HONESTY MONTH: DAY 16: “We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone.” ― Roy Bennett
I have never been one to sit in my comfort zone. Life has propelled me into situations that I needed to be in to take big risks.
I did not always want to be a hitch-hiker when I was young. It was my friends’ idea, and I did it. Then it became a means to an end. Before I knew it, I had travelled many, many miles and seen amazing things and met wonderful people. It was not my idea. I was afraid, but did it anyway.
I am so grateful for all the times when I did something, no matter what story I had about it. There is nothing to gain in telling myself stories. Anything I have ever done that has had benefits has also had a lot of risk involved.
And I am always taken out of my comfort zone. Even if my comfort zone is painful, which it often becomes. I have stayed in relationships past comfort, for fear of being without the relationship. I have stayed in jobs way past comfort. And was only willing to change when the fear of change was less than the pain of staying the same. That is a saying an old friend used to have that I never forgot. Too true.
Honesty is not that painful. Only my resistance to life is painful. That resistance is driven by my fear, not by anything having to do with honesty.
The truth has never hurt anything but my ego. My ego has devastated my life on so many occasions, it is surprising to me that so many of us still travel under that umbrella.
If I want to be happy, joyous and free, I have to let go of EVERYTHING I have ever known or loved or cared about or wanted in order to step out into a new paradigm. It does not mean I will lose any or all of it, just that I have to let go. It may be that some (or all) of it will be removed from me, hundreds of times, but it will open space for what is supposed to be there now.
My experience is that I cannot truly hold on to anything against the Will of the Universal Power anyway. I have tried, and it has been a brutal process for me to get surrendered to that Will, even when I was not in agreement or compliance. Not my choice.
It is better, far better, to let it all be. Then I get to walk away when the time is right, rather than having a grip that requires breaking my arms to get me off of something I think I must have or must hold on to. It is not pretty.
I will risk being foolish, looking like an idiot, asking too many questions, and being stupid to go where I am headed. I will risk being wrong, a million times over, rather than knowing everything (which I never have and never will!) or being too arrogant or fearful to risk. I have to be honest with who I am, what I am, and what I am NOT. That is all.
Dolphin Hug 