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

Everything that truly makes us happy is limitless and multiplicative, not scarce and divisive.

Your true self, by contrast, is pure nature. It doesn’t give a tinker’s damn who wore it best, or if anyone wore it at all. Olympic medals and Pulitzer Prizes interest it only because they’re shiny. Your true nature loves things for their capacity to bring genuine delight, right here, right now. It loves romps, friends, skin contact, sunlight, wate

Our worst psychological suffering comes from thoughts that we genuinely believe, while simultaneously knowing they aren’t true.

We eventually figured out that Irene had a death grip on the belief “Everyone thinks I should be perfect at everything.” It had never even crossed my mind to judge Irene. But in a culture where we’re all ranked against one another from preschool on, it’s easy to see where she got her fear of being judged.

Here it is: your thoughts, even thoughts you absolutely believe, may not always be true.

Doing things that so blatantly contradict our own intentions is a sign that somewhere inside us, a civil war is in progress.

Getting out of a triangle drama is also simple, though not easy. It hinges on one act of integrity: acknowledging that we’re capable of choosing our responses to other people and situations, no matter what.

as you keep making one-degree turns toward integrity, go gently and check in often with your inner teacher.

total integrity, we’re completely available to all emotion: overwhelming love, deep grief, terrible anger, sharp fear. This emotion may be painful, but it doesn’t cause the intense, dull suffering we feel in the dark wood of error.