Your Habits + Your Integrity Spectrum
I wrote this post and made the little diagram for those who are in the seemingly endless cycles of negative self-talk to inform you that dissolves when your habits align to your bodies needs. Your mind and emotions are negative because your rhythms are out of alignment. They are a symptom – not a cause in themselves.
I was on a Body Thrive coaching call the other day. I try to check in first. I take the pulse of the group. I find out where people are stuck. I also find out where people are having breakthroughs, big realizations and better automated habits.
I’ve been coaching people on the habits of Ayurveda since 2001. I’ve been coaching the habits of yogis longer than I personally had integrity with the habits. This is how it is with many of us. We learn by teaching. We step into integrity by noticing when we fail to step into integrity. If you teach or coach, you put yourself on stage to learn from the crowd.
I started to get more honest with my groups a few years ago. I let them know where I struggle, and where I excel. The result of all this humility and authenticity is the habits of yogis have automated in my life. Slowly, surely maturity comes from living into aligned action.
The lack of inner integrity many of us have haunts us daily.
I made a simple diagram to explain my observations:
(*I don’t want to imply that all disease is caused by habits out of integrity. I know it’s more complicated than that. But I do what to generalize here based on Epigenetics and the power we have to take aligned action.)
And you can maybe relate. You know what you should do. Yet, doing it is another thing altogether. And when you delve into the differential – it’s that you don’t have the habits to get done what you know you should do.
We don’t know how to implement the structure, the process, for our own evolution. And the weird thing is – once we implement the structure – the habits come easily. The toughest of habits are easy to lick when we have the structure for small changes.
I’m curious if you know what I am talking about – the lack of integrity issue.
The integrity issue is universal
If we get that the integrity issue is universal – that it’s built into who we are as human beings – than we can stop the self-flagellation and get on with aligned action.
If you’re carrying extra weight and you don’t want to – you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’ll working too much and your body is breaking down – you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re on drugs that feel like band aids for deeper issues and you’ll not addressing those deeper issues with daily habit upgrades, you too catch my drift.
This weird thing happens when you lose integrity with yourself, and this cool thing happens when you gain deeper alignment with your self. The loss cycle creates separation. The gain cycle builds inter-connectedness.
Back to the coaching call for Body Thrive.
This group started in early November and we cruise through the holidays together, upleveling our habits as we go. We were live on the week 8 call. I did the opening check in. My group was doing the habits of yogis.
Access to ease, and time opening up.
My members reporting exiting the self-perpetuating cycle of stress. Their new ancient habits were making their lives easier. And the lives of their kids and partners easier.
This came across my Facebook feed as I was writing this post:
The yogis of yore devoted to a low stress, easeful environment inside the body and inside the home. Low stress inside and outside lays the groundwork for aligned action. High stress leads to disconnected action which creates more work and more stress. I’d give you an example but I’m sure you can come up with one from your own life to test the theory.
My peeps reported having more time.
More time to do what they wanted. My peeps reported on having more space for clear thinking. And of course the typical unneeded pounds shed and deeper sleep, and better nourishment that comes from better planning and smarter living. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What captured my interest was the ease.
The expansion of our hearts that occurs when we step into alignment with our little daily body habits. The self-loathing, and those of us who are sensitive enough to feel it know exactly what I’m taking about, eases up. The negative self-talk, the critic, the judge, and even the rebel, start to dissolve into aligned action.
And we enter the next phase of our personal thrive. The weirder predictable thing that happens next is as we step into aligned action we see where others are on this spectrum. We see those who are miles ahead of us – whom we can connect with and learn from. We also deeply notice those in our lives who are in the self-perpetuating self-contraction. And we become deeply aware of how much we care.
And that is how I measure the progress of my group. If our hearts are effortlessly breaking open, we’re on the right track. If we have more time, more space, more ease, less weight, less stress, more aligned action, I am doing my job.
Read the book. Get in my course. Or do whatever you need to do to move the needle from negative to positive. We’re in this together.
