The Way of Integrity

Reading this book completely changed my life. It spoke to the deepest levels of my being in a way that’s difficult to describe.

Although in many ways I was already living by many of the principles in this book, it tied everything together under one simple theme. The amazing stories and personal anecdotes that Beck shares bring her points to life.

A large part of what made this book so powerful is how clear it is that Martha has really been on the journey she’s asking you to take. She’s got serious guts and it gave me so much hope and courage that taking those terrifying leaps for myself would eventually lead me to a life filled with wonder and magic even if there were a thousand voices in my head shouting at me not to do it.

So what is this book really about? Basically, throughout this amazing guide, Beck shares that the secret to ending suffering is integrity.

Growing up the word “integrity” carried a certain uppityness that Beck speaks to in the beginning of the book. At my high school, “integrity” was one of our schools founding values. What I actually felt was that this word was being used as a stand in for achievement and perfectionism rather than the true meaning of the word which is Beck explains is “wholeness.”

This book beautifully refined the way I previous thought of the word integrity from a meaning that was vague and flimsy to one that is raw and rock solid. Integrity means being one solid thing, rather than being in “duplicity,” or many things.

She explains the concept of integrity in a way that was complete at its foundation and very intuitive for anyone to understand. Basically we’re born perfect, whole, and complete. In childhood we are the most connected to our true nature and express ourselves authentically without having to think, explain or question ourselves. Unfortunately through a process of enculturation that happens over the course of our upbringing we are taught the ways of the cultures in which we are born and in that process, oftentimes we must split for our integrity in order to remain “acceptable” in the eyes of our groups.

The book is set up around the hero adventure quest of the classic masterpiece, Dante’s Inferno which acts as a map toward finding wholeness (integrity) through complete self-honesty.