Integrity and Self-Esteem

HELLO!!
It has been a busy few weeks since my last blog! At the end of June, my sister in law was diagnosed with glioblastoma (a rare and aggressive brain cancer.)  She passed away peacefully on July 12. The memorial service was 7/23/22. I photographed a wedding on 7/23/22, It was a sad and happy day of endings and beginnings. I have also been busy preparing for my daughter's baby shower. I'm the hostess. And it has to be as perfect as possible. I am making all decorations. Time passed quickly and I realized I have not posted my blog. Although it was written. 
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“With integrity you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity you do the right thing, so you will have no guilt” by Zig Ziglar.

Self-esteem and integrity go hand in hand. Integrity means we practice what we preach. Integrity means keeping our promises, honoring our commitments and treating others fairly. Integrity means we aim for moral consistency in our lives. When we behave with integrity, we increase our self-esteem.

Nathaniel Branden, author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, defines integrity as “the integration of ideals, convictions, standards, beliefs, and behavior. When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match up, we have integrity”.

Based on this definition, we could say that we have personal integrity when we act in accordance with our values, morals, and beliefs. If we believe we should act a certain way, but do the exact opposite, it’s likely that we will feel disharmony with ourselves. It’s a disagreeable feeling that conflicts with our self-awareness.

The ability to achieve this harmony relies on knowing your principles, values, convictions, and ideals - your personal values, not those that you were brought up with or that someone else has tried to impose on you. It does not matter what family members, friends, or colleagues tell you. Defining your personal values has to do with being honest with yourself, and is the result of internal self-exploration.

We may have been raised in an environment where the boundaries of what is right or wrong are blurred. We may not have been taught to make good judgments. But as adults with our decision-making abilities fully developed, we will soon experience the impact of our decisions and behavior. As adults we are in a better position to judge whether our value system is serving us or whether we need to change it.

One good gauge when making decisions around self-esteem would be: would your decision or actions truly hurt or enhance your level of self-esteem? Would it cause you a tinge of guilt? Would you rationalize about your behavior? We need to be aware that we always have a choice in what we decide and that the final responsibility rests with us. As a result we need to know what is within our personal power and what not.

Self-esteem marks every single decision we make, with repercussions for our health and well-being. It will determine your life in every aspect - work, social, recreation, etc. Self-esteem becomes evident in all these areas by means of an essential element -our attitude.

It’s essential to life to have healthy self-esteem. To achieve that, we need to work on all our personal areas. However, it’s vital to develop the area of personal integrity, since the more our lives are in congruent with our values, the healthier our self-esteem will be.

When we act in accordance with our convictions, our conscience is at peace and it’s easier for this tranquil mental state to affect other areas of our lives, reinforcing a healthy level of self-esteem. When our self-esteem is at a healthy level, we accept ourselves for who we are and appreciate our own worth.

Integrity guides the person who holds the door for the next person rather than pretending they don’t see them. Integrity strengthens the person who speaks up when others can’t find their voice. Integrity is what allows us to apologize with grace when we’re in the wrong. Without integrity it’s hard to figure out where we are and what we value. Our own internal sense of ourselves can get lost in the popular culture values.

“We emerge into the light not by denying our pain, but by walking through it.

― Joan Borysenko

Holding the door open for someone shifts from an acknowledgment of the other person’s humanness to telling ourselves that “I am a good person because I held the door open and didn’t ignore the other person”. But, did I see the other person’s eyes, or did I hold the door open with your back turned?

These are the bigger outward gestures of integrity. We receive a sense of satisfaction or pride or peace or something else when you share your generosity of spirit with others. This helps to build self-esteem.

But, there are times when our own personal sense of integrity becomes clouded. Sometimes we may know when we are actively deceiving yourself. Other times it may be less clear.

Many of us have experienced trauma, especially in childhood, where the effects are complicated, long-lasting and left us with the false impression of who we are because we were treated badly. This impression is often carried into adulthood.

Sometimes it might feel as though we are being swept up in a wave of uncomfortable emotions. With a perspective of integrity and looking at ourselves clearly as we are - with kindness and compassion - the likelihood of this happening is greatly reduced. It is uncomfortable to be honest with ourselves. It’s not easy to say, “Ouch! I don’t want to be that person I just was.” And yet, it is really the only way to own our hard-earned self-esteem and become more fully who we need to be.

The beauty of acknowledging personal integrity with all of the benefits of welcomed positive benefits, is that it is also a way of allowing ourselves to acknowledge our imperfections, with less and less judgment. Self-esteem built on the foundation of integrity gives us the confidence to increase our awareness of ourselves, so we can understand ourselves without judgment.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
– Carl Gustav Jung

Give yourself 5–10 minutes every day to answer these questions, 

• Are my goals, attitude and actions in alignment with my personal integrity? 

• Where are the places I need to re-adjust and step more fully into whom I’m meant to be? 

• When you become frustrated with yourself because you’re not doing what you would like to be doing or something isn’t working out the way you thought it would, you have a choice to make.

1. You can go down the road of blaming and shaming yourself which results in feeling like there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. 
2. You can go down the road of blaming others which results in getting angry and not being able to see your choices.
3. You can open yourself up to looking at the situation as multifaceted. There are many ways to look at a situation and interpret what’s happened. You might find a different reason than you thought and that can lead to thinking about problems in new ways. You can look at where you’re responsible and where you’re not and what you need to do to improve the situation.

• Option 3 gives you an opportunity to grow. It gives you the space to see a situation from multiple viewpoints and perhaps come up with a creative solution.

Integrity is difficult. The quality that results from it is worth the trouble. When we acknowledge the other person, that they are worthy of your time and attention, even in the simple gesture of holding the door, we acknowledge our own worthiness. We need to take the time to “get on the right side” of ourselves. Our relationship with ourselves is worth it and our relationship with others will grow as a result of the relationship with ourselves.

“The relationship that you’re having with another person is the same one that you’re having with yourself.”
Tracey McMillan

McMillan also states, “our relationships mirror back our deepest, most unconscious beliefs about ourselves.”

Ask yourself, “What relationship was I having with myself during my most tumultuous relationship years? What did I unconsciously believe in myself?”

When I was in my late teens/early 20's, I knew I wanted to feel a connection, but I wouldn’t let anyone close enough, although I didn’t see it that way. My perception was, ”he’s not interested in me”, 'he chose someone else over me”, “no one wants me”, and many more self-hatred thoughts. This began a long running theme in my life — “I’m not good enough.” and “I’m not worthy.”

Looking at it through McMillan’s lens, if that was the relationship I was having with myself, it’s no wonder I then attracted my next several relationships (and they all looked the same). I wasn’t a priority; I wasn't the one. All evidence confirmed my sense of self-worth.

As I look back, I view those years of my life as an abnormality — a weird time when I abandoned my values and lost all integrity. Suppose I allowed it to happen because I didn’t think I deserved better. Maybe I settled for an unacceptable situation because I wasn’t accepting of myself. Riddled with pain, guilt, and shame from those years, and those decisions, I shut down and put a wall around my heart. In hindsight, it's no surprise that my relationships then were always with someone equally as emotionally unavailable. I dove heart first into those relationships, and gave each one all that I was capable of giving. And I lost myself completely trying to make it work. One day I woke up and realized that I was attracting men who didn’t know how to love because I didn’t know how to love myself.

McMillan drops another self-reflection bomb — she said, “we unknowingly seek out what we need to heal, and that’s why we can trust our mistakes.” Trust our mistakes? That’s not a common thought. We often let our mistakes define us. I know I have.

What if our mistakes are signs pointing toward what we need to work on?

What if our mistakes are an opportunity to see and confront our relationship with ourselves?

In that regard, are they mistakes?

Or are they necessary evils?

What if our mistakes aren’t meant to define us, but instead to guide us toward our hearts?

And maybe personal integrity is seeing them for what they are — lessons, and remember, that to get it "right" so to speak, takes practice.

Each past relationship reflected the broader issues within me that I had to confront, as if each layer was a layer I had to pull back and explore, until I finally got back to the me I am meant to be.

There is an old saying that goes something like this: "People who respect themselves are people of integrity, and only people with integrity can respect themselves." Self-esteem is the partner of integrity. An individual lacking integrity has poor self-esteem. Going against and violating our moral and values slowly chips away at our self-esteem, leaving us less and less able to make healthy choices. When our integrity is defended, self-esteem is enhanced, so exercising strong moral judgment builds self-esteem.

Each time we don’t keep a promise to ourselves or behave in some way that goes against our values we fall further out of self-integrity. We tell ourselves is okay to say one thing and do another, because “I don't do it all the time.” It become routine. And while sometimes we need to cut ourselves a break, because we all make mistakes, if this self-dishonesty becomes a common occurrence in our lives it needs to be dealt with.

8 ways that you can rebuild your self-integrity and start keeping promises to yourself:

1. Identify and define your values: In order to know when you have fallen out of alignment with your values you must first identify them. Make a list of the things you value in your life, what you stand for, the things you can’t live without. Examples include – family, love, kindness, health, compassion, respect, loyalty, contribution. Now define those values. What do they mean to you and what do they look like in application?
2. Be mindful of your thoughts: Your thoughts shape your actions, so it is important to become aware of when your thoughts start to lose touch with your values, because your actions are soon to follow. This is a moment by moment process and a lifelong endeavor. When you catch yourself being Negative Nancy in your head, tell yourself, “That’s not me” and remind yourself of your values and what you stand for.
3. When you say you are going to do something, do it! No matter how small the promise, it must be kept if you are to build your self-integrity. If you don’t feel like you are capable of keeping a promise or commitment, then don’t make it. Be honest with yourself and what you are capable of. Build momentum with small victories, and then set your sights higher.
4. Commit fully and be satisfied with your effort regardless of the outcome. Sometimes the thing holding us back from keeping our promises to ourselves is the fear of failure. We fear that if we actually give our full effort and don’t succeed then we will look stupid and feel awful. However, it is much more admirable to give your full heart to something and it not work out, than give it half of your energy and then claim that you didn’t care about it anyway once you fail. Learn to commit fully and value effort over the end result and you will experience satisfaction regardless of the outcome.
5. Expect nothing in return. Align your actions with your values regardless of whether or not you are rewarded for your efforts. Most of the time the only reward you will receive is the satisfaction of knowing that you remained true to yourself and that is enough.
6. Create a schedule: what doesn't get scheduled doesn't get done. Write down all the things you need to get done or the steps to take either to build up your personal or professional skills. After writing these down, take out a calendar and schedule a time to accomplish certain actions or to work on each of the to do items on your list. Keeping in mind that what doesn't get schedules doesn't get done.
7. Have an accountability partner: If you have faltered numerous times on the promises made to yourself or even to others, it shows you are not capable to holding yourself accountable - get an accountability partner. An accountability partner will serve as a listening ear when you get overwhelmed with the task on hand and need to talk things out. An accountability partner will help keep you on track, highlight your blind spots, call you out and be your cheerleader-cheering and encouraging you all the way.
8. Celebrate every little accomplishment: At the end of each day write down all the successes you achieved that day regardless of how small or insignificant they may seem. For example, getting out of bed when the alarm goes off, submitting an assignment on time without asking for an extension, eating a piece of fruit instead of a cookie when dieting. Celebrating little successes will boost up your self-esteem and would propel you to respect the other promises made to yourself, to treat yourself with a little more respect and dignity.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you struggle with integrity. Please subscribe!

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