Honesty
Honesty as a foundation. Any issues with the foundation can harm the house, making it unsafe to live inside of. A strong and sturdy foundation is key to a long-lasting, dependable home.
Being Honest with Ourselves
For many of us we, we often struggle to know ourselves well enough. This is because to a large extent we have been conditioned to lie to ourselves, confused by the infiltration of 'you should be' or 'this is what everyone wants', truly knowing oneself can often be difficult.
Are the motivations we pursue the genuine logic behind our actions? Or are they self-deceptions, elaborately constructed to help us pursue different goals while you can honestly claim to be pursuing something else?
Often we might find ourselves unconsciously lying to create a favourable impression of ourselves, to both ourselves and others.
Here's a little anecdote
You, as a sophisticated, cultured individual can readily tell the difference between a bottle which costs $100 and $10. The price may be higher, but with it, comes higher quality. Except in random, blinded taste tests, many so-called wine experts couldn’t even tell the difference between red wine and white wine. Maybe a more cynical story is that your love of fine wine is an elaborate self-deception. The intrinsic qualities of the wine aren’t what make it taste good, but the fact that it is rare and expensive. Your brain fakes discernment on flavour, when it really cares about boosting the image that you are cultured and sophisticated
Being Honest with Others
Shame says: "Is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, means I won't be worthy of connection?” Fear says: "If I am honest with my friend, my lover, will I be able to handle the repercussions that come from their feelings as a consequence of my honesty?"
We lie to protect ourselves from the pain and repercussions we’ll experience from other peoples feelings or even our own self-judgment.
Which is why it's important to slow down and feel these feelings. Take responsibility for our experiences, and create the right context to have these conversations.
Think about it
“We are wired for connection. As infants out need for connection is about survival. Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to feel accepted and to believe that we belong and are valued for who we are” - Brene Brown
You see, we can have all the right structures, have a state of the art co-working space with an oceans front, but if we struggle to truly reveal and show who we are, allow ourselves to truly be seen in all our most vulnerable and imperfect aspects.
We will struggle to connect, and share intimacy with each other.
Intimacy is important because it creates a sense of belonging, and that sense of belonging is key to living in community. Without it, we lack genuine love. A culture of belonging creates a blanket of safety to turn up as who we really are, regardless of the messiness that sometimes comes with it. Able to undress from the masks of needing to 'be something' we can lean in to who we really are, freeing us from all the guards we have in place that make it more challenging to feel, see, connect and listen to one another. When we feel loved regardless of what we do, how, who, what we are, it becomes less frightening to create space for change, because where there is love, there is tolerance, real tolerance.
If there is love, there is a willingness to understand each other not focus on what is right or wrong, or worse who is right or wrong.
Hearing is listening to what is said, listening is hearing what isn’t said
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