I ... is for Integrity
Integrity means that a person has fairness, faithfulness, honesty, honor, loyalty, morality, sincerity and trustworthiness. that's quite a list indeed and if you have all these wonderful qualities you most certainly have high self esteem. You most certainly feel good about the person you are. Just to use one example, to be trustworthy also means that you can trust yourself and depend upon yourself to be there for you - to know that you will not let yourself down - as well as meaning being worthy of the trust of other people. So of course you should feel good, and rightfully so, about having developed these qualities in yourself!
However, all is not quite as simple as just knowing what the qualities of integrity are...we do not have integrity simply by being born. It is not our birthright and it is not automatically ours, we must work for it. We must work to realize what it is and then work to obtain it. Every action we take in life involves choice...we always have a choice, even doing nothing is a choice.
If we take responsibility for our lives, and take action (rather than merely reacting), we must sometimes make hard choices and unpopular choices. The choices we make may make life uncomfortable for us and we have to have the courage to endure this discomfort for the sake of our integrity. In other words, we must have the courage to 'walk our talk', as the Native Americans say.
If we always take the 'easy way out' to avoid pain and discomfort (for example, always agreeing with others, whether we really do or not), we will slowly but surely chip away at our self esteem until there is nothing left of our Self. We are releasing our power if we do things we don't want to do in order to please someone else to avoid confrontation or to make them like us. By doing this we stifle our self esteem, we in effect make everyone else more important to us than us! This is, however, not a license to be obnoxious, but you do have the right to have your own opinions and should remain true to yourself.
When we come to the conclusion that our integrity is more important than avoiding confrontation we will almost certainly have to endure some discomfort at times. To be kind to ourselves we must keep in mind that "Rome wasn't built in a day" and it's O.K. if we go about it at our own pace. Each effort we make at 'walking our talk' will make us feel stronger and more confident the next time we are tested. When we start to own our own power we will see that we are beginning to give up any victim status we may be carrying around.
Developing integrity isn't an easy task, but each and every step in that direction will bring a sense of accomplishment and pride. That, in turn, inspires us to continue our commitment to develop into a fully blossomed, graceful, emotionally mature adult.
