Iyawó Chronicles: On Integrity
(written at the ass crack of dawn)
I was having a discussion about people and their behavior recently and got to a point where we were trying to dissect the reasons why someone might be doing something.
First, as my therapist likes to say, people have a different value system. It doesn't always align with yours. That's the simplest way to break down behavior. Second, you are not always meant to figure out why people do what they do. Most times it doesn't help you or the situation you are in.
Finally, we got to this one word that I think is often overused and underutilized. Integrity.
So many people operate outside of the word that those of us that use it as a staff and shield, that pepper all of our intents and actions with it, cannot comprehend the whys and hows of peoples behaviors outside of that measurement.
Integrity. (noun)
firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS (Merriam Webster Dictionary)
If someone is not living it out, not rolling out of bed to put their feet firmly on the hallowed ground of everything that it means, it can frustrate us. It can make us feel defeated as we move within certain circles shrouded in integrity while others operate in those same spaces with falsehoods, malintent and questionable behavior.
Here's a truth that has taken me a long time to understand: you will never out-explain someone that doesn't have integrity. You will rarely get them to understand that what they have done is not right. They would've laid the groundwork for some serious gaslighting so they could check off the boxes that would grant them protection from society to be judged for their lack of integrity. Does that make sense?
They can literally say "well, I did this and this is what I had to do and so I was not wrong in this situation" or "this person attacked me out of nowhere when I was just doing what I was supposed to do".
But the webs that were put down cannot be seen. How many times have you been ensnared in a spider web that came out of nowhere? That's how people feel when they are thrown into a situation with a person that has no integrity.
You cannot “win” the fight (in the traditional sense) because there's nothing that person won't do to protect themselves from being discovered.
I have learned to stop. Not to stop having integrity. I have learned to stop battling people that don't. To stop trying to unmask them so that others see what I see. To stop yelling at the top of my lungs that I've been wronged or that I see a wrong that must be accounted for.
That takes up so much energy. Takes up so much emotions to try to process something that is going on outside of yourself. So, I don't.
It is simple. I cannot move in spaces that lack integrity. It is not always possible to remove ourselves from these spaces, though. I recognize that. But, it is possible for us to pull back our energy. To understand that God, Allah, Olodumare, the universe, whoever you believe in, will eventually make things right. But guess what? That's none of your business.
I've always tried right the wrongs I see. Passionately. I get heated and upset when I see someone being taken advantage of, being gaslit, being bullied. But, as I enter my quarter of surrender, I've come to realize that I cannot always honor myself and my purpose by bringing down my sword of justice or my shield of words.
Some days, as hard as it may be, I need to walk away. I need to pray and assess the situation and let who and what I believe in take hold and control of a situation.
I was not created to live a life without integrity. And so, I must continually choose to step into myself and ensure, first and foremost, that I'm healthy of mind and body, and then that I am doing what it is that I am supposed to do.
Because I can't change people. I can't argue with people that lack integrity because I'd never win the argument. There will always be a justification or a gaslighting as to what really happened.
One of the most important things that has come out of this year is about how I have operated up until the point that a crown was officially put on my head. About how I had questioned myself and have sometimes been gaslit into not listening to my eggun when I'm being warned or not following my instincts out of an irrational fear that something worse will happen if I move in a certain way and my assessment wasn’t right. This, I know, comes from having lived with a master con-artist and sociopath for almost 6 years and enduring such emotional trauma that it muted and hollowed out the core of me: my gifts of insight and my ability to listen to the voice of knowing within me.
But, everything comes to an end. And on the day I heard those words, I understood what I had to do. I had to surrender to my own power and unlearn that which I was never supposed to take into myself. I had to step into my gifts and not let anyone or anything steer me differently. The power of that transformation has changed the trajectory of my life. I move differently now. I hear that inner voice. I understand the messages my eggun give. The constant bits of advice and knowledge. It feels like I have my own version of Google maps in my head. Eggun Pathways, I'm going to call it. There is NOTHING like it.
I am humbled by it. I am empowered with it. And this is how I have learned more about integrity and how it applies to me and my life. How it orders my steps. It has taught me how to move and it has shown me who moves without it.
Which is what this morning's meditation was about. Integrity. My girl Staci (who will teach you how to get free and change yo entire life if/when you are ready) created this mug a while back and it was actually the original source of my meditation when I woke up at 5:30ish this morning.
The mug states: Integrity is my love language. But, I cannot force others to live in integrity. I can only do so for myself and teach my child to do the same. I cannot shout my battle cry for righteousness and fight those that live without integrity because that's not my battle.
My job is to continue to live the way I've been living. To see what I am meant to see, to give the messages that I am meant to give. To heal. To grow. Now don't get it twisted, I'm also meant to take off heads. But I have found that, most times, the taking off of heads isn't necessarily my job. Like, if I was project managing this, I wouldn't be the person whose name was assigned to the task. This has been a difficult concept for me to get which is why I've been beaten over the head with it in the last few weeks. I GOT IT ALREADY, SHEESH!
I can only do for myself. I can control my fury when injustices take place. I can also unleash it because sometimes it's not good to hold it all in. I can continue to live in the way that makes my ancestors proud and in that, I honor them and bring blessings to myself and to my family. But the caveat is that I must always live on the straight and narrow. Deviating from that won't be a good look for me. And so, we are back to the word: integrity.
There's this quote that I have always loved. It's by Zora Neale Hurston and I always use it when I talk and think about talent and skill.
"“Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.”
After today's prayers, I wonder if Zora was speaking, not about talent but about integrity.