Ideas that Impact
  • Ideas that Impact
  • SE101: Socent

Cultivating Integrity [4 of 10]

4/4/2008

0 Comments

 
Reflections on Buddhist Contributions to Social Justice  [Main Post with PDF]
Becoming Social Architects: Together, I + U HALT Injustice [3 of 10]
Cultivating Understanding [5 of 10]


1.  Cultivating Integrity

Cultivating the capacity for integrity means that we want to live in congruity[1]  and embrace our wholeness.[2]  

Congruity means to live in harmony such that one’s thoughts, speech, and actions align.  This does not mean that one holds rigidly to any particular ideology at any cost, for example, when a person who opposes war on the grounds of pacifism protests using hate-filled language and acting with violence, s/he may be holding firmly to the ideology for ‘no war’, but the actions no longer align with the stated beliefs.  Thus, to aspire to live in congruity, one brings a determination to live in harmony with the truth of oneself, not holding to fixed views, rather open to what is happening in the present moment.   Congruity demands of us that if we want to condemn another’s conduct that we have the capacity to be honest about our conduct.  This leads to the second aspect of integrity - the complement to congruity, which is a thirst to live in wholeness.  

Cultivating the capacity to live in wholeness invites us to tell the whole story of who we are –who we say we are, who we are that we don’t admit, and who we are that we don’t see[3] - the dark side of the light chaser[4], or ‘shadow’ work[5].   To cultivate the capacity to live in wholeness means that we practice deepening our awareness of who we are in all aspects of our life and that we cultivate the capacity to see the things that we may fear and resist seeing in ourselves; wholeness demands ruthless honesty and transparency. If we espouse that we ‘stand’ for a particular idea, we have the capacity to honestly reflect on our consistency to live with that idea. 

Congruity and wholeness are mutually informing, complementary feedback loops, as we become more aware of our wholeness, we put more effort into strengthening our congruity and as we focus on living in congruity and attend diligently to our thoughts, speech, and actions, we deepen our view of ourselves – expanding our wholeness. 



[1] With gratitude for the congruity concept to the inspiring, passionate, creative September Williams, MD. bioethicist, physician, filmmaker of “When We Are Asked:” 
[2] See. Kate Ettinger, Reclaiming Wholeness: Passive Participation in Conflict under section War, Reconciliation, Healing.
[3] Imago Theory; including Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix
[4] The Dark Side of the Light Chaser, Debbie Ford.
[5] The Four Fold Way, Angeles Arrien.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    part of Kate's Mural

    idea incubator & 
    prototype lab 
     . . . architecting hope . . .  


    Featured
    Guest Posts
    101
    21st Century Career
    Changemakers
    Creative
    Design
    Ethics
    Learning
    Leadership
    Life Lessons
    Social Impact

    Sectors
    Aging
    Education
    Health
    Macroscope
    Social Enterprise

    Themes
    Wildflower (thoughts)
    Idea (seeds)
    Prototype (experiments)

    Failures
    Fun
    Future/Innovation

    About this blog
    About Kate
    View my profile on LinkedIn
    Picture
    All writing licensed by
    Kate Michi Ettinger and guest contributors under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2016
    March 2015
    January 2015
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    November 2012
    August 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    March 2011
    September 2010
    August 2010
    June 2010
    November 2009
    October 2009
    July 2008
    May 2008
    April 2008
    March 2008
    February 2008
    October 2007
    July 2007
    June 2007