The Self Honesty Jump.
(#2 in a series of either 5 or 6, who knows.)
Of all of the jumps I’ve made, or am trying to make, this one is the one that gets me every time. This is the one that forces me to question everything; not just my actions, but my reactions, my thoughts and my secret desires.
This is the jump that calls me out when I can feel myself violating my standards of truth and honesty. Let me show you what that looks like.
Please forgive this little tour around the inside of my mind, but I hope this will be enlightening.
I grew up in a home where the reward for telling the truth could sometimes be violence. Where the difference of the inflection on a word, or the pause in a sentence could be misinterpreted as talking back, or lying to my father.
I became adept at reading the micro-expressions of his face, the slur of his words, the emphasis on a single syllable.
This skill, learned in desperation to avoid another blow, allows me to read other people.
My sweet wife will tell you that being married to me is hard, because I can interpret the slightest hesitation in her voice, the drop on a word, or the choice of a phrase over another. I know when she is frustrated, even if she is trying to hide it. It’s got to be exhausting for her some days.
I know it is for me.
Because that same skill that allows me to read you, also reads me. When I react to something, the part of my brain that questions myself will immediately start to process my reaction, and parse every feeling. Am I feeling threatened, or frustrated, hopeful or deceitful?
If deceitful, why? Do I feel threatened, or is this another case of my experiences as a child casting a dark shadow over my adult life.
That happens a lot.
So the self honesty jump forces me to find the truth behind my actions, and my motivations. That sounds easy—until you try it.
Then you’ll find that so many of your unconscious motivations are driven by thoughts and feelings that you are barely aware of; things that you have never questioned until the moment when you realize that they might not be serving you in the way that you anticipated.
Then you have to dig deeper to understand where it all comes from.
Why do you dislike that person? What made you emotionally overreact to that statement? Why did you shade the truth when explaining yourself? A thousand questions lead to a thousand more, until you being to uncover the truth within your soul.
That can be a difficult revelation, forcing you to change and act in a way that you know is right, even when you so desperately want to act another way.
It’s tough, living this way. Making the honest, honorable choice. Self deceit is so much easier in the short term.
But making the jump to self honesty will always pay off in the long game.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings