Indications of Lacking Integrity
The first stage of effectively building Personal Integrity is to perform an accurate assessment of the areas in your character that were weakened when you met strong resistance. We are all tested by life circumstances when we are confronted with something challenging and the situation really knocked us over and we crumbled.
When our character is weak, we can be easily emotionally manipulated and controlled. However, these events are great opportunities to learn life lessons and serve to inform us of what we must strengthen inside ourselves. Recovering our core, being authentic and living in Personal Integrity is similar to the concept of inspecting a building for its structural integrity. Our spiritual house is made strong and filled with inner light, when we direct our focus and attention to developing inner and outer personal integrity. Without strong personal integrity, like a building without structural integrity, we physically collapse and morally decay, because we are unable to withstand the pressure of the forces that create impact upon our lives.
Are you able to maintain integrity while withstanding the pressure of enduring personal challenges or spiritual crisis? How well do you cope with stress? How well can you refocus back into relaxation and neutrality? Track yourself in how well you do in crisis moments or challenges, observing if can you stay in your core and withstand the impact.
The Negative Ego destroys integrity period. Thus working towards clearing the inferior and superior vacillating thought forms of negative ego, is the key to restoring balance. Generally the negative ego needs to feel it has approval from others, and Self Esteem is hinged upon other people’s opinions and judgments. This is very unhealthy and can be toxic for all involved. No person can lead themselves and purposefully direct their life if they are afraid of others judging them. If your self-worth falls into how others perceive you, it is important to change that perception immediately and unconditionally provide self-love and self-acceptance. Your basic human right is to be who you are, so let yourself be unapologetically real.
Be aware when you are hiding things or sweeping them under the rug from fear, like buried secrets, or asking people to keep secrets. This also feeds the Roots of Dishonesty and Triangulation. Upon getting more comfortable with being transparent and honest, it evolves over time and becomes more important that you tend to not hide things from others, as you may be hiding from the truth that needs to be surfaced. Truth is truth, and it stands through the test of time. Maintaining appropriate boundaries is important, yet at the same time in finding balance with living more transparently, stop judging yourself and others, and make the effort to build a stronger character with personal integrity. Personal Integrity gives you the inner strength to tell it like it is, there is no need to hide anything, when it is what it is. Truth is truth, when it’s expressed honestly and authentically.
How many times in social situations do you compromise your values or go along with something that feels bad? When we compromise ourselves too much and bend to other peoples will, this is not healthy for us and erodes integrity. When we commit to be of service to others it does not mean we repeatedly compromise our values, beliefs or integrity to do what the other person wants us to do. To be effective with managing our personal energies, we must be responsible for directing our energies, time and effort into the things that feel meaningful for us and reflect our personal values. This is important not only for building personal integrity, but in developing the self-leadership skills required to claim Self-Ownership.[1]