The first
definition of honest in Webster’s
dictionary is “free from fraud and deception.”
What prevents us from being honest with ourselves and others? It is my personal and professional experience
that fear is the primary obstacle that separates us from honesty. We lie to others because we are afraid of their
reactions or we want to be seen a certain way.
We lie to ourselves generally to create alignment between our actions
and our sense of identity when these two are in fact not in alignment. One type of dishonesty is justifying acting
out of anger. With the exception of
genuine sociopaths people are decent and prefer to been seen that way. When we yell, curse, or act vindictively
towards another we are not being decent.
There are many ways to bring our actions into alignment with our
essential identity as a decent person. The
first is to acknowledge and take responsibility for our actions when they are
out of alignment. The second is to make
conscious and intentional efforts to take actions that are a reflection of our
essential identity. As humans we seem to
be primarily interested in making changes when we can no longer tolerate the
pain. When we shift the focus from justifying behaviors that are not coherent with how we want to see
ourselves and want to be seen to focusing on being coherent with our essential
identity we are making the shift toward internal alignment and honesty.
