The Subtle Effect of Dishonesty

Greetings.
When we think of honesty and dishonesty we most often think of the overt, the obvious measures. When someone directly lies to us, we call that dishonesty, and when they simply don't reveal a truth, we call that withholding or ommission.What about when someone wants to say "no" but they say "yes"? What about when a person is moving through the world hiding their true self out of fear that they will not be liked, loved or accepted if their "true self" is revealed?

Both of these examples are also examples of dishonesty. When we don't present an honest "face" to the world, the world responds in kind.Never mind the fact that hiding one's true self will see us isolated from even those who believe they are closest to us, the subtle effect can be found in the interaction we attract in our normal daily lives.The person who fails to assert normal healthy boundaries will likely encounter people who regularly take advantage of them. If you are being taken advantage of while inside you are screaming "no!", you need to find the courage to actually voice your protest. I call this "Developing your Interpersonal Membrane."

In nature, the membrane is the first Earthly "invention" to allow life to flourish. It happened first in the sea, of course. If you want the best example, just look at your skin. The skin allows things we need to pass through and keeps things that are harmful out. It does this simply by being skin. A person without boundaries sends a non-verbal message in every interaction that says "take advantage of me, I have no boundaries", and their mission is to begin to build their Interpersonal Membrane by asserting their boundaries honestly. Once a person learns to say "no" when they feel "no", and does so regularly, the membrane develops and is effective just as non-verbally as when their non-verbal message was "take advantage of me." The new message is "don't even think about it." Just take an accounting of the people in your life and recognize those who are good at asserting boundaries. Most of the time, they don't have to assert anything at all. Their Interpersonal Membrane is healthy and anyone interacting with them feels it without having to test it.

For the person who is always hiding their true self...find the courage to reveal yourself, or you will have extreme difficulty in meeting the people who would naturally be attracted to who you really are. If you are in hiding, your interactions with strangers and also the people you know, can never truly "reach" your inner self. One cannot move through the world presenting one face while hiding another and expect rewarding relationships to somehow find them. To use a quote from a Bare Naked Ladies tune "If I hide myself where ever I go, am I ever really there?" The answer is simple...no.

When in hiding, what you might find is that every interaction contains some hidden dynamic. You might consistently be frustrated when seeking advice, when interacting with customer service personnel seeking answers to problems. You might find yourself always anxious that you will be "found out" and this anxiety will have a not-so-subtle effect on all of your interpersonal interactions.Worse, you might believe that everyone is similarly in hiding and find it almost impossible to trust people.

Now, I'm not saying we should walk around with our private lives spilling out, or saying "no" when we really want to say "yes". I'm talking about finding a balance, knowing when, and with whom we feel safe being truly who we are, and also feeling secure saying "no" when we don't want to do something or agree to something in any situation.

Both of these examples explain some of the effects of the "shadow" and how it works in our personal interactions. I suggest a great book called "A Little Book on the Human Shadow" by Robert Bly. It's short and amazing, a mix of prose and verse by a great writer.

The shadow is that part of the psyche that we project out onto everyone we meet and interact with. It is the part of us we have rejected, for various reasons, and stuffed deep into the subconscious. The tricky thing is, shadow energy takes a little twist on its way out into the world. So, if we are failing to assert our boundaries, we might encounter those who lie directly to us and/or betray us. If we are in hiding out of fear, we might encounter those who misrepresent themselves purposefully, or we might consistently have trouble getting straight answers from those we interact with daily like teachers or service personnel or those we might hire to help us learn a new skill.

If you want to "inventory" your shadow, start paying attention to those people who annoy or frustrate you, and do the work of finding out just what about them is annoying or frustrating. You will be identifying your own shadow. To do this effectively, we must first remove the judgment and begin to see these people as "gifts". I know that is a stretch for most of us, but give it a try and see what happens...test it, don't believe it.

The good news is, that once we develop a regular practice we can overcome these challenges to attract the people and situations into our lives that feel "right" to us at the deepest level. It is important to remember that we are always attracting the things and people we "need" into our lives whether they bring pleasant or unpleasant feelings and/or results with them. We always get the information we need to make different choices, or to support the choices we have made that have brought us pleasant results.

It is also good to remember that we will always encounter some people who have the deep empathic sense to see beneath our surface. These people are around to help us feel accepted, to give us a boost, to give us evidence that what we are hiding will be accepted when we show it, and that we will still be liked, loved and accepted when we learn to say "no" when that is how we feel.

Life takes practice, and a certain amount of courage!



JohnHillcopyright 2008 JohnHill all rights reserved