Becoming More Honest

These days I pray a lot for this: to be more honest. At first I was praying for courage, but then I realized I wanted courage in order to more honest; honesty was the heart of the matter.

It’s not so much that I’m lying. I’m not. (I don’t think I have ever lied to you, even those who have read all 500 posts here.)

But as we all know, there is a difference between lying and just not quite being brave enough to tell the whole truth. For me, the truth I often don’t tell is what I really think about topics like these: love, war, violence, peace, forgiveness, us.

I get afraid my ideas are too radical. I get afraid everyone will call me naive, like they did when I was a kid, when I said things like war was insane.

With my prayer for honesty, I’ve started wondering … what does it actually take, inside of us, to enable us to be honest?

If honesty is the fruit, what is the seed?

Courage is a part of it, yes. That’s what helps us say what we have to say.

But lately I’ve realized there is a second part that’s just as important (if not more important) in enabling honesty, at least for me.

I need time, time spent finding out what it is that I have to say.

A lot of the time, I don’t know what the honest thing is for me. I don’t know what’s real deal, heart-of-the-matter truth for me. I don’t have access to it at first.

I need time to figure out what I really feel. And not just, “leave me alone to sleep on it” time, but time used in a particular way.

An example. The other day my husband and I were talking about our routine – how we design our daily lives now that we are parents. We both wanted to make some important changes to the way things work now, but different changes, and we’d been at an impasse around creating a plan. In this particular conversation, we talked and talked about our respective points of view. We weren’t getting anywhere.

Then, about 50 minutes in, something remarkable happened. I stumbled on what I really felt about the situation. The words came out, and then the tears. We suddenly both saw what the real issue was, what the real impasse was. It had to do with some barely conscious beliefs I hold about what a “good mother” does.

The amount of time we’d set aside for the conversation was coming to an end, but we both recognized the conversation had really just begun.

That’s not unusual for me, that it might take me quite a while of talking with a friend or loved one about an issue before I stumble upon my real honest opinion or thought or feeling or frustration or hope or desire about it.

One of the things that is rather amusing about this is that in all the blabbing, I’m usually not aware that I haven’t hit upon my truth yet. I think I’m talking all about how I think and feel about the situation, and it’s only when I get to the real truth, I realize all that other stuff wasn’t quite right, or just wasn’t the pertinent part.

You know those times when you are describing how you feel about something but it all feels kinda constrained and clunky and cerebral? It’s such a contrast when we stumble upon and speak our truth. Then, often, there are tears, feelings of vulnerability, but also of sensations of release, freedom. And there is startling clarity.

Why does this matter? And not just for navel-gazing, but for every important conversation we have – individually and collectively – whether about our personal lives or societal and political matters? Because it’s not until we each find our own truths that we can move through them, and it’s not until we speak those truths that we can have any kind of real conversation with others. Everything about the quality of our dialogue depends on our ability to access what is the real deal truth for us. Whether it’s a truth of feeling guilty, or afraid, or a truth of not knowing what to do. Whether it’s the truth of very old pain, or of new pain. Whether it’s a truth of feeling powerless, or angry.

Not everyone uses talking to get to their truth. You might paint your way to it over a few hours in the studio, or hike your way to it, or compose a song to find it. Journaling is another well-worn path there. But whatever your method, remember that we all need time and space, a lot of the time, to get to what is true to us, and we need to be sensitive enough as we move through that time and space to feel the different sensations of the non-truths and the truth.

I am not sure I can think of a better reason to slow down, then to give yourself the time and space to unpeel and dive your way to your truth. Because your truth is your light, your home, and your compass, too. And your truth is a gift to me, too; it will always reveal the light.

Love,

Tara

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