Tess what do you think of my hair? Honestly?
My heart sang with the honest sharing in this Monday’s post; ‘How I got to Honesty‘. YOU shine!
It sang to me because you too felt the need to be honest with yourself first and in particular with your feelings.
Chris Edgar gave a fine example of honesty by paying attention to what he is actually feeling;
the first and biggest step toward honesty for me has been actually paying attention to what I’m feeling, rather than what I’m “supposed” to feel in a given situation
He went on to say that feeling angry when being cut off while driving is a learned, ’supposed to have’ feeling, especially for males. Chris’ honesty had him realize that he did not feel anger and I’ll agree; not feeling angry does not take away maleness and it sure is time we all get that! Go Chris go.
Honest living restores beauty in our lives AND in nature.
My daughters like clothes shopping with me; they feel safe because I am honest. I used to cringe every time they said that; most of my life I could hardly ever be called honest and I felt that my dishonesty had made me more treacherous than safe.
Dishonesty is not completely a personal flaw, it is a fully accepted practice in today’s world. Nobody really expects politicians, news reporters, even parents and friends to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.
I, like everybody else, was taught not to blurt out what I saw, felt or thought but rather tell polite platitudes. Thus at 21 years old I entered my first marriage well versed in never letting on what I thought. I was no longer capable of sharing or even facing my own innermost thoughts or doubts and always kept my cards close to my chest.
Their ego-thoughts are not preventing them from loving the piano. Not yet anyway.
As always many thanks to everyone who commented on the Monday post; ‘What are your issues with migrating to Heaven on Earth?’
It is a challenging post.
It is one thing to read about ‘Heaven on Earth’ in spiritual texts but it is quite different to actually aspire taking such a huge step in daily life.
And as for migrating there, well Angelia Sims was honest enough to say what was so for her;
I haven’t really stepped out of my southern Oklahoma/Texas culture comfort zone.
And then she went on to say what else was so, with stepping out of her comfort zone;
Traffic in Vietnam makes you pay attention.
There was a wide range of comments to this Monday’s post; Do you Pay Attention?
My simple example of dragging the kayaks through the mud when the tide was out was to demonstrate that failing to pay attention has consequences and one of them is that we fail to see what there is to prepare for to have life work out. There are many more consequences when we fail to pay attention and although some comments touched on preparation only, it was not preparation I wanted to draw your attention to, the point of this post was about ‘pay attention to paying attention’.
Aysel could certainly see the issues when she explained how it is for her;
I don’t pay enough attention to what’s happening around me because I am too preoccupied with all the thoughts and ideas inside my head, all the ‘why?’ and “how?’ and ‘what it means?’ questions… Sometimes I get annoyed when I am distracted from this thinking process, even if it’s by son who is asking for some attention. But I switch my mind and dive into the daily routine; before I know it all those very “important” questions shed their significance, they fade away. Maybe instead of thinking too hard, I could live “harder”? I fear that a lot of precious moments are lost because I was too absorbed in my own thinking.
John paying attention to the tide.
Paying attention, being alert and performing at our best only happens when something is at stake, like in a crisis or getting safely home from a sailing trip. You too probably know the feeling, eyes see, ears hear, you are on full alert; you are awake and performing brilliantly, you are alive!
Does that mean that somehow in our daily life we do not pay attention, be alert and fully alive?
Yes, that is exactly what I mean! Marianne Williamson agrees as she keeps reminding us over and over again that we are not paying attention to the fact that we all have the ability to always perform like the brilliant, gorgeous, talented basecamps we all in principle are.
She often exasperates at how we are not taking ourselves seriously enough, how we are not working hard enough to be who we truly are, amazing capable beings who live brilliant wonderful lives and have glorious relationships.
Ouch, the halo seems to escape us . . . again!
I think she has a point and a big one at that.
When I met John I thought he was too serious. He did a lot of interesting things but everything he did, he did with intent. He paid attention to me, to what was going on around him and he always prepared whatever he did. My ego had a lot to say about that. I found him pedantic and anal and I thought I was actually more flexible and relaxed? Was I?
My sister's grandson safely playing with a doll. Will she tease him when he is older?
Your acknowledgements give me the courage to say to anyone who has not read Monday’s post; ‘Integrity, accountability; what is NOT going on’ to read it not once but twice.
With ‘accountable sharing of useful information’, I’m not referring to whether we talk a lot or not.
I’m certainly not suggesting we should share more gossip, blame, excuses, opinions, advice or tell more stories.
I’m referring to a very specific form of communication called ‘being accountable’. In the original post I defined it as:
accountable in this context meaning freely keeping people informed to whom that information is useful.
Family Dinner in Holland.
This week’s post ‘Me and my out-of-integrity family members’ touched on a couple of sacred cows; integrity and families.
However it was more than that, it was a post where I declared one of the ultimate examples of ’The Emperor with no clothes’.
I said; “We live in society that is mostly out-of-integrity most of the time and nobody makes a big deal about it or notices how it complicates life. Dealing with out-of-integrity behavior is draining us and is giving us grief big time.”
I chose the example of me and my daughter because we women if we do not have daughters of our own at least we are all daughters with family dynamics to negotiate our way through. Sure enough your comments reflected how you could see my example in your own lives.
The most common emotion it brought up was ‘frustrated’ though stronger words such as ‘infuriating’ were thrown around. Frustration is certainly an indicator that things are getting complicated.
My daughter's first taste of a snowy Holland.
I am proud of myself. I am resembling more and more the woman I desire to be.
A woman who can lead a family, a woman who gracefully yet purposefully handles life and the humans in it.
Let’s face it, that is what most of us want to achieve isn’t it?
Getting out of a muddle concerning our loved ones and how to organize our lives.
Being in-integrity plays a big part in achieving that and I am chuffed that I recently passed an integrity test with flying colors while dealing with a very out-of-integrity family member, my own daughter.
Now I am not picking on my daughter here, all people are out-of-integrity and family members are no exception.
In fact the whole world consistently slides into out-of-integrity most of the time and nobody makes a big deal about it or notices how it complicates life.
Ann-Marie, George mentioned in last week's post as the master of requests, guide dog Georgie and Wilma.
Writing about making requests has proven hard and really shows me I am severely lacking in this skill.
Last week’s post took me several attempts and this one has taken a long time too.
To be honest, I wish I had kept my mouth shut about making requests. All they do is confuse me and just writing about them makes me cranky.
I know that solving this request issue is valuable as I do see that I need this skill if I want to spread my wings and yet my aversion to tackle this issue is huge.
Requests for me are big scary beasts.
After all my aborted attempts to write sensibly about this topic, I have now decided to let all my emotional stuff around requests simmer for a while to see if I can unravel this issue one small step at the time. So this time I am going for a semantic approach.
A clear request.
This little baby bird in its nest beside our front door is totally dependant on others for her survival and she knows it. There is no doubt about that when you see this beak and its clear request for food!
She goes for it, no hesitation.
When MY survival is at stake, I am no different from that baby bird.
When I really need to, I can make those requests too.
Thank goodness I have not been in many desperate situations; however in the few times that I have had my back up against the wall, I was very capable of making requests.
When push came to shove, believe you me I asked. I asked for things I never imagined I could ever ask for.
BUT … and this is the killer, as soon as the crisis was over I would immediately forgo my ability to make requests. I’d return as quickly as I could to my independence and I’d try to forget the instance as fast as I possibly could.
In my judgment, having to ask is horrible, horrible, horrible.
I HATE it!
I cringe when I think back on those times when I was dependant on others, I cringe about how helpless and powerless I felt.
And I vouch never to go there again, not if I can help it.
Thus requests have had an unjustifiably negative reputation in my book.
And it could have been so different.
Instead I could have looked back on those times that I needed to make requests, with gratitude and joy. I could have looked at the fact that my requests were indeed granted and that there were people who granted them so lovingly.
I never realized that requests are a superb safety net and are a tremendous way of accessing resources that could make my life amazing beyond belief.
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I am back.
Thanks to all the encouragement and preparations to make the heart strong, my daughter and I had an absolutely super time together.
Even the weather played along, we just had sunny days, all four of them!
Yes, I did get the delighted shrieks when she saw the food and no, we did not go to a hotel in the end.
She chose to stay in her flat and I honored that. She was sick of the city and being cooped up inside working those long days, so she requested a lot of walking just to be outside.
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 Our wonderful time together, resting at the beach. |
So walking and staying away from the city we did.
In hindsight it was actually great to stay where she lived because that gave me, as her mother, a peek into this side of her life. As a proud mother I am very pleased to say that she had her small room beautifully organized. She used very clever storage systems and her whole set up worked a treat. It all looked very neat, workable, clean and tidy.
But the communal area outside her room was a totally different experience altogether.
‘By living from integrity, you align yourself with the way the Universe works.
When you live out of integrity you get unreliable results.
You might think the world is unfair and picks on you, which it does not.’
(WomenLikeMe on Integrity)
The unfair, random acts we think we receive from the Universe are generated by our own randomness around being in and out-of-integrity.
Ouch.
Being in- and out-of integrity guides our doing. |
 Sitting and enjoying the sun while being fully in integrity. John is getting the drinks |
It ultimately determines whether we end up working with the laws of the Universe and getting wholesome results or working against the laws and achieving randomness.
So what is this integrity that is so important to have the Universe effectively and pro-actively on our side and us being a reliable partner it can work with?
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