It’s been one year since Share the Spiritual began, and I want to thank each of you for reading and sharing here. I’m grateful for your inspiring voices that bring such joy to this endeavor. I’m excited to be working on a book about embracing the sublime nature of ourselves and our true reality.
This week, I’d like to talk about living in complete truthfulness, something counter to how we’ve been raised in a competitive society. I’d like to share a challenge that I am also personally taking on. The challenge is this – try to be completely honest with yourself about everything, at every moment that you’re presented with.
If you don’t already do so, pay attention to situations and yourself, and recognize how you have been trained to operate. Notice the stories and excuses that might surface and begin to control you. Choose instead to observe the truth from a place of neutrality, without judgment. Then embrace that truth with love.
Keep in mind that the purest truth is not any kind of failure. It is completely free of limiting definitions. We are often conditioned to make ourselves look different than we are at heart, but this is just learned behavior for the ego. It is never who we are. You are in truth a magnificent soul who is growing yet brighter through your human experience.
The goal of the honesty challenge is to get to a more harmonious existence without being ruled by expectations and excuses. We humans tend to take on attachments that bring us much suffering, and beneath these are basic needs that haven’t been met. Find out what needs you have that are going unfulfilled.
It’s so easy in life to feel powerless and unheard, but the number one person who is not hearing you is you. Hear yourself, and assert your ability to fulfill your own needs.
The second part of this challenge is to be completely honest with others. Start by being honest with yourself about how you feel, and then operate from this truth with those around you. Practice transparency in your relationships with thoughtfulness and love. Get to a place where appearances melt away and your relationships become authentic with rich exchanges. They reflect the truth of what it means to be a whole and beautiful human being.
Those who don’t understand your truth have their own needs that aren’t being met. No hurt feelings are necessary. And remember, relationships evolve along with us, becoming deeper or sometimes ending. Then life greets us with entirely new friendships.
Being honest is about making choices with the kindness of your soul rather than the greed of your ego. It means living in a world that is open and light, that champions love.
Being honest can be quite a challenge for the human experience, but just by trying, we are given tremendous growth. I am grateful to each of you who are living in authenticity and are showing me that I too can remove my clouded conditioning. I can allow my true self to shine.
Share the Spiritual 
Congratulations on your one year anniversary Suzy. Although I found you much more recently than that I have come to very much appreciate your voice. Your caring and compassion come through in your writing. I am glad you are here.
To me, being honest with oneself is more difficult than being honest with others. This is a tough challenge you have throw out. It is good that you do so.
Thank you Hawk! I’m grateful to know you here. Your writing on your blog speaks to my journey in uncanny ways.
Interesting observation you have about honesty. Keep sharing and teaching me!
James Barrett would like to share his thoughts on honesty:
To be one hundred percent honest with all of your being is alien to the way the human ego works. Speaking words that are truthful is easy. Living those words is sometimes a challenge. The challenge is how to be honest in all that you say and do, and to do it in a loving way. If I speak the truth about one thing or another and it hurts a person, is being truthful the loving thing to do? The challenge here is to put your thoughts into loving and caring words without hurting the other human-being. I find that I cannot always do that. Help me to find a way, that is my prayer.
I am finding the honesty piece in my life to be invaluable. I have been deeply hurt by the sometimes brutal honesty of other people. In “Think & Grow Rich” I read this morning, that the single most debilitating symptom of lack of persistence and success is FEAR OF CRITICISM. When I read that I understood how I constructed my whole life to avoid criticism. I have then, until now, given away my power to live my life fully to avoid criticism. This is so related to personal honesty for me, that even in the most loving relationships, I will no longer give in to the criticism of others if it means that I get to live my fullest life. That doesn’t mean I won’t have my feelings hurt, and when I do, I get to look at which part of me is not yet healed (because if there is no wound, the words that might hurt won’t resonate). Honesty is like truth and integrity for me. “At first it will make you mad, and then it will set you free.” And that’s what I want.
Wow, while reading your amazing comment, I realize that I have done the same thing. I sometimes hide so that I won’t get hurt – so that my own pain won’t be triggered again.
In all honesty ;) when I wrote this piece, I thought of you, Francoise, because you truly live in authenticity. I hope you know how much you inspire me.