HONESTY MONTH: DAY 5: “Honesty was a tough customer… Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn’t easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn’t tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over. ” ― Ann Brashares
I have found that this is very true. If I am dishonest in one area of my life, it is a nagging thing that won’t go to sleep. I once believed I could have compartments where I could stash some of my stories, just in case I needed them for something.
Inventories (I have done SO many!) are a great way to reveal the secrets and weed out the lies I have consistently told myself over a lifetime of seeing life through the lens of extreme self-centeredness. I do not want to see any other side of things until it is painful to hang on.
We talk about being suicidal around here. The actual act is not a big
surprise, when we have been excavating all sense of honor and integrity over a
lifetime of hanging on to stories that are just not true, but serve only us. We
are deceitful and determined to destroy everything good and fine in our lives,
all the while blaming everyone else.
We are basically undermining any success we may have, while spouting some kind
of bullshit about fear of success and fear of failure. Bullshit!
If there is any work to be done, we are waiting for others to do it. We want them to make all the changes to accommodate the life we are looking for. We want them to hand it all to us, all the time. The honesty we get in Step 4 gives us a clear picture of what entitled brats we truly are. If that is not the picture you got, keep writing. There is something missing.
We blame mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles; actually anyone and everyone we ever knew for not doing the right shit for us or not giving us the right shit. Then we go about acting like complete jerks and waiting for the world to “make it up to us.” Hahaha!
I love the process of getting to the place where we get this. When we do, it is only possible to laugh like hell at the stories we have told ourselves and the world for so long.
Then we are free. We can begin to tell the stories again, but they will not work. A little bit of insight is deadly. Once we know we are the problem, we cannot unknow it. Then we have to begin to claim our shit and move through it into a new way of seeing life and living life. I love that part!
Dolphin Hug 