by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Cultivating Integrity as a Man by Growing REAL
A large part of growing as a man is learning to step into integrity about oneself and what one stands for:
We live in a world that often rewards performance over principle, appearances over truth, and convenience over conviction but there still comes a point in every man’s life where he starts to realise that that without integrity, he’s lost (no matter how much he’s achieved, accumulated, or convinced others of his worth).
In this article, we’ll explore what it really means to grow in integrity as a man and the definition we’ll use to get started is pretty simple but powerful:
Integrity means that our thoughts, words, and actions all align with our realness as much as possible.
What this ultimately means is that we we’re coming from a place of integrity when we’re facing life from a place of presence and when we don’t let all of the temporary blips and fragments of life pull us away from our purpose and responsibilities in the world.
In short, living with integrity means that we have a real vision (based on real values and a genuine capacity to serve others rather than just being ego-driven), that we break it down into goals, and that we build daily habits which keep us rooted in presence which is the foundation of everything real.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Growing in Integrity as a Man: What We'll Cover in this Article
- Cultivating Integrity as a Man by Growing REAL
- Masculine Presence as Stillness
- The Lake and the Ripples
- Principles vs. Feelings
- Nervous System Regulation
- Thoughts, Words, and Deeds
- Tell the Truth
- Practical Steps to Grow in Integrity
- Growing in Integrity as a Man: Final Thoughts
Masculine Presence as Stillness
In many of the great traditions, the masculine polarity is seen as pure awareness or stillness in the space in which all life unfolds.
In yoga, they call this “abiding in the nature of the seer”; in Taoism, it’s the uncarved block; in Christianity, it’s the still small voice of God as the Holy Spirit.
Different words, but the same core essence and what it all means in practical terms is that to grow in integrity as a man, you must cultivate stillness within movement:
You can be moving through the world – leading, providing, protecting, creating – and yet inwardly remain unmoved. This isn’t apathy but presence: the awareness behind your thoughts, emotions, and sensations that never wavers no matter what’s happening.
When you cultivate this awareness, you stop being reactive and so you can stop letting every fleeting emotion or opinion pull you out of yourself.
You develop what might be called “witness consciousness” – the ability to observe life rather than be consumed by it and – from this space – integrity naturally follows because your actions start coming from what’s real and responsive instead of merely what’s reactive.
When a man lives like this, people feel it because he’s not performing masculinity; he’s embodying it:
He’s steady, not trying to control everything, and anchored in the middle of it all.
The Lake and the Ripples
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there’s a metaphor that perfectly captures this dynamic:
Imagine a glass-smooth lake – that’s your lasting awareness.
Then imagine ripples appearing on the surface – those are all of your temporary thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
The mistake most men make is in identifying with the ripples:
This means that they start to believe that they are their thoughts, or they are their feelings and then they get swept up in every wave and wonder why they feel so unstable.
The truth, however is simple but life-changing if you need it at this time:
You’re the the lake – not the ripples.
What this means is that the ripples come and go but the lake remains and so integrity starts when you stop identifying with the ripples and start remembering that you are the awareness in which they appear and are contained.
At the level of the mind, this means recognising that thoughts are something you have, not something you are – they’re just tools, not truths.
At the level of the body, it means recognising that feelings are visitors – just physiological storms passing through on their merry way instead of permanent realities.
Once you see this clearly, life stops being such a fight and you no longer need to control everything – instead, you learn to observe without attachment and act from the stillness beneath all the noise.
This is a key reminder of something that I always love to remind people of on this site, when I’m coaching them, or in my books:
What’s real is always real.
Awareness doesn’t fluctuate – only our attention does and so integrity is the conscious act of returning attention to what doesn’t change.
Principles vs. Feelings
One of the easiest ways to lose integrity is to live according to your feelings.
Feelings are important – they show you where you’re at and what you’re currently learning – but they’re not supposed to steer the ship. They’re weather patterns, not coordinates.
Principles, on the other hand, are more stable and unfluctuating:
They come from a deeper place – the place you touch when you’re still, aware, and present.
This means that they’re discovered, not invented (by the ego like anything in our lives that arises from a lack of awareness).
If you’ve ever looked back on a decision you made in anger, fear, or lust, then you’ll know what it’s like to live from feelings and how short-term satisfaction or relief often leads to long-term regret.
When you make decisions from principle, though, you might face temporary discomfort, but you always grow real.
This is why a man of integrity must define his principles.
(Not just write them down casually in a journal or whatever but live them out).
If you want to get started then you can start by asking yourself:
- What are the values that make me feel most alive and grounded?
- What would I stand for even if it cost me something?
- What do I know to be true even when I’m scared or angry?
In short, your principles are your compass but your feelings are just the weather:
A compass doesn’t change because it’s raining and neither should you.
Nervous System Regulation
It’s easy to talk about integrity in theory but the real challenge is living it out when life hits hard – when stress spikes, when someone triggers you, when things go ‘wrong’…that’s when the nervous system can kick in and ‘integrity’ often goes out of the window.
That’s why nervous system regulation is one of the most practical and powerful skills a man can develop because integrity isn’t just about willpower or morality; it’s about physiology.
When your body’s in a state of fight-or-flight, your prefrontal cortex – the part of your brain responsible for reasoning, principles, and values – goes offline.
And you can’t live in integrity if you’re hijacked by survival mode.
The good news is that regulation can be trained through things like breathwork, movement, cold exposure, or simply conscious awareness, you can learn to return to the centre of that awareness (of the glass-smooth lake) no matter what’s happening around you.
Once you’ve experienced what true regulation feels like – that grounded, expansive sense of ease – then you’ll know where ‘home’ is and how to get back there:
You’ll start to catch yourself earlier when you’re getting pulled away from presence and – over time – you’ll become harder to shake – not because you suppress emotion, but because you feel it fully without losing yourself in it.
That’s integrity on a nervous-system level.
Thoughts, Words, and Deeds
Once a man has cultivated awareness and presence, the next step is alignment:
Integrity essentially means that your thoughts, words, and deeds are consistent with your awareness instead of your ego.
In practical terms this looks like:
- Thinking thoughts that serve reality instead of distorting it.
- Speaking words that are true instead of manipulative or performative.
- Taking actions that align with what you know to be right according to your discovered (not invented) principles – not just what feels convenient or comfortable.
This kind alignment doesn’t happen overnight and is instead a daily a practice but, every time you catch yourself acting from ego and bring yourself back to awareness, you strengthen the muscle of integrity.
Eventually, this becomes your natural state and you don’t have to think about being ‘authentic’ or REAL – you simply are.
Tell the Truth
If you want to live in integrity, then start to tell the truth.
It’s that simple – and that hard.
The Truth has a weight to it which means that you can feel when you’re out of alignment with it:
It shows up as tension, guilt, avoidance, or a sense of fragmentation that leads to friction, frustration, and misery.
This means that the moment you speak or act against you already know is true, then you create a split in yourself…and integrity is about dissolving that split so you can return to wholeness.
A simple way to start building integrity, then, is to start by telling the truth in small things:
Say “no” when you mean no. Say “yes” when you mean yes. Stop sugar-coating your intentions or attempting to manage other people’s perceptions of you.
Every time you tell the truth, you strengthen your connection to what’s real but very time you lie or BS yourself and others – even just a little – you reinforce your connection to what’s false and unreal.
Integrity is simply the process of making the inside match the outside by using the truth to narrow the gap.
Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you’re ready to go deep into your realness and a solid relationship with yourself and life.
Practical Steps to Grow in Integrity
Here are some ways you can start aligning with your realness every day so that you can cultivate the kind of integrity we’re talking about:
1. Create space for stillness.
Spend at least ten minutes a day in silence or meditation and let your mind settle and observe the ripples on your lake without reacting. This is where you’ll find the awareness behind it all and realise that you are this awareness.
2. Define your principles.
Write down three to five core principles you want to live by – not ‘borrowed’ ones that you picked up in the world but your own. Ask yourself: “If I stripped everything back, what would still be true for me?”
3. Regulate your nervous system daily.
Breathe deeply through your nose, in and out, slow and steady. Move your body and get some sunlight. Sleep well. The more your body learns regulation, the easier it is to stay in awareness instead of being shaken by the world.
4. Audit your words.
Pay attention to where your words don’t match your truth. Do you overpromise? Hide what you feel? Avoid confrontation? Each moment you tell the truth, you grow stronger.
5. Align your actions.
Take one small action today that embodies your principles (even if it’s uncomfortable). Integrity grows through repetition of real principles acted upon.
6. Reflect every evening.
Before bed, ask yourself: “Did I act from awareness or ego today?” No judgment – just awareness so that you can accept and then ACT in a more real way. Over time, you’ll notice the difference and keep evolving into integrity.
7. Serve something bigger than yourself.
Integrity isn’t self-absorption but self-alignment in service to life. When your goals benefit others as well as yourself, your integrity deepens as your ego dissolves.
Growing in Integrity as a Man: Final Thoughts
Growing in integrity as a man isn’t about becoming perfect but about becoming REAL.
You’ll still make mistakes and you’ll still get caught in the ripples from time to time but each time you do you’ll know how to return to the stillness beneath it all – to awareness, truth, and presence.
This means that you’re growing and refining your connection to reality whilst becoming someone the world can trust (because you trust yourself).
Integrity isn’t just a moral virtue – it’s a state of being:
It’s when who you are on the inside and who you show up as on the outside are one and the same – that’s realness, wholeness, and that masculine stillness to the core.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to step up and build a foundation of realness in your life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you get moving.
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