Core Value 2: Honesty and Integrity are the foundation for everything I do

Yesterday I said that I would be going through each of my core values throughout the next ten days. I learned about core values from Ryan Stewman in 2019 and then again from Tomas Keenan‘s book last year

.2. Honesty and Integrity are the foundation for everything I do. When I was a kid, my grandparents would joke about how honest I was. While I later realized that it was because I would say savage things to people, it felt good to think I was honest and the quality stuck with me into adulthood.

I’ve lived by a standard of 100% blatant honesty for a lot longer than I’ve had these core values written out. I learned many years ago that if you give honest answers to people, no matter how much it sucks, it saves a lot of energy in the long run. One small lie can turn into many lies and snowball into a nightmare quickly and you can avoid gigantic messes with blatant honesty.

Integrity is doing the right thing all the time even when nobody is looking. This goes hand in hand with honesty. As long as you have integrity in every decision, you avoid situations where it may be extremely hard to be honest.

In business, I have always shown great integrity and have always gone above and beyond to make sure that when there is a transaction that I’m involved in, the other party always gets more value than anticipated. There have been a few situations in my life where due to circumstances out of my control, I was unable to deliver, but I would lose many nights of sleep over it until I made it right.

As far as gender identity, I feel like I should have been more upfront about it from the beginning because I did know. But, then again, nobody ever asked me if I was trans because I was careful to never give people any indication. If people would have asked, I would have been forced to say yes. My wife has known since I told her in 2016 and has always been supportive, whether I transitioned or not.

And that’s where honesty with yourself comes in, which I believe is crucial to having an optimal existence.

“To thine own self be true.”

Until I could accept that I was an alcoholic, I could not get sober. I’ll have 10 years of no alcohol in July. Until I accepted that drugs were not for me, I could not say no. I had eight years of no mind-altering substances in February. Until I could accept that I was trans, which was something that brought me great shame until I finally accepted, I was miserable inside and could not find peace, and having to deal with that and be completely sober just compounded the misery and made it worse. I’m lucky I’m still sober.

“But Mikaela, you were born male. Are you being honest with yourself by transitioning to female?”

The answer is yes. With every change, I am feeling more in line with who I always thought I should be and wanted to be at my core. Before I started transitioning, every day I felt that I was falling more and more out of line from my true self. I was greatly depressed and it was getting worse every day. Now, my body is going in the right direction which makes me ecstatic. Every day, I feel more like myself and that gives me peace.

It also helped me immensely when I separated that shame that I was feeling into two categories. What was my inner shame and what was others’ that I was carrying? I got a notebook and made a column for each. 100% of the shame that I felt when written down was in the other people category. I am 100% at peace inside with transitioning and am loving my path and would have a long time ago if I wasn’t carrying the shame of others around with me.

When you can get to the point that you are not only 100% honest with everyone else, but WITH YOURSELF as well, then you can finally have 100% integrity and find inner AND outer peace.

These days I’m proud to say that I am 100% able to, and 100% living Core Value #2.

Leave a Reply