The Importance of Being Honest, Spiritual Growth, Telling The Truth

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Spirituality March 18, 2012April 13, 2012honesty, personal responsibility, spiritual growth, truth 0 Comment

The Importance Of Being Honest

The importance of being honest cannot be over-stated. Being grateful is a very powerful spiritual growth attitude but wise people also know being honest is extremely powerful.

It is extraordinary how much we lie. Being honest and displaying honesty is something that we somehow hold as scary. We lie to others and to ourselves.

We don’t always set out and plan this but if you investigated and watched your-self you will see you hardly ever tell it like it is for you.

Why are you afraid to let others know what is there for you? Why is it scary to admit, even to yourself, the truth of your experience?

Here is a short video of Peter Ralston talking about the importance of being honest.

We hold it that some things are acceptable and some are not. We split the world into two sections and are OK about revealing an idea, emotion, belief or desire that we are fairly confident will be agreed with or acceptable.

However, when it comes to being honest about something that is in our experience that may bring shame or isolation, we quickly make that not OK.

All this to uphold the persona and image you mistakenly believe you are and most importantly keep that image loved or try to ensure you are loved.

You learned to withhold honesty and it carries on today. The importance of being honest is not obvious. What do you think that does to your sense of self and being OK knowing deep down that you have to lie?

Enlightenment Intensive

Charles Berner created the Enlightenment Intensive, which has been successful and popular since the 1960’s amongst people seeking a direct experience of their true nature.

His technique is a retreat, typically three days where the majority of waking hours are sat opposite another person, communicating to them the honest truth of what is there for you now in this moment.

It is a rare chance to communicate what is there for you, now, in this moment, arising in your awareness. This is powerful.

It is powerful because for one it is a safe and validating experience. The partner is not to give feedback, no nods or utterances or facial gestures, just plain listening and being present for the one speaking.

John Powell in his book Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am? says ‘Honesty about our emotions, understanding of the roles we adopt to defend the fragile ego, recognition of the games we play with each
other to avoid love – these are the first steps towards a new and richer life.’

The importance of being honest is because through honesty you become more integrated and accepting of yourself. Then, depending on your level of commitment and desire to know the truth, through contemplation
and meditation it can lead you to some profound realizations about the nature of being human.

John Powell again ‘I am afraid to tell you who I am because, if I do, you may not like me.’

Be honest primarily with yourself.

A powerful first step is to resolve to understand yourself and the roles, games and manipulations you employ to keep others liking you.

Even when you do these manipulations, do them with full impartial awareness. Watch yourself do them and just notice. Then at least you are realizing the importance of being honest with your-self.

Don’t put extra guilt and shame on top, just watch like a scientist observing the way your world works.

Bring ever-increasing awareness and honesty to your life and practice being honest.

It all starts with honesty, perhaps even before this is admitting responsibility for everything in your experience of life.

However, being honest and telling the truth as much as possible, no matter the discomfort or how it makes you temporarily feel, will start transforming your life rapidly. Then whenever you are not honest you will remember the importance of being honest.

Personal Responsibility For Your Life

admin Self-Help March 13, 2012April 14, 2012honesty, personal growth, personal responsibility 0 Comment

Personal
Responsibility For Your Life

Personal responsibility for your life and what you experience is critical.

It is one of life’s paradoxes that we think if we don’t take responsibility, and blame others instead, we will feel better or suffer less.

It certainly seems like the world happens on its own and affects you in random ways. Every reaction, emotion and feeling you experience is yours. Many people don’t realize that when you don’t like someone it is not what they are doing or who they are, it is all coming from you.

In a reaction to someone you don’t like it is you unconsciously deciding what should be different about him or her or the situation (but secretly you are reacting to that trait within yourself).

Remember we are not judging these reactions as right or wrong. This can take much work to watch and really be honest with yourself, but this is what it takes to have personal responsibility for your life. The reactions will still happen even when you know it is coming from within.

However, once you know and can own this fact, you are empowered to consciously stop doing anything that hurts you or doesn’t feel so good. Until such time as you let go of wanting the world, others or yourself to be different you will still have these reactions.

The first step in having personal responsibility for your life is to be conscious of what is happening. Imagine a time when your foot has ‘fallen asleep’ as we say. You know your foot is full of pins and needles because you are sitting on it. You understand the cause and the reaction. What if you were so unaware that you had not yet put the two together?

To blame it on outside forces as if you are a help-less victim is the opposite of taking personal responsibility for your life.

Chocolate Story

I recall a story told to me years ago when I was a teenager. It is a true story told to me to explain food allergies. Every Sunday morning a woman would wake up with a headache. This went on for years and of course she sought treatment from doctors and various therapies. Things got so bad and intolerable for her that she was ready to commit herself to a mental health institution. Luckily someone was aware enough to ask her what she ate or did differently Saturday evening.

Her husband had a little ritual whereby he would walk to the local store Saturday evening and purchase three things; the newspaper, some milk and a bar of chocolate. That evening they would share the chocolate bar. Of course being intolerant or allergic to chocolate she would be a mess by Sunday morning. Not surprisingly once she became aware of this the following Saturday she took personal responsibility for her life and consciously chose to not eat the chocolate. The pain didn’t come.

How does this relate to helping yourself or having a more peaceful life? Any reaction you have, any feeling or thought comes from you, end of story. It is caused by you and the outside world simply reflects an aspect of your inside world. The outside is a reflection of you. This includes all events and relationships and experiences.

Personal Example

Recently I have been in a situation twice (both within the same week which gives me a big clue as to what I am to learn about myself at that point in time) where I have done something for the benefit of others. Not surprisingly when the others haven’t reacted with total appreciation and showered me with specialness in the way I imagined, I have felt hurt. With the hurt comes resentment and a contraction away from these people.

However, thankfully I am aware enough to own that I completely and utterly created this situation all on my own. I take personal responsibility for my life and these people don’t owe me any feelings. The solution? See clearly that I created the whole thing, and then the hurt isn’t generated.

Through owning what I did I released attachment to those outcomes and no longer have hurt or resentment. I take personal responsibility for my life and what I alone experience.

If you are resenting someone have a look and see what the generator of the resentment is. In your mind have you sacrificed something for someone, then felt unappreciated and so now you resent them?

You either take 100% personal responsibility for your life or you are the victim. Whichever one you choose will determine the amount of suffering or peace you experience. Simply by having that attitude you will already be creating more peace in your life.

As Ken Wilber says; it’s like if you had a sore arm and then one day looked down and realized you were pinching your arm. So too if an area of your life is not working you can look at your thoughts, values, desires, self-image and see the way you create your emotional and feeling states.

To be the victim by definition means you hold it that the outside world happens on its own and affects you in random unprovoked ways. If this is what you hold to be true no wonder you feel fearful, scared, isolated, depressed, despairing and alone in a big world.

To take personal responsibility for your life, which includes material possessions and relationships as well as your emotions, is to immediately in that moment progress your growth and enjoyment of life. Being a victim causes you to suffer. Taking personal responsibility for your life still brings feelings but the feelings become feedback instead of suffering.

Developing Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness Exercises, Self-Development, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 17, 2012awareness, consciousness, personal responsibility 0 Comment

The Secret To All Growth Is Developing Self-Awareness

Developing self-awareness is the key to changing your life experience and overcoming poor self-esteem.

Developing-Self-Awareness Rocks Stacked Beach

Any spiritual or personal growth book worth reading will probably only make only two points important…

developing self-awareness
radical acceptance

The secret to having a life of inner peace and contentment and building your self-esteem is to accept and simply experience what is there for you right now. Once you have developed greater awareness you have more choices about how you will think about what you experience.

Why It Takes Some Courage

It takes some courage to surrender to what is really going on. Once you stop denying your experience and finally realize that your experience has richness, self-love and meaning, then you do not need anything outside of you to be OK such as material possessions, a partner or recognition.

Until you can see what is happening you cannot choose to change it. To be able to see it you need to be constantly developing self-awareness.

If your foot was numb you would need to be aware your foot was numb and be aware of why before you could consciously do something to change that experience. You would see that you are sitting on it and so now you can change that condition. So too it is with emotions, although more complex.

Similarly you need to see and acknowledge the way you are thinking about yourself and the world before you can see that the end result of your thinking might be an experience of anxiety.

You need to be able to see you are attached to something not happening before you can see that your attachment makes you fearful.

Increasing Understanding

Awareness is not a skill and it is not something you develop as such, it just is as it is but it gets covered up a lot of the time.

This is the difference between having your attention on what might happen (imagination) or what has happened (memory) and instead having your attention on ‘you’. Which part of ‘you’ is real and which
part is always changing or up for changing, and therefore not real?

There is always a part of you still and silent and observing. In times you are daydreaming or rehearsing a conversation in your head or replaying an incident the awareness of you disappears doesn’t it? Try it, play with different uses of your mind and see when ‘you’ disappear. Of course it doesn’t go anywhere but it just sort of gets forgotten.

Engage your peripheral vision for a few seconds while you stay aware that you are conscious. Now concentrate on an object or read a few words. Is one mode of vision easier for you than the other to remain conscious of you?

I was watching my nephew recently at eight months old waving his arms around when he had the sudden
realization that he was doing the waving through intention. He stopped and looked at his hand and moved the fingers and he was more intrigued than with any toy.

This is what I am talking about. Developing self-awareness that you are aware and conscious that you do things.

Meditation, Contemplation and Mindfulness

Developing Self Awareness Woman Yoga Meditation Ocean
And this leads us to meditation, contemplation and mindfulness.

As you go about your day in mindfulness; watching without judgment, anything you do which is destructive, painful or unnecessary for your well-being will have a greater chance of simply dropping away. Meditation helps bring this impartial awareness and watcher to the foreground and this is transformative all by itself. It really is all that there is to do fundamentally. Become self
aware, then accept what you find.

Developing self-awareness and accepting everything you are aware of now is powerful and is a permanent way to increase poor self-esteem.

Creating

admin Self-Help, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 17, 2012law of attraction, manifestation, personal responsibility 0 Comment

Creating

You May As Well Choose

Creating is something that it ordinarily seems like we choose to do every now and then. You can choose what you desire but the act itself, as in the verb, is not something chosen.

What does this mean?

You could say you chose to create a dress or a meal or a painting or a song or a story. So, first there was just you and then sometime later the song existed in physical reality. I want you to broaden your awareness and first of all see that the process described above used faculties and tools that you did not choose.

By that I mean you did not choose or develop the ability to think, visualize or plan. These qualities are there by default available for you. You used these abilities to achieve what you set out to. The ability was not attributable to something you chose, but the resultant creation is. These are quite subtle differences and are ordinarily not noticed as you go about your day doing supposedly important stuff.

The reason it is ‘important’ is when you realize you are able to design, plan and live the life you choose then it will seem as if the whole world has changed. To know who you are and to experience self love and wonder you need to begin watching mindfully just how things happen for you.

You need to watch and observe impartially the truth of you. That which is sitting on the chair reading this is more than enough to keep you entertained, in love and interested with life. You are like a Swiss Army Knife, Transformer and Rubikâ€™s cube all rolled into one.

Inside Out or Outside In?

Many people, in fact the majority of the world, look outwards and have their attention on the physical reality external to them. They mistakenly think that is where life happens. The life that happens out there is the physically created version of the life in there.

What you believe and think will be projected out there for you to observe and perceive. Some people, including myself at times, forget this and get caught up in the happenings out there and say ‘it shouldn’t be like that’. We look for some way of manipulating those external events into a different set of circumstances.

Then, I not only remember, but stop and notice in awe at just what is happening as life. What is it within my desires, choices, ideas or denials is manifesting this moment as I know it? If I experience somebody as having a negative quality I look within to my own actions and ideas of who I am so that I love that same quality.

When this is done I feel an energy change in my chest and I know that I won’t experience that same negative emotion ever again. For example I experienced somebody recently as not interested in what others want. As I witnessed this I felt myself wanting to speak up and say to this person ‘you shouldn’t be like that’.

However, once the situation passed and I was alone, I looked within and owned that same quality by recalling two memories of my life when I did exactly the same thing.

I let it be OK that I too did this. I felt the shift. From that moment on I was creating a different world for me to experience.

So do you see how much power you really do have over your life experience? The other type of creating is to choose what you wish to bring into physical reality.

By getting clear in your mind what you want and then adjusting your actions and attitudes you will be carried along to create that which you chose, or at least what is right for your authentic, spiritual self.

An analogy might be a bus. You know the bus will take you to your destination; you don’t have to worry about the bus you just plan where you wish to go. You simply let the bus take you. The infinite intelligence, divine, God, call it what you will, is the process whereby you create. In this analogy the bus is your co-creator.

The creation process happens outside of your responsibility. This means you can let go and concentrate on your part in the creation by having intention and surrendering. You don’t even need to think ‘how’, just think ‘what’ and let the how show up.