After the GFC my business ran into significant trouble. Sales fell by 50% almost overnight and within a short period of time I was behind on my rent and struggling to make payments. My landlord was a hard man and one day confronted me in my office. It wasn’t pretty! He took absolute liberty in abusing my heritage, my culture, everything – he then landed the final blow, “you have no integrity!”
I was enraged, incensed… how dare he! Actually, I very nearly knocked the living daylights out of him, but am pleased to say that I didn’t. Those words cut so deeply. For weeks I fumed. How dare he, how dare he attack my integrity! I was defensive, entrenched in my thinking that he was wrong! An idiot. Jung is right – to look at our own soul is so, so scary.
Over a period of time, years actually, I have dared to look at my soul and it hurts me to say he was right, I don’t have integrity. My life was a lie. I hated what I was doing, I pretended to care about the industry, but it meant nothing to me. It was a good job to make money, and nothing more. I even began to realize that I didn’t even know what integrity was. I had seen it as an outward expression of a life lived by adhering to cultural do’s and don’ts instead of a deep congruence of a life lived from a central established value system. How could I have integrity?
To know ourselves is not easy! This is an ongoing journey – a process of progressive unveiling. Each person will begin at a different place and be able to access differing degrees of their soul. The most important thing is to realize this is a process and to make a start!
Unfortunately hardship is the usual starting place of this journey. I know it was for me and for many that I counsel. Every week I see people who are forced by hardship to look at themselves in the mirror and start their journey. Hardship without purpose or hope is just cruel, but if hardship can lead to a new life, a deeper life, a congruent life then it can be seen differently. Some people face unbearable tragedy and I in no way want to dishonor them by saying hardship is a good thing. Please hear me…there are however times when hardship can be an invitation to stop and reassess. For me my struggling business was crucial to me seeing that the life I was leading was incongruent to who I was. I was dedicating my life and my efforts to something I did not believe in and it was destroying my soul. It was the catalyst I needed to take a different journey, a journey that started with me looking in the mirror and seeing who I was. I was then able to make new choices, hard but better choices, to live a life more congruent to who I am. As I have done this I believe I have started myjourney towards integrity (still a long way to go)
My Journey Towards Integrity
