The way of Integrity, finding the path to your true self

I picked up 'The Way of Integrity' with the thought ‘seriously what has this lady got left to say’. I was not planning on buying it. However, a client was waxing lyrical about how it was amazing was. I realised I had better read it, after all I am a Martha Beck certified coach!
My client was right. The book is Martha Beck’s best work. Martha Beck at her most brilliant. Her honesty makes the book addictive.
Beck is not the cheerleading life coach, busy performing a complex dance moves, waving pom poms and chanting/shouting all at the same time. She lets you into her world, trials, and triumphs and alludes to her less than stellar moments. It is her failings that make her relatable and the book so readable.

This book is all about integrity, how we lose our integrity, how to get yourself to your integrity and stay in your integrity. And what is integrity? 'To be in integrity is to be one thing whole and intact’.
Beck describes integrity as being really clear about who you are and showing that version of you to the world. Not some other version. Showing the world, the true you. It’s also about not lying to yourself or others.
So this means you don’t say “I’m fine” when you’re not. It means telling the truth and being honest about what is in your life. It means not agreeing to do things if you truly don’t want to do them. It means not watching TV past midnight, because you know you will feel terrible tomorrow. When you live in integrity, every single one of your actions reflects your truth.
How we lose our integrity is ‘Believing things that aren’t true for us at the deepest level’. I have seen this time and time again. Everyone told Jodie how ‘amazing' her boyfriend was and how right they were for each other. Jodie thought everyone keeps telling me that he is fantastic they must be right. Several months Jodie finished the relationship when she could take the uneasy feeling she had when they were together. She described the feeling like having a simple math equation that just could never get solved. To her the relationship did not make sense. She felt over whelming relief and peace when she finished with him. It does not matter what people tell is true. What matters is what you know is true for you.
We can all have our own Achilles heel that trips us up. Repeatedly. And sometimes you don’t come clean with yourself over your true Achilles heel, that place in your mind where you don’t want to go. Maybe it is your weight. Maybe it is your relationship with your spouse, or a sibling or a friend. Maybe you are desperate to win the approval of one person, to be accepted into that friendship group. There is often something that we wished were better at, something we wish could change, a mountain that we want to conquer not circumnavigate again.
Whatever your Achilles heel is, are you telling yourself the truth about it? Or are you avoiding it? And inadvertently lying to yourself and the world?

It’s a tough concept. And scary. Nobody wants to dig too deep into things that we avoid.
This book holds your hand as your traverse that steep path down to your core beliefs and shows the reader a way out.
You can break your pattern; you can move on from the past to create a better future. You can come clean with yourself. You can live a life that is more truly yours. This book is not about how to be perfect. This book is about how to be you and create a better future, one degree at a time.
If you want to change your life read this. If you are still sceptical listen to the podcast about this book where Oprah Winfrey talks to Martha Beck.

My favourite quote is ‘It boils down to this: peace is your home; integrity is the way to it. And everything you long for will meet you there’.