Honesty Above All Else – Cultivating Honesty Part 1
Previous Posts in this series:
Honesty Above All Else – Introduction
Honesty Above All Else – Understanding Honesty
Leading on from the previous posts in this series, we will now get in to the meat of this tool by exploring how we can diminish our drive to be dishonest and begin to cultivate and internal posture of transparency and honesty.
Putting Things in to Context – Diminishing Dishonesty
To cultivate a posture of honesty and transparency we need to take a three-pronged attack:
- Diminish the drive to be dishonest.
- Cultivating our skills of being honest and transparent.
- Realising the benefit through practice.
Let’s start with dishonesty…
We have already touched on the driver for dishonesty being fear and a lack of willingness to accept facts of reality which may challenge our sense of self-worth. Well, this whole premise is founded on us giving a significant meaning to events in our lives. This meaning manifests through our frame of reference and forms our perception which in turn is the canvas that manifests our emotions and then drives our behaviours.
So, the way to diminish the root of this driver is to change the meaning of the events by expanding our perspective.
I have shared several insights around approaches for this which I recommend you explore:
- Appreciating the interconnectedness of everything
- Considering the scale of the universe
- Events in our lives only have the meaning we choose to give them
As well as these specific insights, I have also developed and released the tool of pliable perception; this is a collection of insights specifically focused on how we can take ownership of and shape our perception to enable us to take authentic action.
All of these insights once understood will help you appreciate the futility of self-delusion and dishonesty and the pain it can cause.
When you realise that you are the one that gives everything context and meaning, you can then choose to embrace reality in its totality which means you have dissolved any friction around being honest and transparent.
Establishing the Foundation – Cultivating
When I say foundation, what I really mean is an initial look at your mental processes to gain an appreciation for how honest and transparent you are willing/able to be with yourself about the drivers and motivations for your behaviours.
How long are you willing to reflect on the subject or topic that is uncomfortable for you?
Do you know why it is uncomfortable?
How loud is the voice telling you to look somewhere else, and what is it saying to you?
Why do you think it is saying what it is?
This practice is all about cultivating the curiosity to leave no stone unturned in your mental processes and building the resolve to continue investigating even when it is uncomfortable.
Where to start though?
The Introspection Toolkit
The tools outlined in the inner world section of the introspection toolkit are all about exploring your mental process and leaning to shape them to your advantage. Here is a link to a post summarising all the tools with links then to the associated series: The Introspection Toolkit
There is definite value in exploring the whole toolkit, but this is much like pointing at the whole elephant and just saying eat! If introspection is a new thing for you, then I would recommend starting with the tool of breaking the triangle. Breaking the Triangle
In this tool we explore the concept of the drama triangle and the different roles we perform in it, as well as exploring what our default posture is and then learning what this can mean for our behaviour.
The drama triangle is a simple to grasp concept that applies to most (almost all) human interactions so provides the perfect opportunity for you to ask yourself some challenging questions and test the response that you receive.
Who Are you?
In addition to exploring your mental processes, another lens we can apply is surfacing your definition of you. Yes, who are you?
This exercise involves you again posing some challenging questions to yourself and seeing what answers you receive.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction to the finding your cape series on this very subject:
Introducing You
If you were to write out an identity badge for yourself, what would you put on it?
Your name? Your age? Your job title? Would it include a picture? Your relationship status? Your moral values? The brand of car you drive?
What is it about you, that makes you, you? How do you define yourself to other people? Or, more importantly, how do you define yourself to yourself?
Wood for the Trees
I put it to you that the essence of you, lies within you. Not outside of you.
That means that you are nothing more than your thoughts, feelings and actions. The energy that comprises your body, mind and as such internal world, and the energy that you project out in to the world.
You are not your car, your job, your house, your qualifications, or any of the clothes you choose to wear.
Yes, some of these things may reflect the personality that you want to project in to the world, but they are not you and any attempt to define yourself by these things would be unauthentic.
Another perspective
Let’s think about that identity badge again…
Ponder for a moment what you would want someone else to describe if they peered deep in to your eyes. What energy would that person feel, how would they describe you?
Think of words that describe what actions you take and how you take them. You are creating a description of something in motion, not something static.
Maybe try and think about this while you peer in to your own eyes in a mirror….
Can you see who you really are?
Honestly… authentically… with no mask or façade?
Here is a link to the whole series for you to explore this further:
What’s Next?
Now we have started to establish a foundational understanding of how transparent and honest we are, in the next post we will look to further build our cultivation practice, then apply these new skills in our external communications.
Enjoy, for now.
Previous Posts – Honesty Above All Else – Understanding Honesty