EPI — A Peer-Led Practice of Presencing

four-pillars-of-integrity

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Four Pillars of Integrity

What it is

A working definition of integrity as wholeness — not a moral category but an energy category. The Hendricks framing the curriculum quotes directly: “Integrity isn’t a moral issue, it’s an energy issue.”

A practitioner in integrity is whole — energy flows. A practitioner out of integrity has leaks — energy drains. Restoring integrity is restoring the flow of one’s own aliveness, power, and connection.

The Four Pillars name the four places integrity lives. If all four are held, no external dogma is needed — the practitioner is the authority, the author, of their own life.

The four pillars

  1. Integrity with feelings. True to oneself in what is actually felt. Feelings are felt — not numbed, not narrated, not bypassed. The body gets to do its work. (See experiencing-your-feelings, emotional-cycles.)

  2. Integrity with speaking. Saying out loud what is known to be true for oneself. Withholds are an integrity leak; speaking unarguably restores the connection. (See withhold-withdraw-project.)

  3. Integrity with action. Choices and agreements align with one’s values and authentic experience. Agreements are made consciously, kept or renegotiated rather than broken silently.

  4. Integrity with responsibility. Taking 100% responsibility — for one’s experience, for one’s part, for the world one is in. Not blame (of self or other), not burden. The ability to respond to what is, in the moment. (See karpman-triangle — 100% responsibility = 100% power; the triangle is what happens when responsibility is distorted.)

The move

The Four Pillars are practiced as a diagnostic more than as a sequence. When energy is low, when there is conflict, when something feels off, run the pillars:

  • What feelings am I not feeling?
  • What truth have I not spoken?
  • What agreements need to be made or changed?
  • Where am I not taking 100% responsibility?

Whichever pillar surfaces an answer is the integrity leak to address. Often it is more than one.

Why this matters

  • Integrity = wholeness (think whole numbers). The practice is about being a whole human, not a good one.
  • The main ways integrity is lost — and so the main ways power is lost — are: withholds, poor agreements, and incompletions. Each has its own tool. (See withhold-withdraw-project, incompletion-inventory.)
  • “Living from full integrity is living from full power.” This is the promise the practice rests on.
  • The deepest layer: Am I doing what I most want to be doing during my precious time on earth? Am I cultivating my unique genius? Am I expressing my genius successfully, by my own chosen standards, in the world? (Hendricks, Conscious Loving Ever After, quoted in curriculum.) Integrity is finally about alignment with one’s deepest purpose.

In relationships

The curriculum names a clean diagnostic for relationship conflict — run the Four Pillars on yourself first:

  • What feelings aren’t being felt (by me)?
  • What truth has not been spoken (by me)?
  • What agreements need to be made or changed?
  • Where have I not taken 100% responsibility?

This sidesteps the entire blame structure and returns the practitioner to the only place they have power: themselves.

Facets served

  • principle-2, principle-3 — SEW is how the first pillar is practiced.
  • principle-5 — share experience, not advice. Speaking experience (Pillar 2) is the practice; advice is outside it.

Source and attribution

Primary source: raw/2025 ILC Version AT Master Curriculum.docx.md, Week 7 (Discovering Your True Power — Integrity).

Lineage: Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks. Conscious Loving Ever After quoted directly in the curriculum’s advanced-concepts section.

Status notes

canonical — promoted from needs-export 2026-05-24 from the ILC master curriculum (Week 7).

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