Honesty is one of man kind’s most cherished virtues. But what is honesty?
Honesty is the process of recognizing, accepting and expressing our authentic, true self.
And this process starts with you. Nothing is more important than being honest with your self. All too often, we fall into the trap of deceiving ourselves with rationalization. The culprit which hides behind the skirts of dishonesty is fear. Until we face those fears, our motivations for being dishonest remain. We loose our integrity. We begin to lie, we begin to rationalize, we begin to deceive others, and we begin to act on the impulses of envy, greed and manipulation. We may think we are getting away with it because we are not getting caught in the act by others, but we are getting caught every single time by ourselves. And we experience the internal consequences every time. Our own minds know when we are not acting with integrity. And the turmoil of not living in alignment with our true authentic self ensures that we can not have inner peace.
All dishonesty is a form of self sabotage in the long run. By not building our lives around a skeleton of integrity, we cut our self off from who we really are and the result is that our spirit fades. We loose our self. And consequently, because we loose our self, we begin to loose others. We drown in the consequences of abandoning our true self. We loose our self respect and our world falls at our feet.
If we desire to live a life which we enjoy, if we desire to live the life that we intended to live by coming here in the first place, we need to learn how to express who it is that we truly are in every evolving moment. We must first lie to our selves before we can lie to others, because of this we need to be brave enough to ask ourselves what we are so afraid will happen if we are 100% honest with ourselves and others. The answer may be that we are afraid that if we are completely honest, we will not be good enough or that other people will stop loving us. Discovering what fear is behind the dishonesty in our lives is a priceless opportunity. It is a priceless opportunity because once we are able to focus on diminishing those fears and begin to choose new beliefs; we will be walking hand in hand with our own joy. We will be living with integrity which is a platform of self solidity which allows our life to flourish on top of it.
Honesty never feels bad. What feel bad are the conclusions we draw about (and judgments we cast on) our honesty. For example, it is honest to say “I have not always acted honestly in the past”. The reason we may feel negative about saying that isn’t because of that truth in and of it’s self. It is because of the conclusion we may be drawing about that truth such as “bad people are dishonest so I must be a bad person”. Our true, authentic selves never judge us negatively. So if we ever find ourselves telling the truth about something and feeling bad about doing so, it is because of our own judgments and fears that we feel bad and not because of honesty. Honesty is not an enemy; instead, it is a tool which will set you free.
Those of us who are aware that our minds create our reality, often find ourselves at an impasse when it comes to honesty. On one hand it is true that whatever you focus on…you get more of and that if you want to live a different life, you have to tell a different story relative to your life. On the other hand, it is true that dishonesty feels terrible and that those of us who utilize the power of thought sometimes run away from truth and gloss over it (which is resistance) because we are struggling so hard to think positively. It is because of this that we must learn first that none of us upon this planet came here with the intention of lying to ourselves. We came here to express our authentic selves. Because of this, we need to first release the resistance to where we are by saying “I am where I am”. Where we are is just where we are. It is a temporary place which can always change and will change the minute we choose something new. From there, we need to let the awareness of where we are and our true selves show us where we would rather be. We need to let ourselves own up to what is authentic to ourselves and our desires and then we need to line up with those desires. An example of how to stay in line with integrity and honesty while simultaneously remaining in a positive vibration (which creates positive manifestation in your life) is… “I have not always acted honestly in the past, this causes me to know that I desire to act honestly now and in the future because integrity feels good and I’m often making choices in my life with integrity such as_________”.
Used properly, honesty should not be something which we use to invoke guilt in ourselves. It is not something which is meant to showcase how far we aren’t and what we lack. Honesty is meant to be a compass which keeps us in line with the North Star with such accuracy that we are never lost. The North Star which it keeps us in line with is ourselves. Are you being honest with yourself?