. And we're aware of them. Because we feel that conflict. And I have been looking within myself, and I've been seeing it with my clients. And when they're feeling these feelings of friction of conflict of avoidance of not feeling great. It's when they're not acting in integrity. And integrity is integral to who we are. So this is beyond just, you know, a moral code of religion or our culture or family beliefs. This is something very internal. So if we aren't aligned and are in conflict with our wants, needs, and values, then we aren't in integrity.
If you heard the podcast episode that I did with Cornelia, she mentioned a quote from one of our friends in the groups we belong to about when the audio and the visual don't match up. And I said, you know, if what you say in what you do aren't aligned, then we have friction, we have misalignment, and it breaks down trust and ultimately respect. And so, if you think of moral code, that's a judgment. But if you think of integrity, it's really based on alignment on things lining up and being whole and complete.
I want to give a quote here from the book:
"To be out of integrity means a breach in your wholeness had occurred, there was a gap in your completeness, thinking of integrity as a physics issue gives you a much more practical tool than regarding it simply as a moral issue. Morality is about good and bad, right and wrong, all of which are highly arguable. Physics is about what did and didn't happen."
So if we think about morality, judgment, binary, binary, remember, we've talked about this, of when things are in a binary situation, it's right or wrong, good or bad? Yes. And no, then we are in this place of absolute extreme. It's this, or it's that. It doesn't give us an option to be anything but all this or all that.
We know that that will lead to a stress reaction where there's a lot of judgment and things that we've talked about. But when we talk about integrity, it's more based, in fact, so what is and what isn't. So did something occurs, or did something not happen? It's not up for debate. It is, or it isn't. And so you have to look within yourself about what does acting in integrity mean to you? Take some time with this. I just had a session with someone. And the word integrity felt like a neon billboard just flashing, flashing, and I kept asking, how does this show up with integrity for you? How does this behavior align with your integrity or not? And they were dancing around it the whole time. And I realized, oh, if you can't even answer what integrity is for yourself, then you can't possibly be feeling like you're in integrity.
To explore that, you can go deeper into your values. For example, what value feels like it's in integrity or out of integrity? Why does it feel in or out of integrity? Or when you show up fully aligned with this value when you're honoring it? What does it look like? And when it doesn't show up, what is it?
I had to get into integrity this morning and make a tough decision about whether or not to work with a client. I realized this is really important to me. I do my best work when people are ready to do the work, when people are being honest with themselves when they're ready to see what's really happening, when they're ready to take the hard look, when they're ready to do the work, when they're ready to be uncomfortable.
I realized that this client was not ready to do that, and I couldn't do the work for them. So I ended up referring out and saying, "This isn't for me."
There are going to be a lot of hard decisions in order to act in integrity, they're going to be some uncomfortable decisions, but they are necessary. And so this shows up when we have those “difficult conversations” and we get nervous.
Before entering into these conversations, I want you to be really clear with yourself about what integrity looks like in the situation? What does being out of integrity look like? And it doesn't matter how the other person responds; it has to do with how you feel about yourself, even if the other person isn't going to be happy with you. Even if you may get an adverse reaction, you have to ultimately wake up with yourself, go to bed with yourself, look at yourself in the mirror and say, I honored this value, I honored myself, I earned my integrity, or I didn't. And the people who aren't acting integrity feel it. It shows up in so many different ways.
There are so many self-sabotaging behaviors. Whether it's overeating, over-consuming alcohol, drugs, negative self speak, getting involved with toxic people and behaviors, over-staying in dysfunctional relationships. If we aren't acting in integrity, we are signaling that we don't act in integrity, and we're opening the floodgates for people who want to take advantage of that. We're saying it's okay to do it.
So it starts today by being very clear about what that looks like and making small, subtle, and consistent shifts to behaviors that align with our future vision. For me, it was saying, you know what, we can't work together anymore. This doesn't work. This doesn't work for my business.
It's about making active choices for the life you want to live and how you want to feel.
Start with the question, "What does acting in integrity look like and what do I need to really reinforce it?"
Again, I highly recommend The Big Leap. Pick it up, read it front to back. I'm reading it for like the third time right now. Maybe I'll learn something again. There's always something to learn reread the good books.
I hope this has been helpful. I hope that you are feeling in integrity right now and you are feeling super empowered. This is about more self-awareness, to help really hone in on who you are, what to focus on, and feel even more empowered and awesome!