self honesty

[karen]

For years on my search I had known - at least intellectually - that being honest with oneself was needed. But there was layer upon layer of deception that had to be eroded away until I could even admit to myself that I had been lying to myself to begin with.

Tangentially, I know that I made a terrible deal with myself when I was very young - that I could store as much garbage in my consciousness as needed so long as I hid it from everyone else. As long as "they" didn't know I was a freak, it was acceptable that I thought I was. Putting my attention to this "deal with the devil", seemed to help erode the complex web of denial and deception I was living with intimately.

Then I stopped playing games. That was right about when I started participating in this site - when I started getting honest with myself.

[karen]

Example:

I never felt like I fit in. And in 7th grade I tried to stop fitting in. But I only went from trying to fit into the main-stream to trying to fit into the fringe. But even there I didn't fit in.

And when I became an adult, and stopped doing drugs, I had no reason to hang around my few drug friends. So I just stayed at home and watched TV, and fantasized.

When I turned 21, I started drinking every day when I had money which wasn't often since I didn't work much.

And all this time, I told myself how it didn't matter. It didn't matter that I didn't fit in - maybe if I told myself this enough, I'd believe it.

But only recently - at 40 years of age could I admit to myself that I wanted to fit in. That it hurt that I've been rejected. That I hurt myself by pretending it didn't matter and isolating myself. I think LM's talk of resistance has helped me admit this.

It's been a rhino in my living room that I refused to acknowledge. but not any more. I now will face it to myself and take whatever comes no matter what.

No more bull$hit.

[lightmystic]

AH! Beautiful! This is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about.....It's can be amazingly powerful and transformative to notice this kind of intense stuff.....