It’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming.  On the outside things look fine; on the inside something is missing, feels off, irritates or just plain hurts. For years, explaining things away, rationalizing that things are great, good enough, okay, as much as we deserve since others have it a lot worse. Until either the body gives out or refuses to carry the lies any more. We have been taught to tell the truth, that the truth will set you free. We have also been taught that the truth can topple carefully-constructed lives and cause pain and chaos, that some truths are better kept as secrets. How others feel, keeping their secrets and lies, is more important than our own health and well-being.  That betrayal of self is okay, celebrated, even, in the preservation of a system, institution, or life crafted to maintain or control rather than evolve and grow.

Well, in plain language, time to call bullshit on all of that.

Be yourself and tell the truth. How simple and rich an existence would we each have, how powerful and awesome the lives we would create,  adhering to that clear and natural law of engagement.  Never has this been more obvious and more unsettling. Knowing clearly who we are, owning clearly our truth, enables us to weather storms of confusion and create our path to the life we want for us and for the people we love. It begins with honouring our own knowledge and instincts, listening and learning when something feels off or catches our attention. It begins with choosing different for yourself, choosing authenticity every time, even when it hurts.

It means examining what we consider healthy relationships, and owning how we may sell ourselves – and by extension those we care about – short, claiming to be honest when we are hiding secrets and spinning stories to ‘keep the peace’ or to remain okay with ‘good enough.’

It means having that conversation that’s been a long time coming.

Many people will refuse to believe in their own power to transform the world because their own created world is ‘okay the way it is.’ Everything is a choice, and I get this one. I lived this way for years, until it was time that I couldn’t any more. Years after I awakened to new possibilities, I fought like hell to keep everything balanced and smooth, the world I had created based on what I learned as a child and young adult, and the new emerging world that I knew in my cells was my present and future. The thing is, the two worlds were in direct opposition. What I created I based on what I knew, my history, my need to be productive according to the standards of others and protected from the outside, a protection that manifested as isolation and that really never works. My emerging world is based on who I am, the divine signal here on Earth with a purpose, emerging choice by choice and moment by moment, safety  and referencing internal, being and living my authentic self and giving space for that to change as I learn more and choose differently, a constant flow of energy within and without, creating rather than replicating, evolving rather than protecting. Running both scenarios is akin to driving while stomping the gas and the brake at the same time. It’s a choice that seems safe in the moment, but will kill you over time, and it very nearly did, a couple of times. If disease or body wear doesn’t get you, the suppressed rage does.

The more I awaken the more I know that an inauthentic life will kill me, that spinning stories based on beliefs of others that hold little meaning or sense for me will only keep me churning in circles and detached from my life, and from those in it. Keeping secrets and telling lies, especially to myself, keeps no peace – it creates a barrier to a deeper more fulfilling relationship, creates an illusion that can never grow or be enjoyed. When is the last time an illusion hugged you warmly, wrapping you in scent and heartbeats and the soft warmness of someone you love? Those choosing illusion may not know what they choose, or that there is another way, but the body knows when the warmth it feels is authentic and when it is a story spun by a mind too invested in control to allow the truth.

Then there is the R word: risk. Better to have an illusion than nothing at all. Better to have ‘okay’ than zero. How long, though, can an awakening evolving infinite spirit survive on ‘okay’? When you love someone, feel the depth of connection, know there is so much more to experience and create and live, how long can ‘okay’ sustain the excitement, the promise, the joy?

Exactly. Which is why I chose to have a conversation, the toughest I have had to date, to look into those trusting blue eyes and speak my truth, which was to own that I was  being lied to because he was lying to himself, and that was no longer okay with me. I know his stories, I know they lie in wait as his source of protection against a world that has demonstrated over and over his heart and feelings are not safe unless he hides and controls the arena where they are revealed in tiny glimpses. For years I skirted the mines as my way of loving him, protecting him, conveniently protecting my stories and strategies as well. Getting close but not too close. Controlling access through clever wordplay. But skirting the mines gradually reduced my playing field to a space too small, no room for words or imagination or hope. I was lying to myself and my world of expansion was in limbo. I had to stand up for me, stop playing the victim in my own story and the peacemaker in his. It hurt. It was frustrating to feel him in the moment choosing strategy over truth. It felt, well, shitty, which makes sense. I was calling bullshit on stories that have run for decades, his and mine. Of course there is pushback, denial, defence. From both of us.

There is also promise and space that didn’t exist before. When the stench of manure drifted away, we were still standing, still talking, his eyes still held mine and were still that gorgeous shade of blue which told me I was seeing him – not his stories or that arrogant veneer of a soldier that runs the minefield – but his authentic self. A separate and equally powerful godforce that deserves space and time to own and make his choices, the space and time granted to me over the years by my awesome tribe of enlightened women who ensure I don’t have to navigate my minefield alone. It is time for me to be that presence for another, without expectation or demand. A few of my mines have just disappeared.

Conversations are like potato chips – you can’t have just one.  Reclamation is in layers, evolution is ongoing. My conversation was like removing the topsoil from the minefield.  We see the stories now. We can avoid them. We can take agonizing painstaking hours to diffuse them. Or we can simply choose in the moment to let go of the story and the mine disappears. Choice by choice. Conversation by conversation. Each authentic to self, creating something authentic and awesome when combined. That’s the life that creates, that we were born to lead. In my world, anyway.

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Decloaking and Living Authentically is a conversation that will take you into the much deeper dive of who you are, as the thinker behind it all.
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Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, story doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com