How Choosing Integrity Gave Me a Second Shot at Life
— In this Article —
“As you move closer and closer to pure integrity, as the windowpane of your mind grows more and more transparent, you will begin to love everything, and it will be obvious to you that everything loves you back.”
I went from barely surviving to feeling wildly alive.
Do you ever experience the radiance of the morning's first golden sunbeams with pure delight and awe?
Do you ever get mesmerized by a threesome of squirrels chasing each other up, down, and around a tree…and find yourself grinning ear-to-ear as you do?
Do you ever feel so much gratitude flood your being—seemingly for no reason—that you begin to cry?
Do you ever feel truly ecstatic just because you're alive?
Do you ever experience a cosmic love for the entirety of creation, accompanied by a deep knowing that you are truly One with everything that ever was, is, and will be?
This is what I've been experiencing in bucket loads lately. And, it's a helluva far cry from when I came to—strapped to a gurney with pads taped to my chest and tubes shoved down my throat, in my veins, and up my urethra—first in the ER, and then again later in the ICU. That rock-bottom occurred on August 1, 1996 - several hours after I downed three bottles of sleeping pills before going to bed.
So what changed?
While I could list all the things, doing so may not be of much service to you. But if I can boil it down to one word, it would be INTEGRITY.
Living in integrity is about living in harmony with who you are.
Most definitions of integrity are based around honesty or morality, but I like to borrow from my mentor who defines integrity simply as being in harmony with ourselves.
When I'm in harmony with myself, I'm also honest with myself. When I downed those sleeping pills, I did so believing the lie I'd spent the first 20 years of my life telling myself about just how much of a worthless piece of shit I was—how I was so fucking unworthy of being loved (by anyone)—and that the world would be better off without me. How I yearn go back in time and love on my 20-year-old self…to let her know just how precious both she and her life are and how glorious life becomes when we stop believing our own lies.
The simple truth—according to many wise humans—is that we cause our own suffering when we create stories about our circumstances that are steeped in assumptions on how things should be different than they actually are. And, we can free ourselves from the chains of our own suffering by challenging these stories* and living in integrity with who we truly are.
*Note: Byron Katie has a fantastic process called The Work that I’ll use with clients and myself to challenge these stories. I encourage you to try it! But this post isn’t about The Work, and so I’ll leave it at that.
Building the integrity muscle takes time…and it is so worth it.
Living in integrity with who you truly are is readily achieved by responding to whatever's presented to you in any given moment from a place of inner alignment. Luckily for you, there will be no shortage of opportunities to practice this! Sometimes these opportunities will appear more significant than others, e.g. leaving a toxic relationship vs declining an invitation. But the more you exercise the integrity muscle, the easier it becomes.
For example, my partner and I were invited to a Super Bowl party. The host is a good friend of Bob's, and she and her husband are huge sports fans. I knew it would be one of those well-planned, booze-heavy, and highly over-stimulating parties—the kind of party that would dysregulate my nervous system and mess with my sleep.
So I declined to attend, without offering any kind of customary socially polite (but utterly BS) excuse for my absence.
Did I ruffle any feathers? Quite possibly. Am I okay with this? Absolutely. I am so over making excuses for living in alignment with my truth.
This was an easy invitation for me to decline because I’d spent years prioritizing my integrity over people-pleasing. But when I first started doing it, I’m not gonna lie—it was a little scary at times! People don’t always like it when you start living this way.
Nevertheless, when we evaluate each individual action (especially the "small" ones like Super Bowl parties) through the lens of whether it's aligned with who we truly are, and we then respond from a place of integrity, our lives change. And this change is freaking powerful.
The cumulative effect of these "small" actions cannot be overstated.
For me, living "the way of integrity" began a few months after my suicide attempt, after my psychiatrist told me that I'd have to stay on the cocktail of meds he had me on for the rest of my life if I wanted to live at least a somewhat normal existence.
“You are responsible for your own happiness.”
I remember the exact moment when integrity came knocking—it was when I was in my car after leaving the clinic, and I heard a voice that came from seemingly nowhere say "You are responsible for your own happiness." Whoa.
These words felt far truer than my psychiatrist's dismal prognosis. And with that directive, I slowly began living in integrity with my true nature, one small action at a time.
The bliss states I shared at the beginning of this post are the direct result of me prioritizing my integrity again and again and again. I've discovered that when I'm consistently living in alignment with my true nature, I radiate love without making any attempt whatsoever to do so—because love is my true nature—and this love just so happens to come back to me tenfold. I love life, and life loves me back. My friend, it’s truly a glorious way to live!
AND I'm not going to lie—sometimes it's hard to follow the way of integrity, and there are often external consequences for doing so—but once you taste the sweet liberation that accompanies this path, turning back fails to be an option.
Integrity is at the heart of Wayfinder Coaching.
Living in and responding to life's challenges from a place of integrity with our true natures is at the heart of Wayfinding Coaching. So is learning how to access your inner GPS and using it to guide your life.
Wayfinding is great for "big" things like navigating a midlife crisis or existential crisis, actualizing your purpose, etc. It's also great for "smaller" things like setting boundaries, saying "no" to Super Bowl parties, and navigating relationship challenges. If you would like to learn more about how Wayfinding can help you create a more fulfilling, purpose-driven, and joyful existence, click here.
That is all.
I’m Kristi Amdahl—a certified Wayfinder Master Coach and Women’s Circle Facilitator.
I’m passionate about YOU living in integrity with who you truly are. I remember feeling restless because my soul was guiding me down one path while my family (and culture) expected me to stay on theirs. In the end, I chose to live in integrity with my soul. Though my decision upset my family, following my soul’s call liberated me and changed the trajectory of my life. So now, I help feminists, rebels, and old souls like you tap into your own inner GPSs and live in integrity with your souls. Click here to learn how Wayfinder Coaching can help you navigate change, ‘find’ your purpose, and create deeper inner alignment.
