INTEGRITY: A Guide to Thriving in the 21st Century

By Carmel Whelan and Peter Russell

At a time in history when poverty is reducing and education is on the rise we face the unprecedented stress of mass migration, the rise of the digital age and the threat of climate change. Our children are suffering mental health issues like no previous generations, our communities are fractured and disconnected and our natural world is on the b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Obiadis Pty Ltd
• Release date: Nov 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648404712

Book preview

Preface

My best friend in high school was Kim. She was very courageous and intelligent, and forged a career out of arts curating, which has taken her to live as far away as possible from where we grew up (and where I still live) on the globe: Washington DC.

One summer when she was home visiting her mum, Kim and I had a catch-up. Over coffee she told me that at the Smithsonian Institute, where she works, they were discussing the organisation of an Earth Optimism Summit to inspire people to come together and see what’s working in the field of climate change and what’s not. At the Smithsonian, they understand that now is the time to act to save as much of the natural environment as we can. If people become disengaged and complacent, the outcome will be much worse. We can’t save everything—that die has been cast—but we can do something.

When Kim told me this, I immediately felt a rush of enthusiasm (from the root Latin meaning ‘god within’). I came home and told my husband that we were going to Washington. And off we went.

The summit was held in April 2017, just after President Trump had taken office. The Environmental Protection Agency in the US had effectively been dismantled already. The word at the symposium was that there was one staff member left in the EPA. Yes, you read that correctly: one staff member.

The coming together of historians, artists, scientists and many other people working in the field, such as politicians, bankers and business representatives, was truly one of a kind. There were so many presentations it was impossible to hear and see everything. We were so inspired.

There were several things that I took away from the summit:

Governments are most likely not going to be the drivers. Except for some examples from the African continent, governments actually seem to be the cause of much frustration and waste of energy.

Local projects by local people can have huge effects, especially if the needs of the local people are met along the way. These people then become the custodians of the change, and much wilderness and wildlife can be protected in this way.

Multinational businesses are also paving the way with initiatives to maintain their business models that can transcend national boundaries, for example, in the fishing industry.

Artists can have a huge impact on the integration of initiatives and the celebration of these in local communities.

Huge amounts of money (billions of dollars) are moving into ecological investment—for example, renewable-energy sources. Where the money goes, so goes the market.

I have been a practising chiropractor for nearly thirty years, working with all sorts of people to enhance their innate healing ability and to enable them to express their full health potential.

After getting home from the summit I had the inspiration to write this book. It is an accumulation of all the knowledge I have from decades of learning in the health sciences: all the years of personal therapy, my study of neurolinguistic programming and psychology, and my personal passion for the way these disciplines extend to the social environment and from there to the wider ecological environment. This book is a tome to the resurgence of integrity, a much-maligned concept throughout the last hundred years or so.

I hope you find something in here that is helpful in your life. Please disregard anything that you find is not useful for you. Some may find only one thing they haven’t thought of before while others may find many, or even none, but I hope everyone who reads this book understands the importance of taking action in our daily lives. The time to act is now.

Introduction

Integrity. As a health professional, I love that word. Integrity of the different systems of the body is what we call health. Being whole. Complete. Sound. Honest. What does it mean to be whole? Imagine that nothing was missing. Nothing was amiss. Everything worked to its best ability. Harmony; beauty and full self-expression: alignment.

How do we achieve that? Some people think that the world today has gone completely mad. Certainly there is more stress in everyday life than has ever been present before. We are witness to two concurrent major events: the digital revolution, and climate