Day 166: Be Brutally Honest With Me - Part 1

"CONSUMED By The Idea of Yourself" - Charcoal and Chalk Pastel on Paper, 11x14inch, by Andrew Gable

Recently, a friend asked me to be ‘more honest’ with them than I’d ‘ever been before’ regarding my recollection of details of a past event that they were sorting through. I agreed to this and gave my friend all of the information that I could remember in relation to the event. I assumed that the truth would assist my friend to sort out, understand, and work on solutions for problems that emerged from the past event – this was not the case though. My friend, instead became depressed, would not talk with me the next day, became angry with me, and ultimately decided to end the friendship. I experienced shock for several days because it did not go the way I thought it would go because in mind, I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that honesty brings people closer together, that honesty is the best policy, and that good people are honest and speak the truth no matter what the consequences are because honest truth will save you … it will set you free. So, here again, I automatically act on the belief system that I have integrated into and as me. Someone asks for honesty, I answer them honestly. I do not question it – I just go right into it! And I do this again and again and again even though my being honest NEVER produces the positive result that I imagine.

SELF-FORGIVENESS

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to agree to be brutally honest with a friend when I was aware that their mental state was unstable as indicated by their emotional, pleading, and desperate tone of voice and expression with words that indicated depression on the phone. I believed that if I gave my friend what they were asking for – a brutally honest account of events and personal experiences – that this would assist them to stabilize. Instead of actually assisting and supporting my friend by asking questions, hearing them, allowing myself to fully understand the situation, directing the points to discussion and within this, getting them to a place where they are clear and stable, I automatically responded to a friend’s request without considering how the outcome of my brutal honesty would actually result.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that the honest truth would assist a friend to sort out, understand, and work on solution or problems – in my mind I saw us looking at the information in a practical way, sorting through it together, getting to really understanding why this particular event occurred in the first place, and share perspectives on possible solutions. Because I was running the scenario quickly through my mind and seeing only how everything would work out and be a ‘bonding experience’, I did not consider the reality of a friend in that moment who required my attention, assistance, and support with hearing, understanding, and directing from a point of what’s best for the friend rather than what I show myself is going to work out for ME in my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience shock because a situation that I had worked out in my mind according to my beliefs about honesty, does not actually work in physical reality. Instead of seeing what I do, seeing the consequences, writing out my beliefs that I participate in, and self-correcting myself, I go into my mind to try to figure out ‘what am I doing or did wrong’ and ‘why am I not good enough’ as this distracts me from me showing myself that my beliefs are not real at all - my beliefs are blown to pieces in one moment – and I do not want to face the fact that what I believe about honesty is a lie.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that honesty brings people closer together, that honesty is the best policy, that good people are honest, and that good people speak the truth no matter what the consequences are because the God’s Honest Truth will save you and set you free. Regardless of the fact that I see over and over and over again that honesty and being honest is/does none of these things, I believe it – I want to believe it. I want to believe it because I experience a positive feeling of hope for myself and my fellow human beings. I want to give honesty this power and authority because if I do and if it works out then we’re all okay! I mean, that’s the agreement right? If we’re honest then there won’t be so many consequences if any at all. WRONG. And if I had allowed myself to see, remember, and be aware instead of keeping myself in this belief bubble about honesty, I would have seen that these beliefs about honesty are some of the biggest lies I’ve told myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to automatically act on the belief system that I have connected to Honesty – I do not slow down and go through the steps of asking myself questions nor do I direct myself in the best way – nope, I just go for it! If someone outside of me asks me for honesty, I tell them as much detail as I can remember which is often broken up so I go backwards and forwards on the timeline of events – which, as I look at it here is more like messy mind purging and less like clear communication of events. So, I do this mind-purge in addition to not directing a discussion to investigating and practicality – and I’ve never allowed myself to look at my behavior and changed it, no, I expect the person whom I’m in communication with to ‘take it as it is’ and ‘deal with it’. And meanwhile, my body is buzzing, I’m shaking, my chest is tight and my solar-plexus is in knots with fears and reactions because I’m not taking responsibility for myself, not respecting myself, and not being honest with myself.

Day 125: The Day I Fell - Self Forgiveness

Traumatic Event 2

Day 124: The Day I Fell
Here, I am writing Day 125: The Day I Fell - Self-Forgiveness

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist, push, and challenge authority regardless of the fact that I was shown time-and-time again that resisting, pushing, and challenging authority leads to negative consequences that could compromise my physical and mental well-being. I did not allow myself to consider nor see that there are times to speak and times to be silent - instead of practicing silence, I reacted to the events and situations because I saw it as a personal, unjust attack.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that to stand up for oneself means that one must fight back - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to connect/define 'standing up' to/as 'fighting back' where my expression of standing up is fueled by fear, emotions, conflict, and anger.  I did not consider stopping, stepping back, and investigating a solution/redefinition of standing up because I've never allowed myself to be stable and clear of reactions so that I could redefine this for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make events and situations 'about me' - where it is always 'about me', 'what I'm going through', 'what's going on in my world' and 'what's being done to me' - I do not allow myself consider what may be going on within and as another outside of myself that would have created them to be as they are.  I see others' existences as though they are/have been created FOR me and for MY world so have no value/definition/expectation other than what I assign/connect to them.  The consequences of this separation are: I do not see that I need to change, I do not consider redefining who/what/how I am, and I attempt to force others to change to fit into my definitions.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see:  When and as I saw that fighting did not work, that I went to the opposite polarity and sacrificed myself.  Additionally, I have not been self-honest about my decision to give in/fall because all-along, in my mind, my backchat was nasty and the expression of myself in this way was the ultimate form of spite as in my mind I was saying, "Go ahead.  You're only going to prove that I'm right and you're wrong - YOU'RE the bad person - not me."  Even as I played The Helpless Victim, I continued to challenge and test authority and continued to compromise myself and the one life that I have been given.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience a calm, pleasure when, in one moment, it stopped and I saw a glimpse of shame and compassion.  Finally - I won and saw myself as better than another which is what I was looking for all along. As I remember it, from this point, I wanted to maintain this experience of myself so I was careful to be Good and show that I could be Trusted.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see and be honest with myself that this is not The Day I Fell - no.  In fact, I have never stood.  So, how could I have fallen if I have never stood?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that anyone outside of myself created me to be the way that I am.  In relation to this Traumatic Event, where I blame someone outside of myself for making me a 'skilled manipulator', I am in-fact, not taking responsibility for my decision to evolve myself in this way as I had been looking for a way to gain an advantage, I saw the opportunity, I took it, and I integrated it into an as myself because it served my self-interest, empowered me over another, and eased my fear of loss/survival.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to be self-honest that: Who I am within this event and the subsequent events that lead to another being removed from my life is Guilty.  I experience Guilt because my actions had a direct effect on a life that I cared for - the truth is, this person cared for me, taught me skills, allowed me to do things that most others did not get to do, and invested their time in me - they were essentially doing what they had been taught was best and were functioning from the same fears and reactions as myself.   I have carried this Guilt with me since the separation but never allowed myself to be shamed and instead, allowed my Ego to stand for me, in the way, and to keep my separated from myself so that I do not change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to flee from the guilt of being a catalyst that damaged anothers life - instead of facing guilt and looking at why I am judging myself so harshly, I run away from it so that it will continue to play over-and-over-and-over within and as me.  If I had stopped running, investigated myself, and allowed myself to be shamed for my self-dishonesty, I would have changed and from here, could have prevented myself from repeating/refining manipulation, guilt, self-punishment, polarity, and Ego separation which would have assisted me in not accumulating this extensive amount physical consequence, energy accumulation and stress.