FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 8: “Start telling the truth now and never stop. Begin by telling the truth to yourself about yourself. Then tell the truth to yourself about someone else. Then tell the truth about yourself to another. Then tell the truth about another to that other. Finally, tell the truth to everyone about everything. These are the 5 levels of truth telling. This is the five-fold path to freedom.” ― Neale Donald Walsch
I have always done this. Today I only tell the truth to another person if I am working with them or engaged in something that requires deep truth. This is the path to freedom. I don’t impose my views or opinions on those who are not in a position to want them.
But I don’t withhold it either. The truth about myself is all I deal with most of the time. I don’t varnish it or color it to make it more attractive or palatable. It is my story, to the best of my ability. I want to tell it, because that has freed me every day, more and more, since I came across this way of life. I get to hear when I am playing a victim, or blaming others, or blaming life, or being a martyr or a hypocrite. I have been all of these…sometimes A LOT of them, sometimes all at once….yikes!
I want the truth to be freeing for me and for you. It can be, if I am willing to shift it into another kind of story. I am always willing, so far. Step 9 requires that I tell you the truth about who and what I have been, what I have done…period. Not how I felt or what I believed or what story I made up to justify being an asshole. No one needs to hear this crap. Nor do they need to hear the BS I can come up with about how THEY started it…hahaha. Like being a damned child and hitting your sister or brother and then getting in trouble and saying…”they started it…” Geez, grow the hell up.
My recovery means that I do NOT have permission from ANY spiritual resource, to retaliate, no matter WHAT someone does. Not my business, not my job! I DO have a responsibility to remain in principle and remove myself from that scene. THAT is all. Most of us want to stick around and punish the other person. NOT my job, NOT my business.
My only business here is to keep my ass out of trouble and clean my side of the street. Yours is YOUR job and YOUR business. I love how simple this is, really.