Hey, everybody, welcome to the virtual couch. I am your host, Tony Overbay.
And as a therapist, I've got tissues, two boxes flanking the couch that is right
in front of me, but I'm sitting down.
So why actually take five seconds to go get one of those when I could root around
in my bag for five minutes trying to find what eventually turned out to be a
paper towel to blow my nose?
Did I already say I'm your host, Tony Overbay? I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I'm not your therapist, although to be fair, I actually am a lot of therapist
therapists, So technically, I might be your therapist, therapist,
but either way, everything I share here is for informational and maybe a little
bit of entertainment purposes only.
This is not a substitute for professional care or diagnosis or treatment.
I am here to share, not to diagnose.
So please find a good therapist because that is what matters most.
That is going to be something that I think I'm going to say repeatedly.
But today I want to start with a question.
Would you rather be liked or would you rather be true to yourself?
Now, if you answered immediately, I would rather be true to myself,
what if being true to yourself could cost you something big,
like your job, your marriage, your faith community, your financial security, your kids?
Because I think we often tell ourselves, I'm sure I would do the right thing
just because that's the right thing to do.
But when we're actually in a moment, suddenly there are other factors in play
that we maybe didn't anticipate.
Belonging, financial security, the weight of family expectations,
or even the dread of disappointing people that we respect, which we may not
give enough credit for, but I do work with a lot of people pleasers,
and I think I am a recovering people pleaser myself.
So that's the heart of today's conversation. We're going to explore the difference
between two of my favorite things, character and integrity, and how they overlap
and how they differ and why it matters in some of life's most high-charged arenas.
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the concept of five high-charged areas that
people bring into the couples therapist realm.
We're talking about religion, marriage, parenting.
Sex, and politics. And we're going to hit on at least four out of those five today.
And we're going to take a look at what it means to move from being known for
your character, which can be a great thing, to actually then living with integrity,
even when the pressure's on and the cost is very real.
And just a quick heads up before we get started, at the end of today's episode,
I am going to guide you through a short meditation to help you connect with
your values and build the kind of integrity that we'll be talking about today.
And also share how you can get a one-page cheat sheet of this episode along
with my values exercise, which is it's a really simple, but I think it's a powerful
tool to help you start discovering who you truly are.
Because if you really don't know what your values are, and again,
values, and we'll probably talk about that later in this episode,
are not a destination that you achieve.
It isn't, I don't have a value of getting a million dollars.
A value is more of a direction. So you can always be heading in a certain direction.
And I'll make this brief. Come cruise with me and my friend, Julie DeJesus.
I am not saying that the highlight of the cruise will be me eating my weight
in soft serve, but I'm also not saying that that wouldn't be the highlight of the cruise.
It's January 24th through the 29th, 2026.
I'll be joining Julie DeJesus, formerly known as Julie Lee, in the ICU living cruise.
And we're talking about five nights in the Western Caribbean aboard Royal Caribbean,
or is it Royal Caribbean and the Western Caribbean?
But we'll have creative workshops. We will have nightly group dinners and the
kind of conversations that I think will make you feel alive.
But we're gonna dive into topics like mental health and emotional resilience.
I will be covering emotional immaturity and maybe some emotional maturity.
We might even start talking a little bit about narcissistic traits and tendencies in relationships.
But in between, you will have beaches and buffets, maybe a lava cake or two.
And to parents, kids, sale free. So you can stop Googling cheap babysitter right now.
Book early to get your special access to small group dining and events with Julie and me.
And details are at juliedejesus.com slash cruise, or I'll have those in the show notes today.
So let's get started then, shall we? Character is shaped by the moral qualities
that we do show over time.
And I think that some of today will sound like we're talking about the same thing.
And I think that's why it is so important to really dig deep into what this
difference between character and integrity. Character includes the traits that
we're known for, dependability, kindness, ambition.
But integrity is something subtler, but it is so much more powerful.
Integrity is about the harmony between what you say you believe and then how
you act, especially when nobody's watching.
But I also think it's becoming more and more prevalent to see what your integrity
is when everybody is watching.
Because it's when your actions align with your values, even at a cost.
So I think you can maybe see why I've already tried to set the table of if you
aren't really sure what your values are or know really who you are,
then it can be hard to operate from a place of integrity. and that is not meant with any shame.
So here are some examples and per usual, they are all based on real situations,
real people, but the details have been changed for the sake of confidentiality.
So I want you to think about a daughter or it could be a son who decides mid-season
that they do not want to play soccer anymore and they're playing for a competitive club soccer team.
Now, a parent driven by character might insist that you don't quit.
We finish what we start in this family to maintain the family's image of dependability.
But a parent driven maybe more by integrity might recognize the courage it took
for their daughter to be honest and say, hey, I'm proud of you for knowing yourself.
Now, let's see if we can figure out a respectful way that you can step away from the team.
That would be uncomfortable for the dad because now he risks the judgment from
the other parents. And it can trigger, I think, projection too.
Maybe he personally values teamwork and perseverance, and those mean a lot to
him. so her choice feels like it's a reflection on him.
Now, we'll talk more today about differentiation, but that would be the key
here because he can hold his discomfort and still allow his daughter to define who she is.
And honestly, what would be better for the team?
A player who is disengaged and they are going to prove to everybody that they
don't want to be there, but they're there because you don't quit.
Or somebody that had the integrity to say, I realize now this isn't for me and
I genuinely don't want to let you down by pretending that it is.
And that's this nuance, this fine line or the real difference between character and integrity.
Now, before I start getting emails saying, Tony, then are you telling us that
kids can just quit anything? I absolutely hear you because I honestly,
I have my own stories of being pushed not to quit when I was a kid.
And sure enough, that perseverance became a strength for me.
There are also areas where I genuinely resent the fact that I was not heard
or understood. So I do, I do understand. And to me, that's just more proof of
how messy this all is and how much more important it is to understand these concepts.
Because at some point, you, the parent, the human, get to make the call.
And that's why I just love the idea of a muse. Now, a muse isn't the final answer.
A muse is inspiration. It sparks reflection. So that's all I'm doing here.
I am sharing muses that I've gathered through my experience as a human,
married to another human, almost 35 years, raising four other humans.
I was going to say little humans, but one of them is much larger than I am because
so much of our interaction with people is about asking, well,
hey, what would you do or what do you think I should do? Or let me tell you what you should do.
And in my humble opinion, that is the part that often misses the point because
we are all here on this earth navigating life for the very first time.
And I want to throw in the joke that I like saying that typically goes over
to a chorus of crickets of or your second time, depending on your belief system.
But if you really do take nothing else from this, I hope that you will hear that it's okay to be you.
It's okay to not know. It's okay to doubt and to fear the unknown and to desperately
want to know what the right answer is because we want certainty.
Ultimately, everything does boil down to a me issue.
And that's actually a really beautiful thing because it means the work of integrity
is always right there in front of us,
So I have some examples again more that are not just in the sports realm,
but are based off of real examples Real situations.
So picture an employee named marcus. He works in finance And marcus is known
for his character traits.
He's dependable. He's likable He's always the first to volunteer for late nights and weekends.
That's our boy marcus Now, people describe Marcus as ambitious.
Marcus is a team player. And people know that Marcus is going to rise up the corporate ladder.
But one day, Marcus's boss says, hey, can you adjust one of these reports to
make the numbers look just a little more favorable for investors?
Because I don't really like the way that those are coming across.
Now, in this particular situation, and it was a bit complicated,
but it isn't necessarily illegal the way that he was going about doing it.
But it was definitely shady.
Now, if Marcus complies, here's the key. His character remains intact.
He looks reliable. He keeps the boss happy. He's still climbing the corporate ladder.
He's still the ambitious guy doing what is asked of him. Good old Marcus.
I can always count on him.
Here comes integrity. Integrity asks something different.
Marcus knows this report will influence people's financial decisions.
And if he's aligned with his values, and let's say he has a value of honesty
and transparency, then he can't manipulate the data.
Now, in this particular situation, he did speak up and he risked the fallout.
And we talked about it in great detail.
He realized that was most likely going to jeopardize a promotion.
It cost him approval, but it did keep him aligned truly with who he is.
Now, the difficult part there is that I wish I could tell you that now Marcus
is the CEO of the company.
Oh, Marcus did not get promoted for a long period of time. And then he eventually
He left the company, but he left with his integrity intact.
Another example, imagine a close friendship. Sarah is known as the kind friend,
the one who always is encouraging, is always supportive, always says what people
want to hear. That's her character.
But then her best friend starts dating someone that Sarah can see is manipulative and controlling.
And this was literally why she came in to work with me after listening to a
bunch of podcasts around emotional immaturity, narcissistic traits and tendencies.
She was so worried about her friend that she didn't know what to do. Now, Sarah has a choice.
If she sticks with character, she'll smile, nod and wave, stay supportive because that's her role.
You know, Sarah, she's always dependable. She's always so kind and she's not going to rock the boat.
Now, integrity means that she risks tension by saying, hey, I care about you too much to stay quiet.
Now, it is a me thing, my opinion, but something feels off here and I just need to really be honest.
So, character does preserve comfort, but integrity invites conflict.
But when it is done from truly a place of alignment with one's values,
it really does come from a place of love.
Now, there is no right or wrong answer here because I want to ask you,
which friend would you rather have?
The one who keeps the peace or the one who's honest when it counts?
Because I would imagine there are plenty of us and I might consider myself this
at times. I would hope that I'm moving away from this, but would rather have
that friend that is going to say, you're awesome, they're great.
Because am I in a position to take any kind of criticism, even if it could be for my benefit?
And then let's do one more and then we're going to get into the deep end of the pool today.
Think about somebody who is deeply involved in their faith community.
They teach, they serve, they're the model member. That is their character.
But then their child comes out as gay, and suddenly the community's vibe of,
hey, all are welcome, it doesn't quite ring the same for this person.
Now, if they stay quiet, they can maintain their character, they can maintain
their position, they can maintain their role as a good, dependable church member
willing to do anything for the church community.
But if they really live with integrity and they speak up or even step away to
honor their values of love or authenticity...
Then that choice may cost them belonging in a community that has always felt
like family, where they have got their validation or their rites of passage, their social capital.
But integrity here means they don't sacrifice their child's dignity,
or what they went on to say, their own soul for the sake of appearances,
to make sure that everyone else still thought the same of them.
As emotionally immature people, and I will maintain that we are all emotionally
immature until we're not, until we go and interact with the world and learn
more about ourselves, Many of us look outside of ourselves for validation.
So what that looks like is we will tweak, we will accommodate,
and we'll even hide parts of ourselves just to fit in.
But the hope is that as we mature, as we begin to interact with the world and
others, that we start to really figure out who we are.
And we begin to act from our core values.
And that's once we realize that we're most likely unaware of what we value.
When we can recognize that our current set of values most likely comes from
our parents, our community, our church, this is what we all believe.
Or to be a good member of the family or society or the congregation,
then you must believe X because, well, Y, that's what the other people believe.
And that's where integrity and purpose start to take root, is in recognizing
what you really do believe.
Here's a key point. Do not get me wrong. You can remain and believe what your
family, your community, or your church believe. that is absolutely okay.
There is no part of me that is telling anyone what they should think or feel or believe.
The maturation process, though, ideally is forged from your own personal journey,
because ultimately you are the one that you're going to spend the most time with.
So I promise that by understanding who you are, that can be an incredibly powerful
way to live, especially when you actually like the version of you that's rattling
around on the inside of your head.
So today we're going to look at how that plays out across a
lot of different arenas we're going to talk about big law big business
religion and relationships and i want to
start in the legal world now why because of an
article i read a little while back that really it's stuck in
my craw and since we're talking values one of
mine is curiosity so i will
be right back okay so i had to pause and look up the phrase stuck
in my craw because i have used that before and
i just thought what does that mean right after it left my mouth so it
turns out in the 13th century your craw referred to
your throat or neck so stuck in your craw literally meant something that
was hard to swallow now over time it became a metaphor for something that is
difficult to accept now for me with a family tendency toward basically like
low-grade choking spells thank you genetics i am imagining now my family will
hear me saying uh you gotta give me a minute i've got some pulled pork stuck
in my craw but but i digress so let me uh.
Let me build up the suspense. I had mentioned that there is this article that
really stuck in the aforementioned craw.
Before I even read the name of the article, I would love to challenge your confirmation bias.
Because depending on one name in this headline, you may already feel pulled
in a particular direction, positive or negative.
I would implore you to trust me, my wonderful listeners, that this episode is not about politics.
It's about learning who you are. And that can fall on either end or even in
the middle of the spectrum of the political landscape. And today's journey,
as hopefully you are understanding, is about integrity and character and what
that looks like when it's tested.
So the article I'm talking about, which I only realized after looking back,
was from three months ago.
And I would have told you it was just a couple of weeks ago,
but I've thought about it so much.
It's titled, The Law Firms That Appeased Trump and Angered Their Clients.
It's by Aaron Mulvaney, Emily Glazer, and Ryan Barber, and Josh Dossie.
This article has stuck with me because think if I'm being honest,
I don't know exactly how I would have handled the situation that those law firms faced.
And I'm noticing that does frustrate me a little bit, but I want to model the
same kind of honest introspection and self-confrontation that I encourage with my own clients.
I am not looking for your validation or your condemnation, but I do welcome
the thoughts and feelings that this may stir as we go along.
And then quick aside here, I promise this is relevant.
One of my clients once had me take this Dungeons and Dragons personality test,
and apparently if we were in the middle of some epic battle with orcs and ogres
and werewolves and all the other terrifying mythical creatures charging the front lines,
My role would be to hang back, not fighting, not swinging an axe or a bow staff.
No, according to this test, I was strolling after the dust had settled and say
to the battered warriors, so how are we feeling about that skirmish?
Which I thought was a really good read.
Now, the client that asked me to take this was nearly enraged.
He was saying, how can you not be out there on the front lines with us?
To which I replied, A, this is not real. And two, I took that personality test
as accurately as a human being can possibly take a D&D-themed personality test.
No doubt that that thing had been created by a very seasoned,
very serious dungeon master.
And apparently my character sheet does not come with a sword.
It comes with a clipboard and it didn't say a box of tissues.
And actually it would be more like an iPad.
But here's the thing though. This test, even if I thought it was kind of silly,
actually ties right back to what we're talking about.
In that world, my character might be seen as weak.
He's not a fighter. He doesn't belong on the front lines, but my integrity would
be showing up exactly who I am, doing what I do best, hopefully helping people
process and heal and move forward.
Even in fantasy land, it's the same question. Do I twist myself to fit the role
that other people expect or do I align with who I really am?
Let's use this article as our first muse.
Again, not about politics. It's more about integrity because the question isn't
really what did these firms do?
It's what would I have done or what would you have done if you were in their shoes?
And maybe more importantly, what does that say about my own values?
Or even does this help me better define or understand my values because it's causing me to think?
And the whole point here is not guilt or shame. You're not doing something bad
and you're certainly not bad.
This is about giving yourself permission to be curious about who you are and how you operate.
Now, here's I think what a lot of people will do. They'll say,
well, I understand. I would never do that.
What we might actually be doing is soothing our own discomfort.
Because the truth is, if you've never been in a particular situation,
you do not know exactly how you respond. None of us do.
You can prepare and visualize and meditate and manifest and set intentions about
the kind of person that you want to be.
And that work absolutely matters. But I think honesty with yourself also matters.
And part of honesty is admitting, okay, honestly, I don't know how I would act
until I'm there. Now, I believe I would act a certain way.
It's not a flaw. That's part of being human.
And if I can't know how I'd act in every situation, then how could I possibly
decide how somebody else should have acted in theirs?
I don't live in their body. I don't carry their history.
And they don't carry mine. And that's why integrity is so personal and it's so hard.
It's so difficult because people have no idea what someone else is going through
or what they bring to the table.
And often it's because neither do you or me until we're in that situation.
So with that framework in mind, let me walk you through a few moments from this
article that really hit me, and I'll share why I think that they struck such a chord.
One of the earliest firms targeted by these executive orders was called Paul
Weiss, and apparently they're one of the biggest and most prestigious firms in the country.
We were talking about fees and the billions, and I think it was attorneys over a thousand.
Now, instead of suing, they struck a deal with the White House.
And the fallout, and this is all according to this article, the general counsel
of a major financial company, said that when she heard Paul Weiss had made the
deal, she said she felt physically ill.
Others said that they had reassured the firm that they would stand by them only
to feel blindsided when the firm caved. Some companies even pulled their business overnight.
Pause for a second. Imagine being in that firm's leadership.
Do you take the pragmatic route to protect your partners and keep these contracts
alive, or do you hold the line and risk potential implosion in an attack by a federal government?
And imagine being a young associate at that firm who had spent their entire,
I'll say, 20s or 30s as a young associate at that firm vying for this corner
office to become a partner, then what does that do all of a sudden to your sense
of self or your sense of trust and belonging?
Now, back to the article, on the other side, you had firms like Jenner and Block.
They fought back in court, even though it meant anxious clients and the risk of losing business.
On their website, they posted that giving in would mean compromising our ability
to zealously advocate for all of our clients, and then capitulating to unconstitutional
government coercion, which is simply not in our DNA.
And that phrase alone, not in our DNA, that feels like the language of integrity.
That is a firm saying, we know who we are, and we're not going to betray that
no matter what it costs us.
And before I go on in the article, I think that's one of these fascinating things.
And I guess I'll say it's a plug for my men's emotional architects group.
So reach out if you're interested.
But the more that one can figure out who they are,
and then they can stand confident in who they are,
then they may not find themselves being as
much of a people pleaser as they've been in the past because they're
not just trying to give up to go along or
to get out of that particular moment that they are starting
to become more emotionally consistent emotionally safe verbally
safe verbally consistent and they start to live by this this integrity and you
can trust that when they say they will do something they will do it or they
will be very open about reasons why they can't And so even though it might be
upsetting because you maybe liked the version of them at one point that would say,
hey, I'll take care of it, whatever it is that felt better in the moment.
But then they consistently did not take care of it, whatever it was.
And over time, then you realize I really can't count on this person.
And so I think that's so interesting in this article when you put that in the
context of companies that had hired these law firms. And I will say that I found
that some of the billable hours or the hourly rates were anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 an hour.
So if you are paying that kind of money and you want this firm to really be
there and have your back, I think that that's what this language was saying,
that this phrase is not in our DNA.
That they're saying that how could our clients trust us if then we go against
our core values and don't operate from a place of integrity?
So back to the article, the ripple effect they said was fascinating because
some big corporations like Oracle, Morgan Stanley, even Microsoft for a time
started moving work away from the firms that signed deals and toward the ones
that resisted. Now, why?
And here it is, because if a firm wouldn't even stand up for itself,
how could a client trust it to stand up for them in the courtroom?
And that's where I think if you see that someone in a relationship won't stand
up for themselves, how can you trust that they will have your back?
I often say when I'm talking about helping men in particular stay grounded,
stay less emotionally reactive,
learning how to respond actually instead of react, that when you look at it
that way, if someone can rattle me with just their words,
then heaven forbid if the saber-toothed tiger comes walking through the living
room, then the person that I am, I want to say, is trusting me to feel safe
is definitely not going to feel safe. One general counsel put it pretty bluntly.
They said, if you don't have a hard line, you don't have any line at all.
And then inside these firms that made deals, the fallout was pretty intense.
At places like a firm called Skadden, Latham, and Kirkland, younger associates were resigning.
One associate wrote in their departure email that they refused to sleepwalk
toward authoritarianism.
Partners left too. Even managing partners reportedly grew emotional as they
explained to their colleagues why they felt they had no choice but to settle.
So think about that. leaders breaking down in front of their teams because they
knew that the decision wasn't just business.
It was somewhat existential because their integrity was on the line.
But there were also no doubt situations where people were leveraged financially
and they had perhaps lived beyond their means and were counting on the next
promotion or the next big bonus check to help them get out of the financial place that they were in.
And so then that's where I know every Every person has to make this decision on their own.
So why am I sharing all this? Because while these stories are,
we're talking about billion dollar firms and executive orders,
the underlying question I think is one that we will all face if we haven't already.
When the pressure is on, do I choose approval or do I choose alignment? Do I choose integrity?
And if you're tempted to say, well, I would always choose integrity, I would just say pause.
Because in real life, these decisions aren't abstract.
They come with very real costs, relationships, belonging, livelihood, financial safety.
And that's exactly why I want to take this conversation into other arenas.
We'll talk about tech, healthcare, faith, friendships, where the same character
versus integrity dilemma shows up in ways that I think might hit much closer to home.
Now, I say that, and I'm going to give you two more real examples,
and these both happen to be attorneys, but these are based off of clients that
I had worked with. So you have two attorneys.
They're different people, similar roles, but working in two different law firms. First, meet Jordan.
Jordan's at a prestigious law firm that just signed a very lucrative deal with
a high profile client, maybe someone in the world of politics,
despite the client's track record of skirting ethical boundaries.
So now Jordan has character. Jordan is known for being dependable,
always on time, mentoring junior associates, keeping clients happy.
So around the office, Jordan is a very well-liked team player.
But when the firm takes on this controversial client.
Jordan keeps quiet. In fact, Jordan even helps draft some of the legal strategy
and just starts reasoning to me and those around Jordan.
It's really not my job to question leadership because I am here to do good work.
This is what I am hired to do. And what am I supposed to do?
These are my marching orders.
Now, the pluses, Jordan is seen as loyal. They move up the ladder,
they get bonuses, they maintain a smooth career.
The minuses, every time they file another motion for that client,
there's just something happening inside.
There's this quiet dissonance. They know that their work is enabling harm and
they start avoiding conversations that might bring that discomfort to the surface.
When people say, hey, what do you do for a living?
Jordan used to love saying, I'm a corporate attorney and I work with these high
profile clients. And let me tell you about some of the cases I'm working on.
But Jordan started noticing that they would just not really speak up about what
they did, even though they liked the idea that they were an attorney,
but they were really not enjoying the feeling that they had with the work they did.
Now meet Alexis. Alexis works at a rival firm, also very highly respected,
and they face a similar situation.
Here is a potential client with questionable ethics, but they offer the firm a huge retainer.
Alexis' firm decides to pass, citing their commitment to pro bono cases and
their existing clients that are in conflict with this new prospect.
And Alexis backs the decision publicly, even volunteers to help defend a nonprofit
that is actually being sued by that same controversial client.
Now, the pluses, Alexis sleeps well at night.
Their professional reputation deepens not just for skill, but for principle.
Their network expands to include other attorneys and organizations who value
them for their integrity.
Now, the minuses, they lose out on billable hours from that big client.
And the partner sometimes passed them over for more high-profile cases saying
that Alexis is a little too idealistic.
Two attorneys, both respected. One's playing the long game for their career,
and the other is playing the long game for their conscience. Both have character.
They are showing up consistently as they are, but only one is fully anchored in integrity.
So what's pretty fascinating is that both Jordan and Alexis would describe themselves
as good people. And I will attest to the fact that they are.
But their decision-making comes from two very different places.
Jordan's choice is rooted in external validation, approval from partners at
the firm, approval and validation from keeping the peace, avoiding rocking the boat.
It's safer, but it leans heavily on the need to be seen in a certain light by others.
It was no surprise, as we dug into Jordan's past, that Jordan wasn't really
asked a lot of questions growing up.
They were to be seen and not heard.
Jordan didn't really have a whole lot of opinions growing up because Jordan
wasn't asked for their opinion very often, if ever.
So Jordan thought that everything they were doing was pretty normal.
And they thought it was pretty fascinating that I really don't have a lot of
opinions, but it's probably normal.
But had Jordan's parents been curious with Jordan when they were young,
then Jordan would have felt like they were allowed to have opinions.
There would have been curiosity from a primary caregiver who they are seeking
connection and safety with.
So that would have led to Jordan feeling safe to express their opinion,
which would have most likely led to them being a little more firm in their convictions.
And I'm not saying one is right or wrong. Right now, we're just saying this is, this is what it is.
Now, Alexis's choice is rooted in internal validation, internal,
not external validation, because internal is about alignment with personal values,
even at the cost of opportunity or approval.
Alexis is willing to live with the short-term discomfort because they believe
in the long-term game of integrity for their work.
And this is where emotional maturity comes into play. When we are emotionally
immature, which I maintain that we all start from this place of emotional immaturity,
we don't know what we don't know.
When we're emotionally immature, our identity is, quite frankly, a little fragile.
So we outsource our self-worth to other people's reactions.
We are trying to read the room and try to figure out what do I need to do or say to,
these people to like me, and I don't want them to think that I'm bad.
But as we grow, often through the process of figuring out, clarifying our values,
setting value-based goals, we start to anchor our decisions internally.
And there's our bridge to today's conversation, because integrity isn't just
about what you believe, it's about what you do when your beliefs are tested.
You may be a very good person and you have some deep, deep core beliefs,
But when tested, do you withdraw?
Do you play small? Do you tell yourself the stories to get along is the best
thing right now in the long run?
Even if over time, it just doesn't start to feel right.
It's about what you do when your beliefs are tested.
And to get there, we need to understand the difference between character and
integrity and how emotional maturity transforms both.
I am a huge acceptance and commitment therapy fan. And in ACT,
there's a core distinction between values and goals.
Goals are the things that you can check off a list. Win a case,
hit billable hours, become a millionaire, get promoted, get the six-pack abs, get the cool car.
Values are the ongoing directions that you move toward, like curiosity,
authenticity, justice, compassion, fairness.
Jordan's decisions might align with short-term goals. Keeping their job secure? Check.
Earning partner approval? Check. But they're drifting away from their deeper values.
It was very clear that Jordan did not know what their values were, which also is normal.
And even when you start to try to figure out your values, there's a period of
time where most likely you're thinking, well, I know I should value certain things.
Nobody likes to be should on because those values we most likely picked up from
our parents or from our faith community, or neighborhood or friends. And so you start,
And with these basically external values, people are handing you their values
and saying, I think this is important, which is something we're going to cover
in a podcast episode in another week or two about projection,
about the mirror, that if I can project my values onto you and get you to buy
into my values, then they must be right.
So then I'm okay to have my own values versus it's okay for me to have my values.
There's a period right there.
So alexis's decisions though on the other hand may cost them
in immediate goals but they keep them moving toward those
core values in the grand scheme of things in
the long term living a life of purpose and values is
far more satisfying than continually trying to figure out a way to get people
to like you because you are handing your power your sense of self in the hands
of others on a pretty regular basis and then you are at the whim of their mood
so this is committed action It's doing what matters most, even in the presence of discomfort.
You know, so for Alexis, that discomfort might be fewer billable hours or whispers
about being too idealistic.
For Jordan, it's the quiet inner dissonance that grows over time when their values are sidelined.
And let's throw another theory that I've only recently learned about into the
mix. It's called self-determination theory or SDT.
It was developed by psychologists Edward, I think it's Decky or Desi and Richard
Ryan. And at its heart, it's about what truly drives human motivation and what
makes that motivation sustainable.
So according to SDT, we all have three basic psychological needs that fuel our
sense of purpose and our well-being, autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
So when these needs are met, we tend to feel more energized.
More authentic, and more capable of living in alignment with our values.
When these things aren't met, we start to feel stuck or disengaged.
Something's wrong with us internally. We start to get resentful.
So you can think of autonomy as having a sense of choice over your actions.
Think of somebody who chooses cases or clients based on their personal values
rather than fear of what their partners will think. They're not rebelling against authority.
They're steering their own ship, even in choppy waters.
It goes back to every opportunity for them is a chance for them to self-confront, to look inside and grow.
Even if that might cost them their job, that's what can be so difficult because
I understand that there can be some pretty tough times where you are financially
dependent upon a job at this particular time, and it can be scary to then say,
I am going to live by my values.
Competence, then, is about feeling effective, feeling capable in what you do.
Think of somebody who takes on a challenging pro bono case that they believe
in, not because it's easy, but because they know it's going to stretch their
skills, it's going to deepen their expertise. and each small win then builds
confidence that they can handle bigger challenges ahead.
And you can start to make sense of the fact that if you are beginning to find
your sense of self purpose values, that things are not as scary.
They still may be scary, but you are starting to lean into the discomfort,
brace for the discomfort.
Know that I am going to learn something about myself, even if the uncomfortable
thing is I'm doing something I don't know how to do. I might even have to say
things like, I don't know.
And then relatedness, this third concept is feeling connected to others in a way that's genuine.
Because I promise you, when you are starting to figure out who you are and developing
that sense of self, then you will start to find yourself around more like-minded
people in reciprocal relationships because you no longer are trying to figure
out, how do I get this person to like me?
Because you really do have to start from a place of, I like myself.
So if somebody is trying to get me to do something I don't want to do, I'm better than that.
That isn't something I'm interested in. And I don't even really have to try
to defend myself. Just no thanks.
You can think of somebody who works late into the night with a team on a cause
they care about, not because they have to, but because they feel a part of something
bigger than themselves.
And that connection is what fuels them in a way that a paycheck never could.
A paycheck is nice and necessary, but it just sounds so cliche.
And the 10 years I spent in the computer software industry, I would have thought
this stuff was so much woo-woo, maybe even three woos.
But now over the last 20 plus years where I found something that I just love
and I'm passionate about, it turns out that it is work and there are times where
you don't like it and it can be frustrating.
But overall, you can't wait to get up and go to work the next day.
According to SDT, when all three of these needs are supported,
people tend to act from a place of intrinsic motivation. They are driven by
what matters most to them.
It's this internal thing rather than chasing approval and avoiding disapproval
or collecting external rewards and validations.
In other words, self-determination theory, that's a good way to explain why
Alexis, in this earlier example, can choose integrity even when it costs them
and why Jordan might struggle when their psychological needs are ever so quietly compromised.
So autonomy, feeling like you have choice and control over your actions.
It's holding on to yourself even in the pressure when others want you to fold
into whatever they want you to do or who they need you to be.
Competence, you're feeling effective in your work. You are doing things and you like to do them.
And most likely, therefore, you are becoming very competent in them,
which gives you a real sense of internal validation and motivation.
And then this relatedness. If I'm feeling connected with the things I like to
do and I'm feeling competent about those things, then most likely I'm going to find relatedness.
I'm going to feel connected to those who I am interacting with because we're
most likely having some good shared experiences.
So when Jordan acts mostly for external rewards, partner praise,
avoiding conflict, they're giving up some autonomy.
They're letting others' expectations drive their choices. They're continually
finding themselves going like, oh, what is this person going to think?
Or let me ask this person, what would you do? Because that way,
if it doesn't go well, then I can say, well, they told me.
And if it does go well, then maybe they'll tell me that I'm good.
Over time, this is the kind of thing that leads to burnout, almost like a moral
injury because you're starting to compromise your own integrity or characters or sense of self.
Alexis, though, is acting from intrinsic or internal motivation choices that
reflect personal values.
Research shows that intrinsic motivation fosters resilience,
satisfaction in life, job, career, a stronger sense of self.
So in other words, integrity and emotional maturity aren't just moral virtues.
They are these psychological nutrients and they help you thrive, not just survive.
Let me give you a real world example.
And actually, before I do that, I neglected to say up front,
follow me on Instagram at virtual.couch and TikTok at virtual couch.
And please go join my newsletter at TonyOverbay.com. The newsletters have been
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transitions and marriage, parenting, my men's emotional architects group,
a place for guys ready to grow into emotional maturity.
A lot of the things I've been talking about today and over the last few weeks.
And if you're ready to reclaim your life from corn-nugraphy.
I hope you know what I'm talking about. Check out the Path Back at pathbackrecovery.com.
It's proven. It's affordable.
And I've had this course out for a number of years.
And the best part of it is weekly live calls with yours truly and a group of amazing guys.
And I also love hearing from you, your challenges, your victories,
your questions. So please keep them coming.
And you can reach out to me through my website, TonyOverway.com.
If you're interested in working with me one-on-one or maybe as a couple.
From time to time, I do have availability or openings.
Reach out to me through my website. Let's get back into today's episode.
Now we're bringing another person to the mix. Let's talk about Sophia.
So Sophia started her career in a large corporate law firm, very much like Jordan.
She was smart and hardworking and eager to please.
In her first few years, she built a reputation by doing whatever was asked,
taking weekend calls, avoiding questions about questionable clients,
and smoothing things over, always with a smile.
So on paper, her career looked pretty much perfect. But inside,
she started to feel like she was living somebody else's life,
the definite case of imposter syndrome.
So one day, she found herself drafting some legal documents for a case that
she really didn't agree with, and it was starting to eat her up inside.
The documents were helping a client block funding to a community program that
had actually helped her family years ago. So she felt sick.
That night, she said that she just laid awake and she was asking herself, okay,
if I'm this uncomfortable now, what will my life look like in 10 years if I
continue to support this company that is doing this thing that will shut down
a program that saved my family.
We talked a lot. We talked about what it would look like to deal with the discomfort,
how much courage it would take.
And it started small. So she started just to say no to certain assignments.
And even at first she was not saying, I refuse to do this. She would say,
I'm just overwhelmed. So can you take care of that?
And she sought out work that aligned more with their values,
even if it meant fewer billable hours, less kudos and praise,
maybe even not starting to rise up the ranks to become a partner. And...
She joined a pro bono immigration case, then that she felt alive.
That reignited her passion for law.
So slowly, Sophia began to feel more autonomous. She began to feel more competent
in work that mattered to her.
It raised her emotional baseline, and she felt more connected to the colleagues
who shared her values that were working within that group.
And she looked back when she was
working in the area of the firm that she absolutely did not care about.
She said, I didn't really care much for the people either.
And then as we continue to work together, within a year, she left for a smaller
firm that had a real strong public interest practice.
And it was not as glamorous and she made a lot less money, but she felt alive.
She said she finally felt like she was coming home to herself and she had traded
the applause of others and the potential to have the big corporate office and
a lot of money for the quiet confidence of her integrity.
And honestly, she never looked back. And Sophia's story, again,
based on a true story of a client that I worked with.
Now, not everybody makes that shift.
And I did have to go a little bit in the way back machine to get this example.
Let's call this client Daniel. Daniel also started out as ambitious and sharp
and eager to move up the ranks in a big law firm. I am not an attorney.
And today it started, we'll get to some research in a little bit that had to
do with law firms. So if I'm taking you on my train of thought,
I was starting to comb my mind for examples that had to do with attorneys that
I've worked with as clients.
So Daniel, like Sophia, he had moments where his work was starting to become
at odds with his personal values.
He drew up contracts that protected corporations from accountability,
that got them into tax shelters and saved them billions of dollars.
He started to craft arguments that undermine causes that he actually supported outside of work.
And what's fascinating is he was coming into therapy, which was great.
And it was early on in my therapy career, there would be these times,
not just with an attorney.
I remember someone that came into me and they opened up about these addictive
behaviors they had. They also held a very high position in their church.
And I thought, wow, this person is very brave. And they are coming to me and
they don't like how they feel doing this addictive thing. and they were still
entering a temple, a very sacred place for their religion, and they were not being honest.
And it was, again, this high position of authority.
And in that situation, I remember saying, okay, man, I'm so impressed,
so proud of you, so brave of you to get that off your chest. So.
What do you want to do with that? And they said, oh, nothing.
I just, I feel better. So I think I can continue with the behavior that I'm doing.
I've also had people that have been in similar positions that have been called
into a big position and then came and met with me and said, I can't do this.
I have to be open about what I'm struggling with, even if it costs me this position
and the social status or social capital in my faith community.
I think it's so interesting, fascinating. I really enjoy that part of the job
where you can get people that could literally even be back to back one hour
to the next that have somewhat similar cases or problems that they're coming in with.
And then they handle them completely in different ways because we're all different.
All that wonderful combination of all the things, the nature of the nurturing,
birth order, DNA, abandonment, rejection, hopes, fears, dreams.
So we think and feel the way we do because we do, because there are so many variables.
I go back to Daniel. Unlike Sophia, Daniel didn't even really pause to reflect.
He just told himself, I'll get through this one case and then I'll focus on
the work that really matters to him.
One case, probably know where this is going, became two.
But after this, it's going to be different except for I'm going to do one more.
Let me do three, this third case.
And it became a pattern. And over time, I started to get raises and promotions.
But those came with the price tag.
He started to grow distant from the person he thought he was.
Now, even more of a side note, it's really fascinating as a couples therapist,
because most all of us, we look at ourselves as a certain person.
And then we present that out to our world, to the partner, and we say,
you know me, this is who I am, right?
And if that person even hesitates, says, yeah, sure.
Then you get to say, well, what, you don't think I'm a great person?
And now they're backpedaling, saying, no, I do, I do, but the energy's off and now that person is hurt.
They feel like, I can't believe you don't know me, but in reality,
maybe they don't know themselves and they're presenting this version of themselves
and saying, I need you to validate this even if you don't agree,
even if that's not the version that you're seeing because it will make me feel better.
Back to Daniel. By the time that we worked together, Daniel admitted that he
was really starting to feel hollow and starting to move into some depressive
symptoms that he'd never felt before.
He was still successful on paper, but he was exhausted in life and he lost sight of his autonomy.
Decisions were driven by what will keep me in favor with the partners of the law firm.
His competence was unquestioned, but it was in service of outcomes he did not
believe in. Over time, that is hard to keep up.
He felt isolated. He was surrounded by people who saw him as reliable,
but not as somebody who stood for anything. And quite frankly,
he didn't really feel a connection to them either.
Daniel wasn't a bad person. He was far from it. He'd just been living in a way
that made it hard to look in the mirror without flinching.
I wasn't sure if I was going to share this, and I've changed a lot of the details, but for the record,
because all I've been talking about today are these clients,
these examples of these powerful attorneys and the struggles they have making,
who knows, they're $400 or $500 an hour.
But yes, for the record, these were both ambitious clients and big professional
jobs, but don't get me wrong.
I still work with the occasional Brad, but Brad is in his mid thirties,
lives at home, loves chugging two liters of Mountain Dew code red,
and he experiences most of his life online.
He often refers to his online persona or Sona, as he calls it,
like it's a separate legal entity.
And instead of telling me about conflicts with hillary or
edward or griffin over the ethics of helping a
one billion dollar company swallow another billion dollar company brad's
big moral dilemma is about whether shadowmancer underscore 420 and
princess meow mix 99 were right to say that the pizza sauce inside of a hot
pocket technically counts as a vegetable because this apparently turned into
a heated debate in his guild's discord server and things escalated quickly until
their magical cleric that was part of the guild rage quit right before they
were supposed to raid in orc city and legends of Flagnar.
Now, without a cleric, I think we all know, at least Brad told me,
they didn't have enough healing spells to survive the third wave of lava orcs,
which then caused a catastrophic wipe,
And he said this with the same tone of voice most of my attorney clients use
when they tell me that they just lost tens of millions of dollars in a merger.
Here's the kicker. Brad insists this wasn't just a game. It was a lifestyle betrayal.
Honestly, and maybe I've changed a little bit of these details,
quite a few to protect the confidentiality, but it's not far off.
According to Brad, the sauce as a vegetable camp has always been in alignment
with the clerics' build choices. And this was basically a bit of a constitutional
crisis in the realm of Flagnar.
So yes, integrity shows up in all sorts of ways, sometimes in courtrooms and
corporate boardrooms and sometimes in pixelated orc cities under siege.
My job is to help people figure out if they are living in alignment with their
values, whether those values involve justice or fairness or defending the sacred
honor of processed microwavable snacks.
Because whether you're debating corporate ethics or the vegetable status of
hot pocket sauce, which I don't think it's a vegetable.
The real question is the same. Are you acting from your values?
Are you just trying to win the argument?
That tension between what's easy or rewarding and what's aligning with one's
core values is exactly what psychological research digs into.
Let's explore a little bit of how human beings navigate that internal terrain
when their integrity is tested, because it will be.
If you are interacting with life, You will find yourself having to really hold
on to your integrity or really define your values.
So how do you find the strength to act from your values, whether in courtrooms
or living rooms? What do these stories about these big law firms teach us?
First, it's that external pressure will always test integrity,
whether it's coming from a president, a client, a partner, a paycheck.
Pressure has a way of cornering people and cornering institutions into choices
they might never have imagined making in calmer times.
The therapist in me sees that so often where someone has said to me,
I would never do what I did until I found myself in a position that I did it.
You can think through things. You can say, I would never let myself cross certain lines.
But usually you're saying that when you are nowhere near those lines.
So when you then have that experience, that's when you truly discover who you are.
And i mean that with the utmost in
acceptance because as carl rogers the
famous psychologist says once i accept myself as i
am that is when i can change but if i'm trying to pretend that i didn't know
that i didn't do that that isn't me then i'm going to continue to do that same
thing trying to make sure that no one thinks bad of me second that some people
in some firms are willing to absorb the hit that comes with saying no.
They know that in the short term, they might lose business. They might strain relationships.
People will think different things about them. They might be labeled difficult,
but they also know that they'll be able to look themselves in the mirror.
Third, we could pick up from what we've talked about so far today,
that integrity isn't just a personal trait. It's an internal commitment that
shapes the culture around you.
When somebody like this Rachel Cohen leaves a place like the law firm Skadden,
rather than compromise their principles, it doesn't just make headlines.
It sends a message to every young associate watching from the sidelines that
this is what it looks like to anchor yourself to your values, even when it costs you.
And what I see so often in a family dynamic is someone that is,
let's say, waking up to the narcissistic traits and tendencies or emotional
maturity in their relationship and their partner.
And they have that courage to push to come to couples counseling and they learn
to get the tools or the skills to be able to stay grounded and speak their values,
their wants, their needs,
not from a place of manipulation or coercion or control, but from a place of integrity.
This is what I do. This is what I would like in the relationship.
And they will have to deal with a tremendous amount of discomfort because the
person that they are most likely in a relationship with,
the fact that the person that I am working with has said, I want to go to counseling
and it has not been easy is because the person that they are interacting with,
their partner has most likely put pressure on them to say, well,
I don't want to. I think everything's fine. That's a you issue.
So it's easy to read these headlines about these law firms and think of them
as just stories about giant law firms, people in very nice tailored suits behind
these glass doors up on the 80th floor.
Really, these are human stories. These strip away the marble lobbies,
the $1,000 billable hours, and what you're left with is the same tension that
we all face in our own lives, the choice between what's comfortable and what's right.
And if we go all the way back to what we talked about at the beginning of the
podcast, the difference between character and integrity, this is it in real time.
Character can help you survive in a system.
Integrity, that's what helps you live with yourself once the lights are off and nobody's watching.
The truth is the stakes don't have to be billion-dollar legal battles to make integrity matter.
The setting could be a hospital, a classroom, a construction site, or a kitchen table.
Because in the end, the question is the same.
Am I making this decision for approval or for the alignment with my values?
And I have seen the same kind of choice play out far outside of courtrooms.
Take Anjali, a senior product manager at a major Silicon Valley tech company.
Her team was working on a new feature that on paper, it looked like a home run.
I was jealous. This is one where you wish you could have some insider info and
invest in that sort of thing.
Because what she was talking about was very sleek. It was kind of addictive
and it was guaranteed to make users scroll longer, which meant more ad revenue and happier investors.
But she came in and name has been changed as well as some of the other details.
But as she tested this product, she couldn't shake the feeling that this is
not good. We are building something that is very harmful.
Some of the features that she talked about were designed to exploit psychological
hooks, especially in younger users, to keep them on an app far longer than was healthy.
Now, she could have done what I think most people in her position might do. Keep your head down.
You're paid to do a job. That's all. Meet your deadlines and cash your ginormous
bonus and maybe even tip your therapist.
That's character being competent, agreeable, reliable, but it's not necessarily integrity.
Now, instead, she did the hard thing.
She called a meeting. She laid out her concerns to her team,
even though she knew it might slow the project.
It might make her unpopular with the higher ups. It might get her fired.
And she even proposed some changes, things like, so should we build on our own
screen time of sorts, time use reminders, maybe some built-in controls to limit
compulsive scrolling that would protect users?
It would hurt our engagement metrics, but they're probably going to be fine.
And everyone said yes and they lifted her up in the air and threw her up and
down and she lived happily ever after and they gave her all the money and the company.
No. The fallout was pretty real. The launch was delayed.
Numbers dipped and she missed out on her promotion and a bonus and a lot of
people thought that she was too idealistic.
But the word got out and users noticed and feedback poured in praising the changes
and over time other teams started
using her approach and it became a model for a more ethical design.
So like Alexis in the law firm, Anjali didn't just make a decision, she made a statement.
She proved that holding on to herself, her integrity is not about avoiding discomfort.
Oh no, it was very discomforting or uncomfortable.
It's about walking straight into that discomfort.
Because that's where your values lead you. You say things that you say or do
the things that you do because that's what you do, because that's what's right for you.
Another example, we will call him Marcus, same industry, different company,
senior product manager, very sharp, very fast moving, lots of ADHD,
a natural building relationships with other corporate executives.
His team rolled out a different product, but it was a similar concept,
similar engagement boosting feature.
And it had all these hooks. And as a matter of fact, it actually got me to look
at my phone and apps and things differently to look at all the different ways
that I didn't even realize I was being manipulated.
People were glued to their screens. So Marcus noticed the same potential downsides
Angelique did. He even mentioned them in passing to a colleague, kind of joking.
Well, not really great for humanity, but how about those click-through rates?
So probably going to be a good bonus.
But he stopped there. He even told me at one point that he said,
I now realize I was saying jokes and humor, hoping that the other person would
say, oh, I think we should go in there and say, we will no longer work on this.
But he said, I wasn't going to say it, but he didn't take his concerns any further.
And the project hit its deadlines and the metrics soared and Marcus was promoted
and he got lots of money and he did not tip his therapist because you actually
don't tip therapists, I'll be honest.
Now, from the outside, Marcus looked like a success story and it was the wildest
thing to process that, where he's like, whoopee, I'm loaded and the project
did great and things like that. But he did not feel great.
He looked like a competent, reliable leader who got results.
But inside, he admitted to me that he did not feel as proud as he thought he would.
He had avoided conflict. He kept his approval rating high and he stayed comfortable.
But he'd also stayed silent and he let external validation steer his ship.
That's the difference that we've been talking about. Marcus chose character
without integrity. And while it worked in the short run, told me there's still
a part of him wondering what might have happened if he had spoken up.
Let's tie this back to the concepts around emotional maturity and external validation.
I think there's a thread running through every example so far in the episode,
whether you, again, are a law firm, tech company, battling orcs, anywhere else.
The real pivot point is the same.
Emotional maturity means moving from letting external validation dictate your
choices to letting your internal values guide them.
Anjali anchored herself to her values even when it cost her.
Marcus stayed tethered to approval even when it chipped away at his sense of
self. And that's the crossroads we all face over and over and over again.
Now let's take this out of the courtroom and the boardroom for a moment and
let's go into the world of faith, specifically in a high demand religion.
Imagine you've been deeply involved for years. You've held leadership positions.
You've taught classes. You've been there for weddings and funerals and youth events.
This is where you got your social capital. This is where you enjoyed rites of
passage, your community.
And you've had moments where the community has been an incredible source of
comfort and moments where it's been challenging.
But overall, you think, these are my people and this is where I belong.
This is where I would find value and purpose.
And one day, your teenage child comes to you and says, Mom, Dad, I'm gay.
This is where character and integrity can point in different directions.
Character in this context might mean continuing to fit the mold of what your
faith community expects.
You might even tell your child, hey, I love you, but you know what you're doing isn't right.
You can avoid speaking up publicly because you don't want to jeopardize your standing.
So then you follow all the rules, even if you don't fully agree with them,
because it's too uncomfortable to speak up, even at the risk of potentially losing your kid.
So that's what a good member does. You keep your seat at the table,
but you tuck away part of your child's identity to do it.
Integrity, on the other hand, means aligning your words and actions with your
deepest values, even if that costs you.
And it might mean telling your faith leaders, hey, I support my child fully.
I didn't know what I didn't know. And now I'm interacting with a situation and
I realize that this is how I feel.
I support my child fully and I believe our community should too.
And it might mean challenging policies that you once defended blindly.
You risk disapproval. You most likely will not be considered for leadership roles.
Maybe even friendships disappear, unfortunately, and that is one of the most
difficult things or people that say, hey, we're close. You're like a brother
or sister. We're best friends.
Unless you decide to become your best version of yourself, then I don't want to do that anymore.
But you also want to keep your child's trust and your self-respect and your
alignment with the values and love and compassion and justice that drew you
your faith in the first place.
Now let's go one step further. Imagine years later, you discover your spouse
has been unfaithful and it's devastating.
But the two of you go to therapy and you do the work. You are consistent and
it's uncomfortable and it's icky and you know people are talking,
but you get the tools that you never had before.
And maybe it's against the odds, but your marriage, it does become stronger than it has ever been.
Now, you would think your community would celebrate that healing, right?
But instead, you are treated like a second-class citizen.
You hear the whispers, you're passed over for positions of authority.
It's almost like you're not picked for the proverbial spiritual kickball team.
Whether you're the betrayer or the betrayed, you're now quietly excluded from
certain leadership roles.
People treat you with pity or suspicion or judgment because in their eyes,
you are now damaged goods.
One of the parts of that that stings the most is the treatment that flies in
the face of the very Christian values, redemption, grace, restoration,
all are welcome at the table. that you thought were at the heart of your faith.
And that's really today's theme. That's what it looks like in real life.
When character is about playing the part the community expects,
you might stay in good standing, but at the cost of authenticity.
When integrity is about living your values consistently, even when it means
losing status, you might find yourself on the outside.
So in both this LGBTQ plus example and the marriage example,
the tension is the same one that we've been talking about all episode.
Do I choose comfort and get approval and belonging on someone else's terms?
Or do I have the courage to choose alignment and authenticity and belong to myself?
One protects your position. The other protects your soul.
And in both of these faith community scenarios, the parent of a gay child and
the couple who rebuilt their marriage, the hardest truth is this.
Sometimes integrity will put you at odds with the very community that you have
loved and served and you still want to be a part of that community.
But I promise you, it will never put you at odds with your own soul.
I've worked with so many people over the years that have navigated a faith journey,
a faith crisis, a faith deconstruction, and have come out the other side feeling
even closer to the divine because they now realize that they are a child of
God with their God-given talents and abilities.
The way they let their light so shine is to be themselves.
And calling upon my Christian roots here, for those who speak fluent Christianity,
I've been thinking a lot lately about the verse that talks about God is the
same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and then the idea that God is love.
His love is unconditional.
If His love is unconditional, which I believe it is, then His unconditional
love is also the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Now, from a differentiation standpoint, that means God knows exactly who He
is, regardless of whether we, as imperfect humans, make mistakes or not.
And actually, I think that's the whole point. We are supposed to be imperfect
because that's how we learn. That's the human condition.
So whenever I find myself thinking, God must be mad at me, it's no longer there
because I now see that's a me issue, not a him issue.
Because he's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and his love has not changed. It's unconditional.
I used to wrestle with the weighty term repentance, because when people say
it, it's kind of said with those serious eyes, the head turns a little bit and
like a deep nod, thinking that it's more of this reminder of shortcomings.
But if you dig into its meaning, I think it's pronounced metanoia.
It means a change of mind or direction, turning back toward love.
And that's when I realized, okay, repentance isn't about shame.
It's about realignment.
It's about returning to a safe, secure attachment, a safe home base after wandering.
It's like coming home and your parents have a nice home-cooked meal and they
want to give you a hug and say, tell me what's going on, champ. How was today?
That's exactly how I want to live. Not as somebody who's bad,
but as somebody who's becoming.
And then I will gladly turn back again and again and again.
I will repent on a minute-by-minute basis because I'm turning back to the secure
attachment of a heavenly being who is saying, you're good.
I love you. And I'm saying, yeah, remember the thing I did over there?
It kind of messed up. They're like, you're good. Love you.
Because that is how we grow and we find ourselves by doing, by exploring, by being.
That's how we unpack these gifts that we hold within us. And our inherent nature is good.
So if repentance means turning back to a loving God whose love never wavers,
count me in. Again, I will do it all the time.
Because that's not about shame. It's about a relationship. It's a secure attachment.
John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory, taught that a secure base is what
allows us to go out into the world and explore and make mistakes and learn and
then return for safety and reassurance. That's how we thrive.
So now when I turn back to God, it's not from a place of I'm bad.
It's from a place of I'm learning. I'm doing life for the very first time as
me. I'm figuring it out as I go, and I know there's a safe place to return to,
so I am feeling comfortable and safe to express opinions and to try things and figure out who I am.
And that's the heartbeat of what we're talking about today, whether you are
in a high-powered law firm or a tech company or a faith community or just in your living room.
The question is the same. Am I making my choices for approval or for alignment
with my values? Do I even know what my values are?
Character will help you fit in. Integrity will help you stand tall.
Character might keep you comfortable, but integrity will keep you whole.
And if we can anchor ourselves to a secure sense of self, whether that's rooted
in faith or values or a deep knowing of who we are,
I promise you we can navigate the pressure, the criticism, the temptation to
conform without losing ourselves in the process.
And that's part of being able to think critically and to self-confront and to
figure out, turns out I'm a pretty good person.
Because at the end of the day, integrity is about coming home to your values,
to your truth, or to a God whose love is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
And that, my friends, is a home worth coming back to.
So before I turn to the wonderful, actually we'll not go to the music of my
wonderful friend Aurora Florence and her song, It's Wonderful,
because I want to invite you to take just a few minutes with me and let me guide
you on a little meditation.
And so as it ends, and if you are still feeling the vibe and you're not driving, then just be.
So slow down and let's let everything we've talked about really sink in.
Let's do the short guided meditation and help you connect with your values and
find that secure base because you can always return to it.
Whether you're facing a high pressure decision or just moving through everyday life.
So if you are able, if you're not driving, probably not going to be good on
a treadmill, find a comfortable spot and just give me a few minutes.
Title this one, Coming Home to Your Values.
So let's take a moment now to let everything that we've talked about settle in.
Wherever you are, allow your body to find a comfortable position.
You can be sitting up, you can be laying down. and if you feel comfortable,
you might close your eyes or soften your gaze.
And now take a slow, deep breath in through the nose,
and out through the mouth.
And again, in,
and then out.
And then you can return to your regular breathing. And if you're laying down,
if you're sitting in a chair, I would love for you to feel the weight of your
body supported by the chair or the couch or the floor beneath you.
And notice your feet.
Bring your awareness to them if they're connected to the ground and feel the
steadiness that's been there all along and let your breath be easy.
There's no need to control it. Just notice it. Just breathe.
Now, bring to mind something, a value that feels really important to you.
It might be love, it might be honesty, curiosity, authenticity, justice, compassion.
There's actually no right or wrong. Just take notice of what rises to the surface. Check that out.
And imagine this value is a light within you and it's steady.
It doesn't flicker with other people's approval or disapproval.
It just shines quietly, constantly.
And now think of a moment in the past or the present, or you can even imagine
one in the future where you've had to, or you will choose between what was comfortable
and what was true to your value.
If you chose comfort, it's no judgment. Just notice what that feels like in
your body. Where do you feel that?
But if you chose integrity, I want you to notice that feeling, too.
Either way, see if you can soften around the story.
Because you're not here to grade yourself. There is no right or wrong.
You're here to understand.
Now imagine what it would feel like to live from that value more and more each day.
To return to it when you wander, to treat that value like a safe home you can
come back to no matter where you've been or what happened or how long you've been away from it.
Maybe that returning feeling feels like your faith in the divine.
Maybe it feels like the unconditional love of a parent or a partner or a good friend, a pet.
Maybe it's simply the deep knowing that you are actually okay. You're worthy.
You're lovable even when you stumble.
And this is your secure base. It's always here. It's always steady.
As we close up, I want you to take one more deep breath in through the nose.
Let it go out through the mouth and
just carry this value with you
gently into the rest of your day kind of like a compass quietly guiding you
because remember you can always return to it again and again and you can return
to this meditation again and again and see if something new comes up for you,
when you're ready open your eyes rejoin the space around you i am so grateful
that you took the time to be here with me today for this podcast reach out if
you have questions or thoughts,
and we'll see you next time on the virtual couch.