Through the power of integrity
Do you recognise this? You wake up one morning feeling a little heavy headed, in doubt, maybe fearful. Worrying.
Your thoughts are all over the place and you have no clue as to where to begin your journey towards a better and more fulfilling life. You have already tried a great deal, but never really nailed it. The so called “good life” does not really seem to come down your alley.
Longing for something more…
You just have the feeling that there must be more to life. That “something” is missing.
You are longing for something more … something else.
A life filled with of xxx – instead of full of xxx (insert what goes for you).
And then you buy another self help book in the hope of getting some inspiration or read one of the many quotes on Instagram … and they all say the same:
The future is yours
Just go and get it
Create your own destiny
Spread your wings and learn to fly
If you dream it, you can do it
Believe in yourself
Make it happen
Go Big
Take tiny steps
Change your biz
Be a boss
Make the planet a better place
… but how?
.. you take a close look at the gap between your current life and the life you are longing for – and crawl down under your blanket again.
Not knowing where to begin.
Self-exploration
We live in the age of self-exploration. We are exploring ourselves like never before. You too, I guess, since this article has fallen into your hands or lap(top).
Maybe you too are asking yourself these questions: Who am I? Where am I going? What is my WHY? My WHAT? My HOW? My calling? My life purpose?
We are soul-searching like never before.
That can be very rewarding, indeed, if we know what we are searching for – but also very confusing, and very scary, if we do not know how to navigate the waters of our own energy system, our emotions, while we search.
Let me help you dive into the deep waters of your emotions and guide you to your integrity and a life of flow.
Let us begin by taking a deep soothing breath and remember this:
You are born to live in the very body you have.
You are born to survive and thrive.
Within you is the capacity to do all of that. Using your brain, your gut feeling, your emotions, your sensory apparatus to guide you along.
You are born to be YOU.
This means that you are not lacking a n y t h i n g to begin the journey of accessing your own personal flow. You just need a starting point.
The starting point is called integrity
When you are in your flow state, you feel you can handle life and move with it, even when it challenges you. You feel that being you is enough and you know that it is vital to take good care of yourself, listening to your desires, needs and aspirations.
You feel that you are IN the game of life. Playing along. Co-creating. Using your personal assets to create a work life you feel good about and relationships that are uplifting and nurturing.
You have access to your personal flow when you act out of integrity.
So, if you have fallen a little or a lot off track with that integrity of yours, let us get you back on track. Here and now. Together. One step at a time. Remember, you were born to be you.
Is it easy to be you?
Whatever we do the most, we get good at. It is a simple as that. Even though we tend to learn slower as we get older – we CAN learn. And we SHOULD learn new skills and “being you” is a skill.
That means that if you begin practising “being you”, you will eventually get really good at it.
What have you practised the most up until now in your life?
Integrity; “I am”, “I think “, “I feel”, “I want” etc. … or fear “what if”,
When to panic – and how to start living
The problem is, that the future is full of scary sh*t, if we start thinking too much about it.
Here is a list of common fears:
- Not being loved
- Loosing (whatever; people, opportunities, money, etc.)
- Not having enough money for the future
- Public speaking
- Global warming
- Loved one’s dying
- You dying
- Technology you do not understand
- Clowns
- Sharks
- Zombies
The ability to fear is innate – it is a question of survival. But only 25 percent of our fears stems from our original stone age brain (fear of the unknown, of being rejected by the group, not having enough to sustain life). The rest of our fears (75 percent) are socialized, stemming from friends, colleagues, society.
Fear is generally based in the future, so better not think too much about the future, right?
And integrity is the way to keep our feet on the ground here and now, every day.
Let us start exploring the power of integrity and the role it plays in your ability to access flow in your life.
Answer these 3 questions:
- Are you living your life?
– if yes, stop reading and just go on, it seems to work! And is exactly what you are here to do. Living YOUR life.
- If no – how come? What are your explanation(s)?
- What do you think is missing in your life right now, since you are not able to live the way that suits you best?
If your answer evolves around money, time, job, other people – think again. Hard.
Think of the last time you lost your energy, felt miserable or misunderstood or lacked motivation.
Was it because of money or lack of time? The answer is most likely no.
Or another person’s wrong doings? You might answer yes to that question, but the answer is more likely no … again. We often think that other people influence our state of being. And in a way they do, because they trigger us in many different ways (often without knowing it) and thereby force us to take a look at how we choose to react. But the choice is still ours. In that way, relationships are a magical gift to our integrity training.
My guess is that the last time you lost your energy, felt miserable, misunderstood or demotivated you;
- denied or supressed your feelings
- ignored your needs (rest, sleep, time, a hug, saying no/yes etc.)
- were unclear, withheld your truth
- did not stand your ground out of fear of loosing
- did not stand your ground out of fear of rejection
In short … I am sure that you (must have) compromised your integrity.
Nothing drains us like being untrue, unfaithful to ourselves. Not being in integrity.
When you are out of sync with your integrity, you signal to your energy system (the entire body) that you are incomplete, insufficient. That you are flawed in some way and need to change. You shut off your inner space and this triggers your stress response. Your body detects it as danger and you fall into survival mode. Fight, flight, freeze. When you run on the energy of fear for too long, you shut down. Today we call it stress, burnout, anxiety, depression. All this because you are not practicing being in integrity. Even when it’s hard.
Take charge
We are not designed to run on fear for longer periods of time. We end of poisoning ourselves with stress hormones instead of producing hormones of happiness.
Whenever I meet with clients, groups, teams etc. I always look for the line of integrity in everything.
Try it yourself. Is there a clear line running from you to the outer world?
- Does your inner voice correspond with your outer expression?
- Do your actions match your needs, ambitions, calling etc.?
- Are your feelings being felt and expressed without blaming and withholding?
- Are your boundaries clear?
When you are un-true to yourself, you hack your energy system and leave yourself victimized … by yourself.
Sometimes, it is ok to do that. Being a social creature is also about adapting – but not too much and not for too long. And it should be for the right reasons. It is vital that you are adapting to your own truth as well. Vital if you want to connect to your own flow of life.
So … how do you get back to that integrity of yours? One way to do it is to follow the three steps below.
Step 1. Location, Location
First of all, you need to locate yourself.
Where are you right now? Meaning, where does the majority of your actions come from
– from fear or from integrity?
- Fear. Fear is survival – Thank God we have an amygdala. Thank God we have an ego. They are both just trying to keep us alive. But you have to lead them. Not the other way around.
If you are mostly acting out of fear, if the greater part of your decisions is based on lack, scarcity, what if’s – running on survival mode, life tends to get complicated over time. You are easily stressed out, worrying, feeling pressured, anxious, not present. High on control – low on trust. Things are not turning out the way you want and life seems like an uphill run. Everything, more or less, becomes a struggle.
- Integrity. Integrity is wholeness. Being you.
One form of wholeness is the uninterrupted flow of energy or life force. Another form of wholeness is congruence, when that which you feel inside matches what you express on the outside.
If you are acting out of integrity, you feel calm and collected. You stand your grounds and you communicate your needs and boundaries clearly. You take 100 percent responsibility for your life. You speak authentically. You live out your feelings.
Everything has a frequency. The frequency of fear and the frequency of integrity are not that far apart – yet they provide very different opportunities for you. Fear narrows your perspective down to one thing: survival. Integrity widens your perspective to everything: living.
Step 2. Closing the gap
Now you have located your position.
And since you are still reading this article, I assume that a lot of your actions or decisions stems from fear and that you have a feeling that things can get better – and believe me, they can.
Let us play a game of figuring out how to get from Fear to Integrity. Closing the gap between where you are now – and where you want to be.
Let us say you are at a bus station called Fear and want to commute to the station called Integrity.
First, get on to the bus – let us say the bus is your body.
You do not know who you will meet on the bus, but you are sure to meet someone, the other passengers. Different days – different passengers.
Let us say, the other passengers are your emotions: fear, anger, joy, love, guilt etc. (energy in motion).
Let us say that from now on, you will greet everyone you meet on the bus, no matter who – it would be rude to smile at one person and turn your back on another, right?
Be willing to sense and feel all emotions. Be willing to sense and feel all of you. Also when the things that you sense and feel are tough and hurts. You will greet them anyway.
When you feel something is missing in your life – you are missing.
The best way to start filling your life up with more of you, is by starting to meet and greet all of your emotions, so you can connect fully to your inner world – that will fuel your courage and your ability to reach your final destination: Integrity.
When you do not resist your own inner world, the outer world becomes your playground instead of a battlefield, because you stop fleeing from yourself. You make contact instead, and from there on a life in alignment with who you are is within reach.
Step 3. Know and embrace your emotional roadmap
Our core emotions tend to show up in certain areas of the body.
For example, fear often manifests as a sensation in the stomach and solar plexus, whereas anger appears in the back, shoulders, neck and jaw, as well as down the arms to the hands.
We typically experience sadness as sensations in the heart area, the front of the throat and face, and in the eyes. Joy is often experienced as a rising, effervescent sensation in the core of the body or up the spine, and sexual feelings are typically experienced as tingling sensations in the erogenous zones. For those more sensitive to sexual feelings, those sensations can be spread throughout various parts of the body.
Getting to know these emotional areas in your body, can be a shortcut to integrity.
When you feel a sensation in one of these areas, check to see if the corresponding emotion is present. Let your body lead you to awareness.
If your jaws clench, maybe something is to much and you need to set a limit, or maybe something is out of your hands and you need to release the sensation rather than supressing it.
If you get too fearful about the future when you are just about to quit the job you no longer want anyway – it is time to release the sensation in the stomach rather than letting it take control over your decisions.
So …
Stay connected to yourself through your emotions
- Locate the sensation in your body.
- Breathe.
- Allow, accept and appreciate the sensation.
- Match your experience with an expression.
If this sensation could make a sound, which sound would it be? The body relaxes naturally when you vocalize – not thinking or talking about the sound, but actually making it.
If this sensation could make a movement, what movement would it be? Make the actual movement with your body and let the movement match the energy of the sensation.
When we are not resisting that which is, we are accepting it = we are accepting ourselves. Coming from that place is powerful beyond words. You are about to find that out for yourself.
Is that (really) enough?
You might think: “But how will that make me capable of finding a new job, a new love, building a business or traveling the world – whatever my desire is?”
When you are not afraid of feeling and sensing the energy, the emotions in your body, no discomfort will steer you away from being clear on what you want and do not want, what you need and do not need, what you desire and do not desire. Nothing will steer you away from you, when you are no longer resisting being you.
You will be able to put your desires into action instead of spending your valuable time and energy on wishful thinking.
When you are no longer afraid of your own sensations and emotions, you are free to live your life as you desire. Day by day.
Marvellous things will unfold from that place of being connected to your personal flow from within. Then reality will shift on the outside.
Let the search for your integrity begin!
It is not always easy at first – but it is always worth it.
FLOW Specialist, Author, Mum, Entrepreneur. Anja has this rare ability to spot whatever blocks the natural everyday flow of a human being, providing hands on solutions at a very high rate of success for both body, mind and soul.
She teaches her concept Dare To Flow in Denmark and around the world and provides courses and education for modern people seeking to optimise and navigate their personal and professional flow. Anja has a great gift for seeing peoples hidden potential and helping them reach past the fears standing in the way of their true expression.
Anja has 10 years in the corporate world, former dancer and fitness athlete. She has been an entrepreneur for 17 years and has studied fear, courage and flow for over a decade inspiring thousands of people to create a bigger life for themselves – both personally and professionally.
