Integrity

            I’ve been wondering if the readers of my blog actually think when I mention clients and scenarios during work that I am actually talking about real situations or fictionalizing them. I decided that I would write this blog to clarify that I am, indeed, fictionalizing the scenarios.

            I would never purport on this blog, but it isn’t fair to share personal details either. So, the next best thing to do is to take real situations, and change sex, names, situations, reverse order, age, and end up with a scenario that is similar, but doesn’t resemble the real person. So, what you get is truth, not in detail, but in act and deed.

            I had a close friend once who told me many, many, many stories about her love life. When I wrote my book about relationships, my goodness, she couldn’t help to see herself in every one of the stories. But, honest to God, I never wrote one story that was exactly the same or used a name that resembled the real person in my book. Why would I?  I could get sued.

            Truthfully, the only people who would know that a story might be about them would be that person. And that being said, if you didn’t want anyone to know the story resembled a circumstance you were in, just don’t tell anyone. (Personally, I thought if someone recognized a story about them, they would be honored, actually. But, maybe that wasn’t the fact.)

            But just the opposite happened. She blabbed about it to every mutual friend. She told everyone we knew mutually that the entire book was about her. The poor thing looked like she had had quite a few bad experiences, if the entire book was about her, which wasn’t the case at all. But, when you are dealing with narcissistic behavior (which this was) sometimes everything becomes about you.  Unfortunately, we are no longer friends.

            My blogs are meant to help people identify with me and a situation in my life and hopefully learn from it. At least, that’s the hope I always have going into writing each blog. My aim is never to hurt anyone. If I am hurting someone by writing about something, I would hope that a person or a friend reading it would politely (in an email or phone call) tell me, so that I could either change the blog or delete it completely.

            Integrity is very important to me in a world where we all depend on others to spread the word that we’re okay people and a good at our jobs.  For me, I want people to believe and know for a fact that I am a qualified and excellent hypnotherapist and life coach, or vocal coach. I need to have integrity every day with my clients, so that I don’t have a line of people saying horrible things about me behind my back and causing people to believe the worst about me. We all need to do the same if we expect reciprocity.

            Bette Midler was on a talk show recently. She said that when she was a young star and fans would come up to her and try to ask her questions, she would say, “Get away from me!” She would be frantic and frightened of the people and often rude.

            But as she got older, she realized that these same people were paying her bills. She knew that if she continued to be a bitch to her patrons, she would end up with a very bad reputation. Of course, that is the opposite of being a beloved star. So, now, she says, she takes time to answer questions and sign autographs gratefully and graciously.

            I loved that story coming from her. She sounded so sincere as she spoke. I could actually see her hitting someone with her pock-a-book and saying: “Get the hell out of my face, you!” She has that typology in her. But I can also see that she had mellowed with age. Now I see sincerity in her that makes me want to meet her someday on the street and say, “Hey, Bette, what’s up?”

            All that being said, I just want to assure you, that if you come to me as a client, you will not have your story spread all over Facebook. If there are remnants of a story that resembles something that you told me, know that there are 100’s of people with your story. That’s what makes life so interesting. We all share a great deal of our growth daily. That’s why when you read this blog, you identify with it.

            Somewhere in the great beyond, we are all connected.