The House of Integrity
Integrity. A word worth exploring. Not as a matter of right or wrong, but what does it truly mean to live in integrity?
To me, integrity means leading from both heart and mind, listening to both, and then deciding. It’s knowing when and how to set boundaries, embracing responsibility, and moving forward in a way that lifts others up, with love and honor. Integrity isn’t climbing to the top by stepping on others; it’s about creating a path for others with grace. It’s resilience, getting up each time we’ve been knocked down and turning force into form in a gentle, graceful way.
I'm uninterested in right and wrong; those terms are often laden with guilt and shame, trapping us in a belief that if we’ve erred, we are wrong and cannot change. But integrity calls for a strong foundation, a core we can build with right action—acting with wisdom and compassion to avoid creating suffering.
Right action is like examining each brick with new eyes, allowing us to release guilt, shame, and fear. Instead of painting with judgment, we choose compassion, embracing each brick as a chance to see who we truly are. We return the bricks to their natural state. We stop painting the walls with the colors of right and wrong and start choosing to paint with the color of compassion. Release the all or nothing mentality. Understand your awareness of what color brick you are choosing to place.
The gift of the wrong action is the ability to choose right action. What we do with that choice, is practice. Integrity is a practice, not a single choice or a single day’s work. This is why to become what we want to become, we must practice. The “greats” didn’t succeed instantly; they practiced, learning from every wrong step to get it right, until their foundation was unbreakable. Integrity requires building each room and level of our lives with careful awareness, repainting each brick with intention and compassion.
The beauty of it all? Every moment you have is a chance to become aware of the bricks you are placing, and of the intention you are setting with them.
What does integrity mean to you? What foundation will you build? What is one way you can choose to be a person of integrity today?
