Are we really honest with ourselves or do we live our lives using deception and lies to achieve feeling better?
For the most part, it’s the latter.
But what would happen if we were to start being honest with ourselves?
Would our lives transform into something so much better and more authentic?
Most definitely, but how do we go about doing that?
So, is it hard to be honest with yourself?
Yes, it’s extremely hard.
And not only that, but it also takes a lot of time and dedication.
Related: Why Is It So Important To Find Out Who You Really Are?
Is it hard to be honest with yourself?
“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.” – Charles Dickens
Most of the time we tell ourselves little and big lies, pretty much anything that will make us feel better.
We feel horrible and we are willing to do anything to make that feeling go away or to distract ourselves from that feeling.
But the curious thing is that none ever asks, why do we feel bad to begin with?
Subsequently, to be honest with yourself starts with acknowledging that you are not ok inside aka you feel bad most of the time.
If you are willing to admit that you are on the right track to being honest with yourself.
So, there, I have done it, I have acknowledged that I feel bad inside most of the time.
Now what?
While I know this is a great start, what do I do now?
I feel even worst for the time being knowing that this is what my precious life amounts to.
I feel bad inside and all I’m trying to do is to change that by getting myself distracted, trying to control others and the world around me, etc.
Pretty dumb strategy, if you really think about it, but isn’t that what everyone is doing all the time?
I know that the first step to changing anything is to acknowledge the truth.
But this one is very painful.
This precious life that we all have amounted to each one of us trying to run away or hide from how bad we are feeling inside.
Let me sit with this for a moment.
Ok, this is where we start.
Related: How To Find The Real Me?
So, my next question is:
WHY DO WE FEEL SO BAD INSIDE?
It is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinks in and settles in it, that does the hurt. Francis Bacon,
After spending some considerable time with this question, this is the answer that came to me:
We were meant to allow life to live through us, but we have forgotten that and instead, we do the opposite.
We block, avoid, and suppress what we think we don’t want, and we hold on to what we think we want.
As a result, our inside is full of suppressed stuff that we are holding on to in hopes to avoid what we don’t like and getting what we do want.
I hope this makes sense to you as much as it does to me.
The way I see it, we have this divine life force flowing through us, basically giving us life, but instead of trusting it and uniting with it, we think we know better and try to go against it hoping that this will give us something less uncomfortable.
It’s time to clean that up.
So, how do we do that?
And this is where the simple but hard part comes in.
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You will have to process all those suppressed feelings.
Brutal, inner honesty… The three scariest words on the planet, and yet, at the same time, the very KEY that unlocks all the doors Ken Dahl
Sounds like fun?
Not necessarily.
The process is straightforward.
You don’t have to do anything unusual.
You don’t have to go searching or dig in deep, you just live your life except:
When feeling and emotions come in, you pause, relax and ALLOW them to come up and pass.
This will be painful but for me, once I allowed them to come up I was surprised at how quickly they pass.
So what does that actually look like?
For example, this morning, I open my eyes and see a beautiful sunny morning.
For a split second, I feel relaxed and at peace.
.But that only lasts a second.
The next second, anxiety and fear creep in.
Of course, I don’t like it because it feels horrible.
Normally I would try to search my mind to determine where those emotions coming from.
But with this new process, I pause, sit comfortably, close my eyes, and let the feelings come up and then pass through me.
The hard part for me is to resist analyzing them.
My mind wants to think about how unpleasant those feelings are, where are they coming from, how long will they last, etc.
Related: How To Be Free Of Fear?
You have to let that go and focus on the feelings.
“You have to be able to understand what your insecurities are if you want to change them. In order to do this, you are going to have to be very honest with yourself.” – Jennifer N Smith
It sounds counterintuitive but I just focus on where in the body I feel the most discomfort.
Sometimes it’s the heaviness in my heart, sometimes it’s extreme anxiety in my gut and very often it’s just very deep sadness throughout the body.
Just relax and allow.
Slowly, step by step you will be able to distance yourself from those feelings and emotions and just observe them.
And like I said, the surprising part for me was, regardless of how intense they feel in the moment, they pass through very quickly.
And this is the work.
We have been storing for so long, now it’s time to clean that up so that we can feel great inside and do not have to insist on changing others and the world around us to cover up the pain inside.
And this is how we can be honest with ourselves.
Not everyone is ready for that.
But if you are asking that question and still reading this, chances are you are ready.
So go ahead, and start practicing being honest with yourself.
I can promise you, once you start you will not want to stop.
Everything will become so clear to you.
The energies of life are meant to come and pass right through us.
This is how life becomes extremely exciting and beautiful.
This is how you start truly living.
“Accepting our emotional truth is essential for self-acceptance. In turn, self-acceptance is necessary for accepting others. Learning the principles of emotional honesty enables us to stop punishing ourselves and others for our emotional pain. By acknowledging our emotional vulnerability we also increase emotional intimacy.” – Ronald R. Brill