We Find These Truths to Be Self-Honesty
Welcome to Your Love Breakthrough! Get Real. Love.
In this edition: Self-Honesty Liberates
Perspective – Fishing Around in Your Dark Side
Practical Tactics – Catch What's Lurking
"Did I Chop Down My Father's Favorite Cherry Tree?"
Perspective – Fishing Around in Your Dark Side
We enjoy "fishing" in the waters of our best self... catch a beautiful "trout", give it to someone we want to impress, watch them marvel at what lovely, fresh things we give them out of our awesomeness.
In other words... we often show only our "good" side. We want to genuinely contribute to others. We want their favor and to connect with them--to care for them, and to care for ourselves. Sometimes, it's also a hair-trigger defense mechanism we're unaware of--nothing wrong with that.
Why don't you go fishing in your murky depths, though? Because... July. (That was a dad joke, in case it wasn't apparent.)
When our Jekylls repress our Hydes, our Hydes heckle our Jekylls... and we get our hides into deep, dark water.
Then you've got bigger fish to fry. And they're non-kosher Mudskippers (swimming in your muck).
If you're not following this mixed metaphor, read on:
We all have a dark side that we may label as "wrong" or "bad". Ignoring it or burying it only gives it undue power, it will protest until you attend to it. It's a valid and even valuable part of you. Once it's heard and in dialogue with your indisputable "good" side, you integrate it and become more whole.
That's the real meaning of wholesome.
Case in point: I was once helping a lovely woman prepare her online dating profile, and I advised that her headshot photo seemed grainy and distant. She said she just didn't take many pictures of herself. But when I suggested we do a fun photoshoot, she blurted that she had gained weight, and didn't want to meet someone until she got her weight down and other things in her life "together."
She caught the fish swimming in her personal bog.
Practical Tactics– Catch What's Lurking
The "lure" that you need first is trust; when the you're going to come clean with yourself, you need to believe that there is a solution, a way forward, or something positive that comes out of whatever negative trait you haven't wanted to face or own.
Identify traits you want to change, ignore, or eradicate.
Ask what you're afraid of in exposing this "flaw": Punishment? Rejection? Humiliation?
Admit (to yourself) that they are presently true about yourself. Sit with that.
Write down: why they're bad. Are they definitely bad? What positive or negative consequences could come from pulling this "fish" out of your dark waters and washing it out in the light? How might you manage that around others/publicly?
Sometimes what's lurking is unacceptance itself of what's really there. Being honest with yourself liberates you and could revolutionize your current or future partnership. (A nod to July 4th, you know.)
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