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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Stage 1, Chapter 2

Stage 1, Chapters 3-4

Stage 2, Chapters 5-6

Stage 2, Chapters 7-8

Stage 3, Chapters 9-10

Stage 3, Chapters 11-12

Stage 4, Chapters 13-15

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Integrity as the Key to Emotional Healing

Throughout her book, Beck presents integrity as the key to emotional healing. She uses the word “integrity” in at least two senses (see: Index of Terms), which relate both to the methodology by which one finds healing as well as to the end goal of that healing. For Beck, living in harmony with one’s inner values will lead to a life of integrity and wholeness.

First, integrity is presented as the means to emotional healing. The use of integrity as a method, a means of progress along one’s journey, is encapsulated in Beck’s advice to stop lying. The practice of integrity requires a person to live in complete honesty, not only in the words we choose to say but also in how we live our lives. To follow her advice of not lying, then, one has to give up all those parts of life in which we choose to go against what our own inner guides might be calling us to do: “Do and say whatever feels like harmony in your body/mind/heart/soul” (193). By learning to live honestly according to our own deepest values, we make progress along the way to wholeness.

This leads to the second sense in which Beck uses the idea of integrity—not just as a means to an end but as the end goal itself. Integrity is the state of the soul when one is living in complete unity with oneself, having attained the peaceful wholeness that comes from being fully aligned with one’s own desires and values. “To be in integrity is to be one thing, whole and undivided” (xiv). This attainment of a peaceful, unified state stands in contrast to the divided, conflicted state that Beck depicts as the hallmark of someone not living in accordance with their true inner self.

Beck sees true and lasting emotional healing as impossible without the pursuit of integrity, claiming, “Integrity is the cure for unhappiness. Period” (xix). She identifies disharmony with one’s deepest values as the root cause of discontentedness. Since the cultures around us push us to behave in ways other than what our true selves would desire, then we are subjected to unconscious frustration at the deepest level: “It’s simple logic: if you don’t walk your true path, you don’t find your true people. You end up in places you don’t like, learning skills that don’t fulfill you, adopting values and customs that feel wrong” (12). It is therefore only in addressing the disjunction between the outward pattern of our lives and the inward voice of our true selves that we can find harmony, ultimately leading to the unity of integrity. Beck believes it is even possible for that unity to manifest itself not only in emotional healing but in an experience of mystical enlightenment.

Finding Meaningful Change Through Small Steps

The Way of Integrity is structured as a progressive journey toward inner wholeness. Due to the overarching paradigm of a journey, the book presents its counsel as a series of steps: “[P]ositive transformation,” writes Beck, “happens more quickly when we do it in small steps rather than heroic leaps” (225, emphasis added). All four stages of the book are organized around discrete, culminative areas of action that Beck believes can lead to monumental changes in one’s life.

In the first stage, “The Dark Wood of Error,” Beck invites readers simply to assess their own inner state, to see if they find themselves in a similar place of discontentment and confusion as that described by Dante. In the second stage, “Inferno,” readers are asked to undertake a series of exercises focusing on identifying internal issues that cause conflict, and subjecting those underlying thoughts to a series of inquiries. All the actions up to this point are internal reflections: “Remember,” Beck writes, “we still aren’t talking about changing your external behaviors. The ‘inferno’ stage of our trek to integrity is about our inner lives” (152).

The transition to external behaviors comes with the third stage, “Purgatory,” which begins to translate the prior interior steps into outward action. Readers are asked to commit to a lifestyle of not lying (meaning avoiding anything that is not in accord with their own inner guide) and to follow the trail of actions that lead toward integrity instead. By the fourth stage, “Paradise,” all these small steps undertaken by individuals are then viewed in light of their effects on others, including on humanity as a whole. In each of the large stages, then, the process of moving toward integrity is divided up into focused sets of reflections or actions that, when added together, accumulate toward the possibility of major personal transformation.

Beck is careful to note that each of these steps is subject to the reader’s individual discernment. They must choose what course to take, how quickly to take the next steps, or whether due caution would bid them to stay at a certain level for a time. Nonetheless, she is emphatic in expressing her belief that, eventually, you must make progress toward your end goal if you want a hope of finding contentment. As Beck writes, “Every day you make thousands of tiny decisions about what to do with your time. Every single choice is a chance to turn toward the life you really want” (225, emphasis in original). Thus, each step is important, and every moment of every day offers opportunities for the incremental decisions that might lead to lasting transformation.

Learning to Read Our Internal Signals

One of the foundational processes necessary for moving toward integrity is the practice of listening to one’s own inner self. Beck refers to this reality in a number of ways, commonly including references to an “inner guide” and to one’s “deepest truth.” Whatever the term of reference might be, Beck is consistent in pointing her readers toward the necessity of being tuned in to that inner reality in order to make sure one is living with integrity.

Our internal signals often show up as emotions, but it can take some self-reflection to understand what is driving those emotions: “In [our] rush to conform, we often end up ignoring or overruling our genuine feelings” (xiv), and those overruled feelings fester and produce an unhealthy emotional imbalance inside us. Many times, the process of healing begins by recognizing the irritation and discontentment we may be holding on to in our daily lives, emotions for which we have tried to compensate by working harder and mustering up our willpower. Beck characterizes such a compensatory approach as destructive and, ultimately, defeating: “Listen: the problem isn’t how hard you’re working, it’s that you’re working on things that aren’t right for you. Your goals and motivations aren’t harmonizing with your deepest truth” (24).

Beck includes a number of practical suggestions for learning to read our internal signals. In discerning our emotional states, she advises adopting the practice of observing our feelings and subjecting our thoughts to inquiry. Observing our feelings includes making note of them and of how we react to them, and subjecting our thoughts to inquiry might include using a form of Byron Katie’s “Work” (see: Key Figures), which Beck quotes multiple times and which begins with asking whether a particular thought is actually true.

These methods help us to discern the meaning behind our thoughts and emotions, and provide the space to move past them if necessary. Once some of our errors are moved out of the way, we can begin to tune our ears to the voice of our inner guide, which can speak through our body, mind, heart, and soul: “Another characteristic of the inner teacher—the most important one—is that you can feel it in all aspects of your being (body/mind/heart/soul) at once” (56). Beck identifies the sensations associated with each of these areas as being relaxation, logical sense, a feeling of opening up, and a sense of freedom. As we come to recognize these affective means by which our inner guide responds positively to various choices or situations, we can better frame our actions to match those signals.