One Way to Be True to You

Self reflection is good for the soul. It reveals more of your true, Sacred Self. While it’s easy to say that you want be true to you, in reality, what does that entail?

Being true to yourself is hard work. It’s about asking some difficult questions. Being true to you can be confronting. If you want to be true to your Sacred Self, you will need to remove the debris that covers it up.

You can do this by reflecting on the situations where you’ve not been honest with yourself and others. Without mincing words, you need to examine the instances where you’ve lied, cheated and stolen. And consider the people affected by it.

Like I said, it’s confronting, so don’t rule out obtaining professional assistance. But be prepared to experience something anywhere between an ah-ha moment to a profound epiphany. And if you’re not prepared to have your personal agency levelled up a notch or two as a result then, as the mystics would say, you may as well go back to sleep.

Jeremy Sutton, Ph.d in his article, Naikan Therapy and How to Apply the Art of Self Reflection offers the following to examine your transgressions.

Reflect on lying by identifying:

1. what you’ve told others that was not truthful.
2. the people affected, and the instances where, you broke a promise or didn’t fulfil a commitment.
3. the ways you’ve behaved that have caused others not to trust you. Who are those people?
4. who was affected and the instances where you’ve betrayed, misled and deceived others.
5. the people and instances where you’ve sold or exchanged something defective or you were not honest about it.
6. the people affected and the instances where you omitted certain facts or withheld the whole truth, or told a white lie.
7. who was involved and when you acted in a way that led others not to trust you financially, sexually or creatively.

Reflect on stealing by identifying:

1. the instances, and who was affected, where you listened in on things you were not meant to hear.
2. the instances, and the people impacted, where you’ve seen things that were not meant for your eyes.
3. the instances, and people involved, where you took things that did not belong to you.
4. the instances where you’ve stolen from others. Recall how you’ve stolen their time, energy, space, money, ideas or possessions.

The thing about being truthful is that there are no half measures. You’re either telling the whole truth, or it’s a lie. There is no such thing as a white lie. It’s still a lie no matter which way you try to colour it. You are either being honest or dishonest. You’ve either stolen or not stolen. The truth is not available in unlimited shades of grey.

Everyone is guilty of lying and stealing. Every Sacred Self lives behind a carefully curated mask. Behind every angel is a demon lurking in the shadows. The same applies in reverse. There’s an angel on the shoulder of every one of your demons.

Self reflecting on lying and stealing allows you to gain something positive from a transgression. Your task now is to identify what that is, so you remove the debris, clear your conscience and keep working on being true to your Sacred Self.

Reference

Sutton, J Self reflection on lying and stealing, 3 February 2021, Positive Psychology, <www.positive.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Self-Reflection-on-Lying-and-Stealing.pdf>