My thoughts lately have been going in three major directions. I've been wondering how they tie into each other and it seems as though, as many things tend to, it all leads back to self.
I've been contemplating the idea of being friends with the self. It doesn't seem like much of a concept, but really, as a basic way of looking at it, you are with yourself - forever. So you'd better learn to like and love yourself, in yourself, by yourself. I'll come back around to this in a moment.
Friends with others. Have you examined your friendships lately? I know that's been a huge thing for me and I have noticed that since I have started this whole entire self-exploration, my friendships have changed. I have watched some folks fade away and new people have come around. I can't say whether or not it's just a change in the tides because that's just life or if, perchance, that the person I am becoming requires relationships of a different nature. I think, honestly, it's a combination of the two.
So those are two of three items that have been floating around in my brain soup. They are important because if the third item plays a huge role in how you are friends with yourself and friends with others. Everyone has probably heard of this word...this concept; but do we really know what it means?
Integrity. I thought about integrity the last few days because I was wondering if a recent action had fallen into the category of what could be considered lacking integrity. But then I realized it wasn't something that I could judge. It's not an action that belongs to me so therefore, I cannot let that action effect me in any real way.
But lets look at the word. Integrity has several different meanings (I looked) but in essence, it means "to be whole - to be undivided." This applies to the self when we look at self-integrity. To have self-integrity means to honest with ourselves...completely and undeniably honest with ourselves and our actions. It is also an agreement to yourself that your values, goals and actions are aligned correctly and work in harmony. When you are able to see the truth of yourself and become honest about your values, you can realize your goals and put into play the actions you need to accomplish them.
Another item that seems to stand out when it comes to self-integrity is the absence of fear. That means shedding the negative talk; the "I can't" "I shouldn't" and so forth. When you veer off the path of self-integrity, you will hear a little voice telling you so...that is, if you have the confidence to live your life with integrity. You will be reminded of what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the things you need to do to accomplish it. Whatever it is. As I mentioned before, it is important to be friends with yourself and to love yourself; it is difficult to love someone outside of yourself that you cannot trust or that you fear or that you look down upon because they fear so greatly, so do not apply those types of qualities to yourself. Carry integrity within yourself.
Integrity becomes important when it comes to our friendships because of two things; we have to have self-integrity because it's an important part of our own self-esteem. If we can prove to ourselves that we ARE capable of following through with our values and goals and we do it fairly well, measuring up to our OWN standards and not others, then we can move on to the next goal.
If we can provide integrity to our friendships, then we become a steadfast fixture to others. We become a dependable person to others. This can be tricky though - we have to "do things" for others because it benefits ourselves as well - not just to please others. So that is important to keep in mind. We have to do things for others that we will somehow benefit.
So it's kind of a triad - integrity, friendships with others, friendships with self. I think it starts with having a full understanding of integrity. Then it must be applied to our interpersonal relationship and sustained by completing goals, however big or small those goals are - as long as those goals are aligned with our long term dreams and our values. Thirdly, we can apply integrity to our friendships, providing stability and dependability which will, in turn, benefit ourselves.
The perk from all this integrity talk is simple; with integrity, the quality of our relationships, internal and external, will improve immensely. Practice integrity and start with the self.
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