Identity and Integrity, Episode 27
On Sunday, 8th April 2018, Lizzie and Justin talked about identity and integrity, inspired by a passage in Parker Palmer's book The Courage to Teach, a wonderful book for anyone - teacher or not - who wants to bring themselves to their work and life with integrity and depth.
Parker Palmer begins his book with the claim that ‘good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher’ - and we agree. It's an orientation that underpins how we approach the teaching of coaching in our Professional Coaching Course, and the practice of coaching itself. It's also true of being a parent, a creator of any sort, a participant in community, and a leader. It also relates wholly to what it’s like to be on the journey of a conscious person who pays attention to life, and who holds relationships with others at the heart of their enquiry. And this turns out to belong centrally in the lives of good teachers and educators of all kinds.
Identity and Integrity
from 'The Courage to Teach'
By identity I mean an evolving nexus where all the forces that constitute my life converge in the mystery of self: my genetic make-up, the nature of the man and woman who gave me life, the culture in which I was raised, people who have sustained me and people who have done me harm, the good and ill I have done to others and myself, the experience of love and suffering - and much , much more. In the midst of that complex field, identity is a moving intersection of the inner and outer forces that make me who I am, convening in the irreducible mystery of being human.
By integrity I mean whatever wholeness I am able to find within that nexus as its vectors form and re-form the pattern of my life. Integrity requires that I discern what is integral to my selfhood, what fits and what does not - and that I choose life giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within me: do I welcome them or fear them, embrace them or reject them, move with them or against them? By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.Identity and integrity are not the granite from which fictional heroes are hewn. They are subtle dimensions of the complex, demanding and life long process of self-discovery. Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up my life, and integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life rather than fragmentation and death.