Possibly last one on honesty. At least for this round. Thinking and exploring this notion keeps on giving. Yesterday, once again I became confronted with an unintended underlying current of my actions. At first I thought that I had one motivation, but after it was interpreted back to me, I realised that actually I played a manipulative game trying to convince another person in my good intentions. It is truly surprising to me that so many things are inaccessible to my awareness. I never thought of it this way and since recently the whole Pandora box opened up to me. As a side effect of this opening is the fact that I started to doubt myself more than usually. I feel I get into the space where I need to double-check myself multiple times to actually get to the bottom of my actions. And while doing so, I notice that very often I bump into the wall of not-knowing how to get further. It annoys and unsettles me big time. Honestly, it is one of the most challenging practices I ever did. Trying to get to my own honest truth. All the other practices seem merely preparation for this activity. Without shadow work, relation practices, meditation, focusing, breathing, etc., there are no tools to navigate our inner space and detect all the bullshit. Now I finally get it.
The main motivation behind this rather unpleasant exercise is to be able to be trustworthy to other people. I realised that if I can’t trust myself and have clear understanding of my actions I can’t be trusted by others. How would you trust someone, if the other person is not honest and not reliable to herself. Imagine we have to undergo an adventure with someone who is not sure about how she will react in a new situation. I find it quite unsettling realisation as I know for myself that I can never be sure about my behaviour under certain conditions. How do I then engage with others and how do I manage their expectations in a way that they are prepared for me possibly being unreliable. Demarcating our own uncertainties is a very useful skill to have, I believe, it is even more useful than to know what we are certain about. Building understanding towards areas we can’t be trusted in can help to minimise the amount of distortion we might bring in the shared informational network. Responsibility for the shared space is very important, it is on my mind constantly these days. At the moment I have to say that I am more on the insecure, wobbly side of things. Being overly aware about things I say. I believe the cause of it is the novelty of this realisation. I would definitely hope for some relaxed flow to take over. But for now I feel there are too many things I can’t be trusted in. Even simple examples like a question about whether I am hungry? 80% of the cases I will say no even without thinking about it. So why is this answer there? Why am I being dishonest in my answer? Perhaps, it is related to the fact that eating is somehow related to indulgence, or my answer coming out of the place of rejection and desire to show independence, or perhaps I am concerned about my looks, having a programmed ideal in my head. I don’t know what the reason is, but each of them have a particular consequences on my decision making. And in each of them I am unreliable in a specific way. Knowing what is being my response and being honest to myself about it would make it more responsible towards others.
Keeping others in mind adds to the anxiety, being good for the surrounding while navigating uncertainty is an uneasy task to do, can get real stressful. Important to keep in mind that it is never about being perfect but being a little better.