Letter to my Children: Integrity, Lying, and Dignity

Dearest Beloved Children, 

We are at the end of 2025 and our world is having a nervous breakdown. There is really no other to describe what is happening. 

I don’t need to list the reasons why people are overwhelmed. I want to talk about integrity because it is an integral component in your mother’s toolbox against these winds of accelerated chaos.

Integrity.

Integrity was hammered into me when I did a Landmark Forum weekend in college. I had come home from college and everyone in the family was throwing around terms I didn’t understand - terms like: “already always listening”, “that comment is part of your racket”, and “out of integrity.”  In the interests of communication (and not feeling left out) I did the weekend myself to learn what in the world everyone was talking about. 

Here we are, nearly 30 years later, and integrity is it for your mother. To live with integrity is a core concept of my sense of self and self-worth - let me explain.

The Forum taught that “to live in integrity” is to be true to ourselves by honoring your word. It is the seemingly innocuous and innocent daily decision to not lie to the world with your words - which in turn filters into being true to one’s own principles, and ultimately, be true to yourself. 

Integrity comes from the Latin (couldn’t resist, sorry kids). Integer means whole, untouched (in, un, tangere, to touch). Integral ~ essential to make a whole complete. Integer ~ a whole number. I am whole from the inside out when my words echo what my heart tells me. 

I recently heard a Josh Schrei, from The Emerald Podcast, describe what it means to find our center on the mat. We literally align our center with the gravitational pull of the center of the Earth. The Earth, in turn, is in alignment or balance with the gravitational pull of the center of the Sun. The Sun, in turn, is in balance with the gravitational pull of the center of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is ultimately in gravitational pull and balance with the center of the Universe. Therefore, we are, when aligned with our centers, aligning ourselves with the center of the Universe.

I know the center of the Universe (and everything else) is God. So speaking one’s truth from one’s center is speaking the truth of God. The nudges of what love would want in any given circumstance. For us to be whole and interacting with the world from that space of wholeness. 

What does this integrity concept translate into on a practical level? For your mother, it shows up ALL the time.

- I am working in the garden and my body feels tired. My life, one of thorough indoctrination in the extractive capitalist mindset, has taught me to push through and ignore how my body feels. There is work to be done and damn the consequences to self.* I know about my unconscious training, which means I can act differently than my upbringing would dictate. I listen to my heart’s nudge nudge to be kind to my body and put down the tools. Integrity and keeping myself whole encourages me to not extract every ounce of sweat out of the situation - but trust that it will be finished another day. That is integrity of self.

- We promised the guides in the Galapagos that we would hand deliver the postcards we took from the barrel from Post Office Bay on Floreana Island. As such, we drove to Cold Spring and Rye to deliver by hand what we had promised our guide we would do. Would it have been easier to just put a stamp on the postcards? For sure. But it would have been out of integrity because we gave our word. It would have diminished our word, and in turn ourselves.

- When I am walking and see trash on the beach/sidewalk and I choose to pick it up. If I see the plastic bottle and ignore it I am ignoring that part of me who knows it doesn’t belong there. That part of me that wants our Earth to be clean. That part of me that mourns the micro plastic in the bellies of fish, worms, and newborn babies.

- Not lying. To myself, to you two, to the world. Being truthful in my words, thoughts, and deeds to who I am and what I stand for and what I believe. This does not mean shouting from the rooftops - it means not lying.**

- Not saying something about someone to their back that I wouldn’t say to their face. This one still catches your mother. I had been raised to gossip about people - their actions, motivations, behavior, choices, etc. - all forms of judging the other person. About 15 years ago a friend of mine threw out the notion - “I don’t say anything about anyone that I wouldn’t tell them to their face.” It truly rocked me. And it is 150% correct. Otherwise, you are out of integrity with your words - how can you say something snarky behind someone’s back and then look them in the eyes the next moment and not cringe inwardly and feel diminished as a result. As I write this, I can think of a recent instance where I cringed… a work in progress indeed.

Integrity. There are opportunities to practice it everywhere. 

Which brings me to dignity. Dignity comes from dignus - it means “worthy” in Latin. There is a straight line from being in one’s integrity, wholeness, and having self-dignity. My worth as a person makes me a worthy individual. I have heft, weight, ballast - because I am aligned to and shored up with the Love from the Universe. I am being prodded to behave, speak, act, and commit to a life buoyed by Love. It is this Love pushing through my heart that encourages and enables me to “choose dignity… every day,” as Ari Weinzweig detailed in his great post, “When in Doubt, Dig into Dignity”.

He doesn’t talk about Love in his post (or God). But I see Love in each of his 6 elements of dignity:

1. Honor the essential humanity of everyone we work with. 2. Be authentic in all of our interactions. 3. Make sure everyone has a meaningful say. 4. Begin every interaction with positive beliefs. 5. Commit to helping everyone get to greatness. 6. Create an effective application of equity.

Integrity and dignity… grounding cords for all of us in these times.

*There is one instance I can think of where it is necessary and right to push through bodily unhappiness to do something other than moan in bed. And that, my dearest beloveds, is a lesson you may have many opportunities to practice as a parent (but I truly hope not because if you do have opportunities it means we haven’t fixed our broken parenting model). Taking care of a baby/small children when you yourself do not feel well (for example, everyone has the flu) is first of all the seventh layer of Hell - no doubt. It is also a terrible commentary on our way of raising children in these capitalism end-times when of course it is one person’s job to be in charge of the next generation without any help. And that, is the ONLY instance I can think of when it is truly NECESSARY to push through one’s own bodily urges to slow down because the wellbeing of a helpless child would be affected.

** I know that I talk a LOT a LOT to the two of you about why it is important not to lie. I saw very clearly one evening doing plant medicine the energetic ripples that happen as a result of speaking false words is really huge. The Good, after all, knows what your heart wants/knows. So when your words and your heart are disagreement the whole world gets muddled and Universe doesn’t know which one to give you - your heart or your words. A mess.