When we are honest in our relationships we stop the other person from having to wonder. When we withhold the truth and we conceal our true feelings and thoughts, the other person will sense something and because they do not know the truth, they will fill in the blanks. Our mind has to have the answer, the beginning, middle and end. When it does not, it fills in the blank and always in a bad way.
If we share our truth with others we free them from the suffering of not knowing and it enables us to truly connect in a very deep way that is not possible when we put up our shields to hide the truth from others.
Being honest with others stops us either building up and resenting others, which usually leads to an explosive outburst and hurt for all, or we say nothing and suffer because we did not speak our truth and we did not respect ourselves.
The only ingredients that we must not leave out ever from speaking our truth are kindness and empathy towards the recipient of our truth. If we leave them out we will only hurt and damage our relationships.
A difficult path always leads us to where we want to go in life.
Our lack of confidence in ourselves leads us to overthink and analyse everything, to the point that it becomes exhausting and causes us to suffer a great deal.
When we are constantly worried about the reactions to our actions it paralyses us and leads us to act in a way that is not true to ourselves. We say and do things or we don’t say or do things to avoid being in the limelight and to stay safe as we see it.
This prohibition of showing our real selves causes more suffering as we always feel like we are holding back and our soul wants to speak out and share its truth, but the mind fears the reactions. It creates sabotage and excuses as to why we should not be true to ourselves.
When we act in a non-authentic way to minimise what we fear will be others’ reactions to us, we actually create a further lessening of self-confidence as people are not comfortable with our lack, we are not showing our real selves, so that actually causes people to move away from us more. They sense our lack of confidence and then we feel their reaction to us and it only goes to confirm the stories in our minds of not being worthy, not being liked and not being loved.
It becomes a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. We create a worsening of our own self-confidence based on our starting position of uncertainty and fear.
It is a challenging loop to break, it takes a great deal of bravery and a willingness to be vulnerable and not fear others’ reactions to our truth. Of course, our truth needs to be shared with empathy, kindness and compassion. However, our truth will come from our heart and therefore, it will always come from a place of love.
This is all easily written here in a blog and a great deal harder to practice in real life. I struggle with it and have come to realise, like any practice, we have to build it step by step, day by day, moment by moment and the more we practice the easier it becomes and the stronger our confidence will come.
When we speak our truth some will, of course, move on and not feel comfortable with it. However, our people will be attracted to our truth and that is what matters. Equally, we will be able to love ourselves fully for being vulnerable, willing to show up and to live a life of integrity.
Again, this is not an easy thing, however, vulnerability is meant to be difficult because anything that requires commitment and bravery will always lead us to the things that truly matter in life. There is a warrior spirit in us all, a loving, nurturing, strong and caring one, that when it rises will help us to be able to become our true selves, to be authentic and to share our light and gifts with the world.
A difficult path always leads to where we want to go in life.
Philip Dodson 