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.

Dorothy too saw the need to first get honest with her feelings;

At least, right now I am honest. Honest about my feelings, about my needs and desires …
At least being honest with myself about where I’m at helps me find ways of looking after myself and dealing with the situation.

Joy recognized that  she once came from a place of not being honest with herself;

I didn’t own my own space, or love myself as generously as I loved others.

While being honest with ourselves comes first, Jannie Funster picked up that there is another pattern amongst us;

my first marriage was full of dishonesty too … And wow, I’m the 4th woman here to speak about dishonesty in the first marriage.

Oh Jannie, isn’t it good to know we were not the only ones and at the same time how come we all fell into the same trap??????The stage upon which honesty plays out for many of us  is our primary relationship. For example Angelia Sims shared her example and learnings;

I spent many years being dishonest with myself in my second marriage. Cowering and not rocking the boat, or standing up for myself. Now I have to honestly be glad that it taught me to truly know my feelings and be able to be honest and true with Jason. I am not afraid any more. I don’t have to be. There is nothing wrong with how I feel and I no longer have a fear that being honest will cause him to dislike me.

I think Angelia’s observation; “and I no longer have a fear that being honest will cause him to dislike me” says a lot for what is possible and desirable in honesty filled relationships. We can, like Angelia give thanks that past dealings with dishonesty have taught us to; “truly know my feelings and be able to be honest and true.”

Lisa (mommy mystic) too sees that honesty hangs out for many of us in our marriages;

Learning to be more honest has been a big theme for me too, especially in marriage. That is where it all hangs out for many of us, isn’t it? I think a key component for me in particular has been not being afraid of being vulnerable. When we are honest, and not living in a ‘role’, there is a deep vulnerability, and that is scary at first. So honesty and vulnerability are two very big working points for me right now in relationship … we have to be willing to be brutally self-honest and vulnerable.

Thanks Lisa for bringing up the question of vulnerability when we are being honest.
Are we prepared to be vulnerable? If you ask our ego, the answer is a loud and resounding “NO” and yet getting beyond our ego is a prerequisite for being honest. Once we get beyond our ego and reside within our heart-centered self, we can be vulnerable. Coming from love we can be vulnerable, as love has nothing to defend. Love cannot be attacked or hurt. Love is not vulnerable to attack, only the ego is.

Belinda Munoz shared the confusion that comes up when our egos are faced with honesty;

Honesty is an intimidating thing for many. There’s the factor of getting hurt or hurting someone. There’s the issue of appearing out-of-character if someone has waited too long to tell the truth about a specific matter. There’s the question of not knowing what happens next after letting the cat out of the bag.

Egos are intimidated by honesty, they do get hurt and definitely worry about what happens next after letting the cat out of the bag. Honesty is very dangerous to egos.

As we live in the land of egos, it is no surprise that we live in a fundamentally dishonest world and this has lots of consequences. It looks like Tess the Bold One got to experience plenty of those consequences from her comment;

I was in trouble until I was 40 for my honesty.

We probably can all identify with Tess and the trouble that comes our way when we are being honest with egos. They don’t like it, feel attacked by our honesty and defend themselves vigorously or attack back. No wonder Tess added gentleness to her honesty, however Tess, you did keep it going for a while. That says something about your boldness alright, in the past honest women got burnt, remember?

Another interesting pattern that came from the comments is how much we have contributed to dishonesty with our and our parents well meaning lessons on how to survive in life.  SuZen was taught;

My mom always said “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!” It could be that message that had me stuffing my true feelings (and honesty) for decades. I know what she meant tho, and I did the same thing with my daughter.

Joy learned to survive this dishonest world;

there was a time when it mattered to me to ‘fit in’ with those around me.

Dorothy still has these issues in knowing what is best for her children;

I’m still torn about being honest with my children. Are they capable of dealing with adult grief and anger? Does it really help them deal with their own? Still, as much as I try, I cannot “be strong” for them. The more I try, the more I fail. But I wonder at what cost will this honesty come for them…

Being honest is not easy, we do not live in an honest world and there are lots of consequences to as Lisa put it; “willing to be brutally self-honest and vulnerable.”

The good news is that there are lots of benefits too from honesty;

Belinda said; The truth can be liberating. Hiding the truth never is.
Jannie said; I think that honesty is actually coming more to light as we evolve, so I am encouraged that we are progressing, and not actually getting more dishonest as a race.
Angelia said; It is empowering.
Peggy said; I’m happier and those around me are happier

The other good news is that we are seeing our way out of this dishonest world, we are building a new image to live into and in Heaven on Earth dishonesty clearly has no place.
For me, becoming honest no longer has fear attached to it, it is a skill I need in order to migrate with like I needed to learn English to migrate to New Zealand. THAT makes me committed to learn behavior and a way of thinking that has its foundation in honesty and love. I have noticed that all this sits very well with me, I am loving myself and therefore others more and more and that feels mighty good.

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.

There was NO way I could be honest enough to hear my father when he suggested that I should reconsider my choice of a husband before it was too late. I will never ever forget that moment though AND I thank God that I have come to forgive myself for the fact that my previous marriage was indeed a lie from beginning to end albeit an ignorant rather than a deliberate lie.
For many years the pretenses went on. It is amazing how well trained I was to perform on the stage of life while hiding and being completely ignorant about the fact that this pretense was condemning my ex-husband and me to a very lonely time in which we separately played out our roles.

I was completely unaware that dishonesty had everybody living in treacherous unpredictable waters, because no one ever really knew the lay of my land. 
Dishonesty never allows trust and connectedness.
Hearing;  ”oh yes, I am happy” while my grumpy behavior tells otherwise is not a great way to instill intimacy and trust, is it?

My ignorance stopped when I ’saw’ the consequences; when I paid attention to how my ex-husband and my daughters also suffered from my dishonest ‘role play’.
I was not the only one feeling miserable and alone. 

From then on my ignorant well meaning untruths of  ”Oh no, I am fine” and my withholding of thoughts became deceitful. 
Once I saw what dishonesty did, I could have done what The Exception so astutely observed in her comment on ‘Do you pay Attention?‘; ” At points it is easier not to pay attention than to consider the reality of what is happening and have to live consciously in that awareness. . . . “
It was very tempting indeed to ignore what I saw, but THAT would be deliberate dishonesty for sure and that I could not face.
I had to own up, stop pretending to myself that all was okay and to accept the fact that my then husband and I were NOT compatible. My ego had great difficulty with declaring ‘defeat’, but I could no longer ignore the damage that was being done.   
It was time to ‘live consciously in that awareness‘ and clean up my mess.  
That took courage because I knew the consequences would be severe. It would mean the end of my marriage and all the nastiness that would be the result of a hurt confused male ego fighting dirty. 
But in the end how could that be worse than a dishonest marriage, how could that be worse than the slow death of ME and HIM, how could that be worse than my daughters having a deliberately dishonest mother.

Becoming honest goes against the grain of current society, but the good news is that it creates a vacuum that leaves space for new opportunities.
It did so for me. The vacuum was filled with a wonderful relationship in which I did not have to repeat my mistakes as I was no longer ignorant about my dishonesty.
I gave up pretenses which was good anyway because John could see right through them.

Knowing I was dishonest did not make me a honest woman straight away. Years of training and living in dishonest contexts takes its toll; dishonesty creeps in everywhere. It took massive amounts of talking to unravel them all and I never could have done that on my own. 
In the beginning I would become awfully nervous when I smelled a talk coming on after I cheerfully said I would do the dishes but then would become quite nasty while doing them. Once we had that kind of dishonesty sorted we could coordinate action around housework and a whole lot of other tasks which I normally would have taken on in my dishonest ways while becoming very resentful.
I had a lot of excuses when asked to explain why I jumped at the beck and call of my daughters while complaining about them afterwards. Having guilt finally  appear on the table, John and I could clean that up as well, which created a strong alignment between us to deal with their blaming me and all their other issues around the divorce.
Me in overwhelm? Yes, but I was reluctant to have an honest look at what was going on. I might have to tell some people I was no longer available. In the beginning that type of honesty freaked me out hugely.
Having me admit my secret feelings of superiority as the main bread winner with my full time regular wages while John was dealing with self employed irregular income took us 4 years. Once that was out, we could align ourselves on the money front and share this load as well.

Learning about honesty changed a lot for me.
Only honesty allows me to have a relationship with John in which I feel safe and am no longer alone. Now I can access my honest ‘what is so’ I can play team, we can talk and align our future. I must say though that in the beginning honesty scared me witless. You try and tell people kindly but firmly that you do not like something they say, wrote or did. 
But being honest has allowed me to know my own mind and to correct sabotaging ego-based thoughts as I share them.
I’ve learned to put my innermost thoughts and beliefs on the table and now they are available for contribution from others and thus I have given myself a huge chance to grow. It also has changed relationships hugely. I feel safe!!!!

Honesty is not a given in the world we live in. Honesty does require courage as it means speaking up, going against the status quo that does NOT respect authenticity and showing your cards . . .  but is the major ingredient for an aligned relationship in which one feels safe.

Let’s look at honesty a bit closer;

• Are you over-promising and thus delivering less quality results than you could?
• Do you often say you will do something and then you never do that something and then feel the burden of in-completion?
• Are you committed to change and yet not being honest about how little time you give yourself to work on your change?

We actually have all the information we need to enter ‘Heaven on Earth’, but we need to stop distracting ourselves. It is time to seriously pay attention to the wholesome’ what is so’ and to our own progress and giving up going it alone.
As the Feminine Power movement says; You can’t become yourself by yourself. Get honest, pay attention, seek support if you are serious about change!

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;

But I have had to really adjust at my new/old job… The ego definitely takes a beating.

But it also makes me perfect for this job, because I keep my calm and my ego in check.

Congratulations Angelia, because a job like this is a great training ground for moving on from your ego. Moving on from ego type thoughts requires a lot of practice and we need to take every opportunity we can get.
Go Angelia go.

Jan Lundy on the other hand has migrated and assimilated to Heaven on Earth and sees it this way;

A heaven, a hell, a little miserable clod of complaints, or pure gratitude for being here. It is how we choose to be and see and live….

Joy and Maryse too are clear that they are migrants to Heaven on Earth.

There is a prevailing and understandable confusion about the ego and where it fits into the scheme of things. Maryse brought this confusion to light with her comment;

I’m a migrant … to Ego-less land. I’m going to point [out] here that I do not take the ‘less’ as ‘absence of’ but as ‘not as much of’. I believe that my ego is here for a reason… In an ideal scenario, as I’m migrating to that new land, it’s with me to help me handle life as it comes. It keeps me organized and alert while I flow and co-create. Like we have two brain hemispheres (the left for human doings and the right for spiritual being), we have Love/God as our driver and the ego as the navigator. But migrating we must. Because an Ego driven life of control is not only exhausting, it’s doomed to fill us with stress, dread, and fear. So I’m joining the bus to Heaven on Earth.

There is general agreement that we have an ego, or ‘ego-thoughts’ as I prefer to call them and as Maryse says; “an Ego driven life of control is not only exhausting, it’s doomed to fill us with stress, dread, and fear.”

We are also in agreement that a life filled with stress, dread and fear is not what we want.

However like Maryse, many of us have great difficulty in imagining a world completely without ego-thoughts. It is hard for us to imagine a world where the word ‘ego’ relates to an extinct civilization where ‘ego-thoughts’ were once prevalent. This is especially difficult for us to imagine because for most of us, our Little Voice is our ego; it is part of us and therefore hard to have it disappear.
Its survival is the egos only concern. The ego is very well established in our mind and very  cunning; it has all of our intellect at its disposal, so it has many ways of retelling the story to keep itself alive and keep its seat on the bus. Maryse very astutely noticed that her ego for example is even claiming the navigator’s seat in her mind. Yours too will want a seat on the bus to Heaven, even if it is a small hard-to-see seat at the back of the bus and your mind, but it still wants a seat and it’s not going to let you get on that bus alone if it can possibly help it.

Argue as the ego may, the logic of the situation is against the ego. Heaven on Earth is a place of Love, it knows no fear. As Jan says; it is a land of pure gratitude. In a land of Love there is no place for ego.

Life without our so called ego is possible; it did exist once and will exist again. The challenge for each of us is to be clear about that.
Our so called ‘ego’ must go. Just like you can’t be half pregnant, you can’t live in Heaven on Earth with a little bit of the old ego thought pattern hanging around. One excludes the other.

I agree that this takes some doing, as for most of us the ego thought pattern is firmly in control.
This journey to Heaven on Earth (without our ego) is not something we can achieve alone. As Joy says;

I am actually surrounded by these new inhabitants, some of whom are trying to welcome me with open arms, but I had no idea until this moment…because I *was using* my old vision finders…

We at WomenLikeMe are welcoming you with open arms; however if you look with your ‘ego’ vision finders you will not see us.
WomenLikeMe is fatal to the ‘ego’ and ‘it’ knows that.

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.

Children are a great resource in this way, reminding us that paying attention only happens within our daily routine and not in our heads. Aysel also recognized when she paid attention what would serve her;

I need some alone time to figure things out.

I agree that ‘alone time’ is very useful and noise, busyness and modern technology are the enemy of being attentive as Tess pointed out in her disarmingly honest comment;

Oh dear I’m into Facebook and texting these days and I’m not paying attention like I used to because I get these things on my phone…

Yes Tess, the iphone is the final nail in the coffin of being present. Is there any hope Tess?

Despite being distracted and not paying attention rapidly becoming an universal addiction, the opportunities when you do pay attention are very attractive indeed. As Gail put it;

When I started paying attention, my life was transformed. I have gotten to the point where I don’t take one single thing for granted… Actually being present for my life is so rich – it is not about what I imagine and how I think things should be. It is about being alive to what is actually happening. When I stopped all the concepts, the struggle with reality ended. So much happiness…

And Gail also said; We don’t get to choose much, but we can choose where we put our attention – or if we put it anywhere.

So there is nothing holding us back, we do get to choose where we put our attention. But as The Exception observed, there are plenty of consequences and therefore seemingly good reasons why we might not want to pay attention;

…it is easier not to pay attention than to consider the reality of what is happening and have to live consciously in that awareness – to take responsibility for the choices we are making.
I have noticed, of late, that when my ego starts chattering, I trip or run into something or… there is a physical reminder to wake up and let go… oh yeah, it isn’t all about me… oh yeah, this is what is really going on… oh yea, if I am complaining then it is time to do something about it… live consciously

TE, you are spot on, with the awareness which inevitably comes with paying attention also comes taking responsibility. No more referring to luck or unfairness, it is US who make the world go round by keeping our eyes open and thus living consciously, taking responsibility. And I am still holding my position that most of the time we don’t. The world could not be in the mess it is if we did pay attention.  
I so want to ask you, please be honest, in our honesty with each other, big hug to Tess, we might have a chance to wake each other up.  You, me, we need to encourage each other to pay attention and authentically observe what is going on  so we have a chance to become the change we aspire to be.  That won’t happen with our eyes closed. 
As always my dear friends, thank you so much for this dialog, we are each other’s treasures.

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?

I remember a kayak trip with my daughters when I was proud of my laissez-faire attitude but totally unaware of the extent of my ignorance. We had never kayaked before and what was there to prepare anyway. It was on a calm river and we could stick a paddle in the water and move forward, couldn’t we?
Well, as it so happened, we could NOT, we did NOT do much kayaking at all because the river was tidal and there was no water in sight for miles. Sloshing through the mud soon lost its appeal, let me tell you that much. I was no longer relaxed either.

I saw how things can be done differently when I went kayaking with John years later. With him we left with water in the river and we arrived back with enough water in the river.  When I commented that he was a lucky guy to have not made me walk in the mud as I have been there and done that and I would not take kindly to a repeat, he looked at me in amazement. 
“Luck?”, he asked, “what has luck got to do with tides? They work on timetables and I knew exactly when we had to get back before the tide went out.” 
“Oh, is that so?”, my ego type thoughts attacked; “My daughters and I were not unlucky; I was just ignorant and not anal enough, was I?” 
In fact according to the wholesome ‘what is so’ which the ego never sees, yes I was and not only with kayaking either. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything at all; I wasn’t taking a lot of things very seriously back then and the results showed it. 
If things didn’t work out, oh well bad luck. . . .  What?
Yeah, yeah I know luck had often nothing to do with it, but that is what I thought back then, until of course I met John who took life seriously and paid attention.

Since that time I have had many eye opening moments, I no longer blame results on luck, bad or good. 
My current great relationship is not a matter of luck. It is a result of paying attention and I have learned about setting boundaries, about Self-Care, knowing how to communicate and all the other skills that allow me to make life happen the way I want.

I am not kidding. 
Paying attention means taking myself and my life seriously. 
I had to get rid of my preference for laissez-faire in so many areas. Once I started paying attention I saw that I had a lot of learning to do, to give you an idea we have 14 topics in the WomenLikeMe program! Yes fourteen!
I am sharing a lot of what I have learned on this blog and I hope to God you are paying attention. Life is not about luck, life is about taking yourself seriously enough and seeing beyond the ego thoughts. Life is about making yourself a strong basecamp so you can create a brilliant life for you and your loved ones. 
I have so much more to offer my precious girls now I am being brilliant, gorgeous and talented. I so wish for you the same.

Let’s see how much you pay attention to yourself and others;

• Are you aware of the people around you, their agendas, their manipulations, their victimhood?
• If you feel that in one particular relationship you are playing the martyr and not gaining anything but always giving, are you paying attention enough to commit to learning how to set boundaries, stand up for yourself,  or are you just carrying on and accepting your bad luck?
• How much attention are you paying to your own life? Are you speaking cynical about your job, friends, your partner, family or yourself? If so, how come you are not paying enough attention to act so you can eventually talk positively about your job, friends, partner and yourself? It IS your life!

I am a stand for all of you to pay attention, to take yourselves seriously, to LIVE. Oh how I know the difference that that makes.

I quote Peggy Nolan from The Stepmom’s Tool Box as I couldn’t have said it any better.

I want to support you. But as I go about helping others, I realize that not all of you want help. As much as I want to bring all my sisters to a place of peace, harmony and greatness, not all of you want to go. That’s okay because your life is your choice. When you decide to join me on the happy side of life, I’ll be here –and here at WomenLikeMe.