If we value reality and truth as we value sunshine, clean air, and clear water, we might realize it is the breath of life. In our journey to truth, we start having deeper conversations that simultaneously can be relieving and anxiety-provoking because our secrets, hiding places, and devious thoughts will be exposed. Coming into reality means stepping beyond the grip of fear over and over again. Ultimately you risk losing everything but yourself and your connection to the flow of life. Once you truly experience that anything but the truth hurts inside-it creates uneasiness and tightness-you become all the more motivated to get to the truth as quickly as possible and allow the internal sunshine and soft breezes to return.
Being real with people does run the risk of evoking conflict and can lead to loss. It also has the potential to deepen understanding, draw you closer together, and change the direction of a relationship. Our connection grows stronger, we drop into silence together, and there is more love available between us than we ever could have dreamed of. Once we commit to living in reality and telling the truth as best as we can, life becomes simple. We accept the outcome, even if it is very difficult, we become one with reality and we live with integrity.
One day on a camping trip with a friend and her daughter, we got into a hot situation and I dropped the facade and started to cry. 'What should I have said?' I asked my friend. 'Just say the truth!' she shouted in frustration. 'Say what's true - what you like or want or feel..and let the chips fall where they may!' I was stunned. It was like waking up to a burst of bright energy. Just let it all happen. My life was forever changed.
Commiting to living by the truth is similar to saying, 'I will not live in fear', because fear is the prime motivator for distorting the truth. When you can say to yourself, 'Let it all fall apart, let me be alone, disliked, broke, but I will not live in fear, I will not tolerate this knot in my heart', you are free.
To be unstuck is to broaden our vision and live by the greater truths..to feel our relationship to all people and all sentient life. To love others is to feel love inside. The only way we stay fully in reality is to see and accept our connection to the reality of the whole. This means a level of listening and attuning that takes us beyond our conditioned self. You start by realizing that you don't know another person's experience, nor can you generalize from your own history. While we can't know another person's experience, we can listen with the heartfelt intent of understanding. This nourishes us at all levels because it assuages feelings of separation. There is no one reality in the amazing web of lives drawn together in the mosaic of humanity. There is everyone's experience. If you are willing to come to the table with all your friends, you will go far deeper into yourself than through any book. Every encouragement that flows between us is like the milk and honey of human existence, softening our hearts, soothing our nervous systems, bridging our sense of separateness.
Feeling safe in life means you can reach out for help when you are in need and someone will reach back and take your hand.
'Zen and the art of a happier life'
Charlotte Kasl
Salam,
Cherine
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