Living With Integrity

This short talk is an exploration of what helps us stay in alignment with our ideals. Lou will share a story of how he was out of integrity to inspire you to take a look at your life and live with greater self-awareness.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Lou Redman and I thank you for being here and I'll be honest,

I'm a little nervous to share what I'm about to share today.

It kind of highlights a time in my life where I was not in integrity.

Once in a men's group I was asked this question,

Where in my life am I out of integrity?

Of course,

Being the evolved meditator that I am,

I said nowhere.

I wish I were kidding.

While I don't pretend to be enlightened,

I did fool myself into thinking that there was no place I was out of integrity.

We can't see our shadows.

That's what makes them so.

It's impossible to see where we fall short and how our actions affect others.

The universe has humbled me a few times this year,

First with my knee injury.

I got the sign to slow down but I forgot the lesson once I got a semblance of normal back.

I shared to my audience an invitation to a men's group and coaching circle.

This was going to be a new offering for me.

I took a men's facilitator training over the summer so I wanted to create something that was from what I learned.

Actually I had a ton on my plate so to save me the hassle,

I modeled it after my coach.

I'll save the full story but essentially I was lazy and I took his format and a lot of his copy.

I didn't talk to him about this before.

I thought he wouldn't mind.

When he saw the offering,

He reached out to talk.

He explained how he was hurt seeing me use much of his copy and format.

When I got this message and got on the call,

It crushed me.

What is integrity?

Integrity is having strong alignment and accountability for our words and actions,

Being who we say we are,

Doing what we say we'll do,

And embodying the ideal version of ourselves.

Do I want to be the kind of person who copies and pastes what someone else did without asking and especially knowing that it caused harm?

It pained me to take this moral inventory.

It was hard to tell people who signed up that I wasn't running the group.

But Lou,

You might ask,

Aren't you the guy who tells us it's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission?

I did say that in one of my courses.

However,

One of my favorite Buddhist teachings explains how a teacher can give two people contradicting advice.

The teacher says,

If I see that there's a pothole on the left,

I tell them to walk right.

If I see there's a pothole on the right,

I tell them to walk left.

While I'm all about helping people give themselves permission,

I've entered a phase in my career where I need to see the other side of that coin.

This situation has me reflecting on where else my actions have unintentionally caused harm.

It's all been incredibly humbling.

I have no doubt I will do one of these groups in the future,

But it's time to keep doing my inner work for now.

We can all use a good humbling.

It's healthy for us.

I'm letting this lead as my intention for the remainder of the year.

And if I'm smart,

I'll make it the remainder of my life.

I thank you for just simply witnessing me in my lack of integrity and know that I am committed to doing better and I so love to support you in coming into your integrity and whatever that means.

I have a meditation that's titled Living with Integrity.

I talk a little bit more about the story and we do a practice that hopefully can integrate the positive,

The negative,

The light in the dark,

The yin and the yang that is within all of us.

It's been such a huge part of my path recently.

And it's all continuing the beauty of the unfolding together.

So thank you for listening.

I appreciate any comments.

I appreciate you and for getting a chance to share on here.

If you want to stay connected,

You can join my circle.

Just search Lou's Circle and I would always love to welcome any contact,

Any way you want to reach out.

I'm sending you continued guidance and support and I look forward to connecting with you soon.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Here's to being Men with Integrity! Ase

Thanks for sharing your experience, Lou. A great reminder of importance of living in integrity and having humility.

Thank you for being vulnerable, for sharing your story, and for doing the right thing. 🙏

Very inspiring, as most of your teachings.

We all have such experiences knowingly or otherwise. What we learn from this is what matters.

beautiful reminders that we choose integrity in each moment. thank you 🙏

Thank you Lou.
🟡🟢🔵

Thank you for your authenticity and courage to share your very personal experience to help us all. I really enjoy you Lou. Your thoughts, humor, intonation and soothing voice are such assetts that compliment your talent.

Thank you for your honesty and for sharing Lou. There’s always inner work to be done in each one of us, especially when it comes to integrity.

♥️💛💜

Wow, I feel humbled by your honesty and your sharing, that was probably not an easy thing to do, yet I can imagine at the same time quite liberating. Chapeau/ tip my hat to you. It’s in embracing our shadows that we open up the possibilities of making this world a better place. Your sharing feels like a beacon of light to me, thank you🙏🏻🌟🙏🏻🌟🙏🏻🌟🙏🏻

When we share our shadow moments, they lose their grip over us. Thank you for your courage 🙏🏼

Thanks for sharing your experience, Lou. Integrity is an important value for me and I, too, lost my sense of direction in a moment of crisis last December and did something that I regret because it was not in alignment with my core values, my talk and my walk. Like you, I apologized and I will never forget that moment, that lesson. We have been all pushed to grow and find our roots in these last couple of years and with so much stress and pressure from so many directions, it’s certain that we will fail somewhere, at some point. Life has been a rollercoaster for most of us and I always go back to Tara Brach’s radical acceptance and radical (self) compassion. Not to justify my faults to others, but to embrace my own flaws and my learning process. We are all students, I believe. Thank you so much for reminding us of the importance of Integrity and for sharing your own experience. 🙏🏻

This was moving and inspiring. It makes me want to do better, be better. Thank you for taking a risk and sharing your experience. Namaste 🙏🏻💜🕊✨

Thank you Lou, for sharing your story and showing your vulnerability. It shows a lot about your depth of character. Much love and many blessings 💗x

Thank you for sharing, it is always both reassuring and encouraging to hear honesty in such a direct way. A chance to reflect on our own shortcomings and unintentional effects we may have on others. I would however point out that by sharing sone parts of someone else's work that you have also complimented their work Thank you for giving me an opportunity to check in on myself. Namaste

Wonderful talk and reminder about integrity. Love your heartfelt openness and honesty. Who among us haven’t fallen out of integrity? The practice of non judgment and if necessary, forgiveness is always ongoing. 💙

Thank you for your honesty and …integrity in sharing this. A good humbling for those of us who feel we are, if not exactly enlightened, but living with integrity, is always a wonderful reminder that we are human, we can do better, and we will learn from this. And hopefully avoid this particular pothole next time.

Thank you Lou for this talk. I will certainly be reflecting and taking action on having more integrity in my life.

Lou, my friend you have shown great Integrity and Vulnerability by sharing this story with this entire community. That takes great courage when we admit are mistakes. You are and continue to be one of my favorite Instructors. Thank you 🙏🏽🕉