The Embodiment of Integrity

The Secret to Personal Power and Fulfillment
By Jennifer Mayfield, MPA

$24.50 includes shipping

“Incredible LIfe is a ‘must read’ for everyone who wants to make their dreams a reality. These twenty personal development experts share invaluable ideas and innovative strategies that are key to having a full and rich life of your own design”
- Marcia Weider
Founder, Dream University

As a parent of two young boys, I am discovering that summertime can become a time of chaos. While I do love the implications of chaos and the possibility that lies there, there is something else that offers support to our family as well: healthy rhythms. With a shift in our everyday routines we are invited to recreate the discipline of our day. Something as basic as regular time set aside for well-being might need to be shifted, but the commitment is honored, and the practice remains.

The Embodiment of Integrity

The Secret to Personal Power and Fulfillment
By Jennifer Mayfield, MPA

$24.50 includes shipping

“Incredible Life is a key tool in planning, clarifying and pursuing a life of your deepest desires and highest aspirations. This comprehensive resource from twenty of the country’s top experts provides you with guidance, how-to skills, strategies and insights to give you everything you need to be who you most want to be and cultivate the life you want to lead.”

Happiness is when what you think, what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.
- Mahatma Gandhi, peace activist

Many people are seeking the quick fix to success, manifestation or a life full of joy. I have a secret to share with you: personal power and fulfillment lie in living a life of integrity, a life that is pure of heart. There is no quick fix to get there; the answer lies in knowing who it is you want to be in the world, declaring it, honing the actions you take to create it and then pursuing a life guided by integrity with devoted and crystal focus. This all starts with building a relationship with your own heart.

If you want to discover a pathway to lightheartedness, clarity, vitality, serenity and love—for yourself first and from there you will have a cupful for others—integrity will take you there. This path is not for the faint of heart. It requires a willingness to stand in the face of the storm if necessary, trusting that on the other side is the sweet experience of feeling bathed by the storm showers, and drinking in the light from the emerging sun. Life becomes a playground of effortless self-effort.

This chapter offers you practices to become more intimate with your personal integrity. If you want to bring joy, connection and power into your life, this chapter will provide practices to support you. You will learn how to develop the ability to be with what is so, and when the moment comes, to choose powerfully to take action. Imagine living your life 90 percent of the time in integrity, experiencing a life that looks and feels on the outside what you envision on the inside. From this place of whole and complete freedom, what would you be doing? Who would you be?

I am defining integrity as living a life that honors your commitments and is aligned with the truth of your heart. What an exciting possibility! Through discovery of your personal commitments and acting within them, life naturally falls into alignment. When you are in harmony, there is a sense of unity within and without. You are the embodiment of integrity.

Often new coaching clients come to me with lives that are “wonky.” I immediately check in with them about their integrity. I invite them to create an Integrity Checklist where they write down all of the areas where their actions are not in alignment with their words and thoughts. The idea is to create a list that touches all areas of their lives, and ranges from “eating more vegetables,” to “breaking up with my long-term lover” as places to look. We lovingly and ruthlessly root out as much as we can that is not in alignment. Then, the invitation is to get on task, checking the list off. A few check marks later and my clients report experiencing serenity, surges of power, and days that are more easeful.

How about you? I invite you to take the time to create your own list. Take a moment and write down anywhere in your life that you are aware that your actions are not in alignment with what you value and what you are thinking and saying.

In the long term, I work closely with my coaching clients to discover what it is they really want in life. It may sound easy, but as you begin to practice making commitments in life, you may discover what so many of my clients discover: that sometimes they get what they said they wanted and they didn’t really want it. It could be years of schooling to become an attorney, only to discover they did it for their parents. Or saving enough money to purchase a new couch and a few days later, the thrill is gone. Or it could be taking time to volunteer, then realizing that their work with the charity is not as fulfilling as expected. There are layers of unlearning, and practicing stepping into discovery of what is at the heart of their desires for themselves. When they gain clarity, they can be effective in creating whatever they want for themselves and others as well; they can be a true contribution to the world.

I recently read something that referred to “remembering the future”. In other words, if “the future is now,” you can see it, experience and create it from this moment. We already know the future if we can envision it. I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, take a risk, and allow your talents to burst forth this season.

Since then, I’ve developed a practice of gratitude as my feet touch the ground each morning. At that tender time as I crossover from sleep there is a genuine sweetness that I experience in my heart. From that place anything is possible.

As you take the next step, and the next step in your personal and professional relationships, I encourage you to bring your presence to an “attitude of gratitude.” Gratitude moves energy, creates openness, and provides support. When you are in a state of heartfelt gratitude, possibility expands.

This month has held a multitude of changes for me, and to each person who has offered love and support, I want you to know I am truly grateful. I appreciate the gestures of comfort, kindness, genuine concern and gentle understanding. And most of all I appreciate the love that shines behind each moment of connection with you. As one of my favorite café’s asks, “What are you grateful for?”

What I realized was that part of what I bring to those three areas – the glue that holds them together is my commitment to freedom. Freedom to be and do whatever it is we are meant to on the planet. Truly, it’s taken just a little bit of coaching (Joking!) and other personal transformational work to come to a place where creating an incredible personal and professional life is POWER, PASSION, LEADER AND PLAY!

The other day I had the gift of receiving some healing work that was pivotal in befriending my Critic. The day after the session, I distinguished the Critic again and again and realized what an ingrained and automatic part of me it is. I think my Critic and Perfectionist might be engaged to be married, but that’s another tangent…To my physical, mental and energetic relief, the part of me that is Unconditional Love stood up, turned towards the Critic, and embraced it. In that moment of love and connection, the critic dissolved.

Now I make it a practice to embrace the Critic, over and over again. I am learning that whatever has a hold on me or my clients, that which we most want to turn away from, is exactly what needs undivided, loving attention. What is it for you today? Is it your Critic, Money Fears, Unworthiness, Failure or some other voice that is nagging away at you, disempowering the Power and Possibility that is You? I invite you to notice, turn towards it and engage it with love and respect. With all the sticks we put down, we could create a structure of support that could hold anything! Imagine that…

Sending gratitude.

More information on the Debbie Ford Event  

As we all ease into another season of breathing out, throw open the windows of your soul and step into connecting with yourself and others fully.  It serves the world to develop emotional and spiritual intimacy and integrate them into our lives.

Check it out

Coaching is a great profession for creating your own great life, and serving others who are up to great things in their lives, too. I trained with Accomplishment Coaching in their International Coaching Federation Certified Program. I’ve experienced breakthroughs in my life that are truly transformative. My ways of being and doing in the world shifted dramatically through powerful, loving coaching from my Master Coaches, Mentor Coaches and my Team of Coaches. If you are interested in a new career, or simply making a once and for all changes in areas of your life where you are stopped or blocked, hire me as your coach and join the Accomplishment Coaching Training Program.

Two programs start in June:

1) Seattle the weekend of June 6 and 7, 2009
2) San Diego the weekend of June 27 and 28, 2009

I am happy to have a personal conversation with anyone who is interested. Here’s how you can get connected:

* Attend an observation of the current program in action from 10 am – noon on May 9 in both Seattle and San Diego. Contact me for details of future observations…

* Attend a fabulous, experiential workshop where you’ll learn valuable coaching tools and experience coaching on May 9 from 1:30-5:30pm. Participants report that this workshop is an experience of a lifetime!

Call or email me directly for details on the above events or for a 1:1 conversation to explore whether this might be a fit for you: jennifer@jennifermayfield.com, 510.847.9744.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog and to support the transformational work Accomplishment Coaching is doing in the world.

Standing for YOU!

Jennifer