The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self

Chapters 3 and 4 are built on preparatory considerations for the journey ahead. These sections, which match the description of Dante’s experiences before entering his journey through hell’s inferno, are here to prepare the reader for what is to come, but not yet to advise a series of practical actions to be undertaken.

The two main areas of focus are looking for a soul teacher to help us along the way, and considering what areas in our life might be necessary to address in order to move forward. The soul guide, as Chapter 3 indicates, might be a book, a person, or some other source of startlingly inspirational wisdom, but even the presence of such a guide is itself merely preparatory, allowing you to begin tuning in to your own inner guide, the voice of your true self. The issues that will need to be addressed going forward, which Chapter 4 focuses on, are what Beck calls “hellgates,” and this section does not yet advise readers to enter through those areas, but simply to identify them and prepare themselves for the journey ahead.

Of the book’s major themes, Integrity as the Key to Emotional Healing, remains the overarching thesis that drives the content, so it is constantly present even if it is not the main focus of a particular section. A second theme, Finding Meaningful Change Through Small Steps, is recognizably present in these chapters, though more in the structure of the text than in its outward features. The simple fact that Beck leads her readers on such a slow and cautious approach to their journey testifies to the central idea that change is a result of small steps. The entire first stage of the book, including Chapters 3 and 4, is largely concerned with preparatory considerations. Beck is leading us carefully up to the “hellgates” that we will have to enter, making sure that we are well-prepared for the journey before we even set foot inside the gate.

The most dominant theme in this section is that of Learning to Read Our Internal Signals. In Chapter 3, as Beck transitions from her introduction of the idea of soul guide to an encouragement to get attuned to one’s own inner guide, she lists a series of helpful cues to assist in identifying the inner guide’s voice. Whereas previous sections had focused on our awareness of negative cues—whether emotional states or broad behavioral patterns in our lives—this section includes several positive cues relating to emotional states, physical sensations, and psychological phenomena: physical relaxation, logical sensibility, a feeling of opening up, and a sense of freedom. All these things are potential cues from one’s inner guide, pointing to the things that harmonize with our true values and desires.

Chapter 4 also deals with this theme, though in a different way. Here the goal is not to attune ourselves to our inner guide, but rather to identify those areas that we have covered up and ignored because of the pain they cause. Healing will only come from bringing those areas into the integration of personal wholeness, so Beck leads her readers in exercises to identify the thoughts that they simply do not want to think. Learning to read our signals of fear and pain in this way can be an invaluable way to identify those areas in our lives that need to be addressed for true healing to happen.