A Look at Integrity

The experience of integrity is the experience of completeness. Integrity creates the context in which all things are possible, inspiring trust, respect, freedom, joy, and peace of mind. A life of integrity fosters other personal qualities such as honesty, accountability, and commitment.

To some, the experience of integrity appears today to be a rare and unusual event. We feel socially hardened to disappointment and look for the "feet of clay" that our experience of life has taught us to expect of people and events. This attitude, in turn, recreates, by our inaction and implied acceptance of contradictory behavior, the very inconsistencies which disappoint us. Having the courage of our convictions is the working definition of integrity that sometimes seems impossible to maintain.

A life lived with integrity is easy, joyful, and powerful. When we experience our lives as free-flowing, we are experiencing our own integrity. There is no resistance, no desire to swim upstream against the flow of life. We are, then, completely involved with the natural law of cause and effect and the total experience of our own accountability in life. This expanded quality of being is available to us each moment of our lives; it is within our power to create our personal flow of integrity. Why, then, don't we do it?

Why is integrity enshrined in the mythology of our time as a virtue of "the good old days?" Is it not possible anymore to live up to the standards of integrity? Perhaps, because we compromised our own principles in the past or looked on as those people important in our lives settled for less, we have come to accept integrity as a symbol of perfection to which we cannot possibly rise. And now, with conflicting standards--choosing between what we know in our hearts to be the honest approach and the course of action we actually choose--we set up within ourselves a constant battle between warring points of view, each demanding to be in control.

But what happens when we break the self-defeating cycle of conflicting programming we have created to insure our own survival? What if we give integrity a chance to blossom and grow within us? Only then can the ongoing experience of joy and pride that exemplifies integrity in our lives becomes possible.

Integrity is alignment. When present in our lives, it is apparent in the way we behave, in the way we feel, in the way we carry ourselves physically. Integrity communicates itself to others immediately. That special quality of aliveness demands integrity as an essential ingredient for its true expression.

Have integrity and you have the means to experience joy on a moment-to-moment basis. It is there for you to own: you only have to decide to do so.