June 2023 Week 4

‘Integrity: the state of being whole and undivided, having internal unity and coherence."

I was listening to Fr Mike on the Hallow app and he was talking about the virtue of integrity and said “Integrity is the critical bridge between desires and decisions.” He also quoted someone else saying: “If we have integrity nothing else matters, if we don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” Now that is a powerful statement. Our intention: “I am undivided, I am where my feet are” has been my attempt to get rooted and grounded in myself and connected to my personal integrity before the blast off of summer busyness. As is always the case, these intentions serve me exactly when I need them. My family and I have had the emotional roller coaster of a time these past 6 weeks - the highs, lows and all in between jam packed along with me physically bouncing from home to other places. So here is my progress: I was completely present in each situation for myself and those around me either celebrating, grieving or going through challenges. I was undivided and present. Now for the challenge: today is June 29th and in 1 day the summer insanity will begin and I don’t feel like I had the time to transition in my physical space the way I would have liked to lol. In a perfect world I take time to clean and organize my physical space, to relish in the simplicity of my days here and to spend time with my “off season peeps😇”. I would not have changed a moment of these past few weeks, but I do need to take time today and tomorrow to journal a bit about how I want my summer to look. When I am not grounded I spend my time doing one thing, but thinking I should be doing something else, I should be somewhere else. I can’t be a person of integrity when I am wanting to be somewhere else.

Being undivided, right where my feet are takes work. What do you need to do? Lets ask ourselves the question: what is the purpose of our life, or simply our summer? What is the unified purpose of our summer? Choose 1 theme because as Fr Mike said, having more than one is a recipe for being miserable: “I will end up not being the person I want to be and I will end up hating the person I chose to be.”
The wholeness and the freedom of always being where our feet are and always doing exactly what we say we will do allows our heart and our actions to be aligned and that is where the freedom and the joy of our lives resides!!! So I believe it is worth the effort of some quiet reflection to connect with our personal integrity.

I’m undivided, I’m where my feet are - thats integrity, thats joy, that is summer living!!!