High integrity people aren't 'nice'.

That's why you trust them.

Well hello there!

I was up early this morning filming for my new book, which comes out next week. I took my husband and my eldest daughter with me and it helped so much with my candid laughs and smiles.

My husband filmed some behind-the-scenes on my phone and every time I looked over at him he was smiling so big. “You’re a natural” he’d say, like the most generously loving husband that he is.

I brought Sol, my eldest too because as she is older, I like her to see the work I do come together. They saw the latest book arrive at the door the other day and it was so nice to show them something tangible. When I ‘go and write’ in my writing space, they just see mum at a laptop. They don’t see where it goes or what it does.

It’s very cute though— my kids all have makeshift laptops that they pop open in their games, announcing ‘I’m just doing some writing!’.

It has been a long road to create this absolute beauty of a book. It is the biggest and most luxurious book I’ve ever made. Every time I walk by it in my living room, I feel a jolt of joy…. as if all of the messages inside make their way into me.

Self publishing is very hands on and I’ve come to learn I must like it that way.

I like being able to control the quality. I like being able to keep my words, my words without any tweaking of tone. I even purposely left some repetition in this one because I felt like it was needed.

Maybe that’s a little over-perfectionism, totally. But it’s also creative integrity. I don’t want to stinge on what matters— which is beauty, and the authenticity of the message.

I think about integrity a lot, especially in this climate where we are so easily thrashed around by the internet— puppets for the propaganda, unless we’re very careful.

Integrity is very rarely popular.

High integrity people aren’t ‘nice’.

They aren’t agreeable.

They aren’t performed.

They aren’t dishonest.

They aren’t able to be bought.

And people hate it.

I listen to old movies and even older people in my community speak and they just way what they mean without the fluff. It’s not rude. But still, most would coil into foetal position upon hearing something that isn’t dressed up with a thousand platitudes.

My mum is salt-of-the-earth. She won’t blow smoke up your bum. She won’t tell you something is amazing when it’s not. But she will give you the shirt off her back.

I don’t trust fake-nice people because ‘always nice’ shows a lack of integrity. You can feel the wobbles. It’s hard to trust someone who will say whatever is most pleasing in the moment.

These days ‘directness’ is mistaken for rudeness because we have become so used to over-performed hyperbole that is dishonest.

I had an assistant for 7 years who was an older dutch woman-- she never, ever used words in an inflated, fake way with me or tried to blow smoke up my bum.

She would say something was simply ‘fine’ instead of amazing because it was true.

Alex Honnold scaling the skyscraper was amazing. A new canva graphic is not.

I felt at home with her because I knew I could always trust her. I knew her words were true. I trusted her because although very caring and reliable, she wasn’t trying desperately to be ‘nice’.

I prefer people this way. I trust them. I can rely on them being in their own integrity. This matters.

I prefer being around gritty people than the perfect and over performed. I like being around people who I don’t have to prod, in order to get the truth.

Women especially are realising that being ‘nice’ all the time can make you chronically sick. In all of my studies in many different modalities— this is true across them all. People pleasing = illness. It is tiresome. It drains the soul. Because you are constantly abandoning your soul for the comfort of others and how can you animate your body in this state?

Women are realising that needing to be seen as ‘good’ by strangers who don’t know you, comes at the cost of full integrity, total honesty and inner peace. It’s too high a price to pay.

It’s too high a price to pay.

Women are realising that ‘nice’ is vague, neutral, spineless and that you can be kind, generous, thoughtful, loving, caring, compassionate but also direct, firm, and unwavering where it matters.

Know this: People hate seeing freedom, integrity and self-respect in others when they do not have it themselves.

Sometimes we step out of our integrity to soothe someone who is challenged by it. When this happens over and over and over, who are we? Where have we gone?

We’re also realising, that by withholding honesty from people, we’re assuming they’re too fragile to receive it. We’re trying to play saviour.

There are times to shut up and keep the peace. There are times for pleasantries. We’ve gotta know how to read a room and not just unleash our opinions in the wrong rooms in front of the wrong people. But constantly shoving things under the rug and putting on a fake smile cannot become a lifestyle.

Tension drains and tension kills relationships. Tension is anti-vitality.

When you are clear on how much integrity really means to you, you will be so much more free in your voice, your actions and you will know peace beyond performing.

In this climate where people are demanding voice and action from total strangers— integrity matters more than ever. People online won’t ever know what you do in your real life, away from your hand held device….

But you do.

Lotsa love,

PK XXX

PS. I cannot wait to show you this book cover. My favourite one yet— and I’ve had some pearlers!!