How many times have we caused unnecessary pain and complications in our lives by not being clear and honest in our communications?
It is the source of so much suffering, yet the whole planet actively engages in playing games such as trying to please others, manipulations or insensitive remarks, usually born from fear and anger. Whatever end of the spectrum we play at, when we aren’t speaking our truth and actively putting this into action, we are not forming deeper relationships. We are not connecting with people at a core level, intimacy is missing, and so too are all the treasures of being able to express ourselves genuinely and openly.
Our truth is the coming together of our heart and mind, when expressed as open, honest and clear communication. When we speak our truth we are coming from a place of love and respect for ourselves and others. When we don’t live our truth we don’t feel complete. We have fragmented ourselves, selling a part of our selves out, that we forever look for somewhere else.
We are all tempted to compromise our truth at some point. It may be that we want someone’s acceptance – so we passively agree to their opinions or actions. Or perhaps we react in anger and say things that we don’t really mean… too late; the damage is done. Either way we have dis-empowered ourselves and others. Both decisions come from a place of fear. The words and (re)actions are our attempts to mask our vulnerabilities we are afraid of having exposed. However comfortable this makes us feel at the time, the longer term effects of these protective patterns cause us much stress, tension and ultimately suffering.
If we are passively giving away our power to others we will become resentful, always. People lose respect for us when we are not speaking up, not being who we truly are. Now we are caught in a cycle, resentment builds until it starts to drain our energy, manifesting as physical symptoms… muscular tension, headaches, insomnia or even worse.
Conversely, if we are constantly over-reacting, speaking and acting from anger or abruptness we will be turning people against us. For inherent in our truth is compassion. If our emotions are running high, often it is best to wait, sit with what we feel, what we want to say and when we are in a clear space then speak our truth. This is not about scoring points with emotionally charged arrows, nor judgments in who is right or wrong. The truth sets us free when we are talking facts about what we require and accepting others for where they are at this point in time.
Similarly if we use manipulation as the means to get our way, people eventually find out and will not trust us, even though they may not say it. All this manifests as bad feelings, usually ending up in the form of GUILT. We may not even be aware of these restrictive feelings, but human relationships are fundamental, it is hardwired into our brains. Even the most solitary of people need to make connections… so when we create unhealthy connections we will store the consequences in our body.
Our truth slips away when we are unhappy with our self image. When we feel insecure in who we are, we are prone to make up stories to protect ourselves. Rather than express freely what we are feeling we restrict our expression with a lie. That may sound harsh and in the strict definition we may not be lying to others, but we have lied to ourselves. In the end as we go around the cycle, we end up BLAMING others. We blame our boss because we are too scared to stand up to him. We blame our co-worker because we don’t want them to see our weakness at not feeling adequate… maybe we react with sarcasm, perhaps gossip, or outright hate. Blame takes us further from our truth because we don’t see that it is OUR truth
we are compromising… we get sucked into other peoples truth, their dramas, and trying to make them wrong. We become more sensitive and the limiting emotions of resentment, anger, guilt become stronger so we feel more vulnerable, needing to control the situation with more complicated stories, getting caught up with more blame. How exhausting!
So how do we break these patterns, patterns we have probably been practicing since childhood. How do we make life simpler for ourselves? The first step is acceptance. In order to remove these limiting patterns, these obstacles from our path, we must assume responsibility for them. We must also be willing to feel the pain of all the stored emotions that we have decided no longer serve us. Once we have accepted all this on a mind, body, emotional level we can take responsibility for our stuff. We can begin to see our truth. Once we have acknowledged, felt and expressed these blocked emotions, stagnant energy in the body, we can detach ourselves from the situation. We now look at the bigger picture, the lessons we had to learn from all these experiences, in essence the spiritual version of the situation. So we are now able to reframe our story, seeing clearly what we need to change, are able to make better choices. Now we can decide on responses and feelings we would like to make to create better situations for ourselves.
Living your truth sets you free, because you never have to worry about the consequences of the stories you have made up or the things you should have said but didn’t. You are free from emotional disturbances that create continual loops of bad feelings in yourself and others. Living your truth gives you immunity from your own patterns of behavior that limit you and also from other peoples dramas – in a nutshell that is the power of TRUTH.
