"I want the Truth"
"You [can] Handle the Truth" The time of not facing our 'reality' is over. No matter how complex we may believe things to be, there is nothing to be gained by covering up or 'protecting' feelings.
The line from ‘A Few Good Men’ came to mind as I read a recently resurfaced letter from my uncle written to me on 5 March 19987. In it he writes about an event I felt necessary to not share with his parents, my grandparents. This is the extract:
I won’t say anything to Mom & Dad as they don’t approve - but, you know what shits me to a fare-thee-well is we have to protect people from the truth - and THEY* started all this crap. I can remember as a kid when I’d walk into a room and immediately conversation would be suspended or hushed tones would be used in other rooms so I wouldn’t hear. It’s ridiculous and insulting. I am anti-censorship in most cases.
*An aside: I am given at least 5 generations so technically ‘THEY’ did not start ‘all this crap’.
The more this life of mine rolls on, the more I have come to question the belief that ‘we have to protect people from the truth’. Do we really? How did it become our responsibility to soften another’s experience? And why do we feel the need to protect people from:
not meeting their expectations.
feeling disappointment, irritation, contradiction, sadness - in short, their emotions.
anything that might contradict their belief system.
anything that may change their view of us or others.
the vast and wide range of experiences we choose as humans.
Checking in, I realise I come from a long line of ancestors who believed in the need to protect people from the truth, and understand that my grandparents merely played out what they were taught. The notion it is never okay to hurt other’s feelings or say anything that will make another person uncomfortable (a definite sign of poor breeding), has become a generationally anchored belief. This notion means that we must modify our behaviour - even when we would rather not - and it is time to explore whether this belief is still beneficial.
To Clarify
This in no way supports cruel or malicious behaviour. Listening to and/or passing on gossip or cruel comments participates in low vibration drama.
No thank you.
That is never justified. Through other’s behaviour you are seeing their belief system and how they are treating themselves. Send them love and move on. They will learn the world is the mirror of their making and that we are each infinitely connected, in their own Divine timing.
The Behaviour
We aren’t born feeling responsible for other’s level of comfort. That is something we learn along the way.
We observe it, we learn it, we let go of the freedom we have to be ourselves, and this belief then becomes our world view.
The adage, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” should perhaps be modified to, “if you can’t speak from love, don’t say anything but look deeper to see where the wound within the self still lies”.
The Pain Program
Have you ever noticed how, despite how carefully you word something or when from the best, most loving intention, the other person still finds offence?
Or how despite your very best efforts to shield your children from [fill the blank], they seem to encounter these types of experiences repeatedly?
If as parents, like my grandparents and myself in many ways, we seek to prevent our children from knowing suffering we are simply delaying the experience. Yes, we need to keep them safe, but it is not our role to ‘wrap them in cotton wool'. Their Higher Self needs to find a way to get the message through - and will - despite our best efforts.
I am reminded of a book I used to read to my daughter called Reckless Ruby - the subverted fairy tale plot revealing a daughter unwilling to fit parental expectation. Ruby’s mother tells her she is precious and will marry a prince who will wrap her in cotton to protect her. Ruby then does everything within her power to prove she is not precious until her parents give up their expectations of Ruby’s future role as Mrs Prince. Children’s behaviour almost always contains a message for their parents, and I am certain the parents in this text were playing out the fear of pain accumulated in their own unresolved childhoods.
Pre-Wired for Pain and Other Experiences
We are born pre-wired with the areas we wish to experience or heal. As energy, we wish to experience all emotions, not just the ‘good’ ones - remember contrast: we know joy through suffering. This sometimes leads to unresolved experiences, because let’s face it, some are not as easy to process as others and lead to lifetime ‘hangovers’.
Incomplete karmic energy, the energy of unresolved wounds, sits in our cellular memory (thank you ancestors who carry similar wounds - and no coincidence). This memory waits to be triggered to bring specific emotions to our attention in this lifetime. Our Higher Self follows the script and creates repeated opportunities to help us remember what it is we seek to experience in this lifetime. Criticised? Betrayed? Judged? Injustice?
Generally, these are not one-off emotions but over a lifetime grow into a series of patterns. Experiences 99% of us planned and hoped to have.
The Cost
Being honest comes at a price and not only to ourselves. As does not being honest. But let’s look at the cost of speaking our truth from love. If we honor our emotions and follow our hearts, we will be drawn towards what brings us joy and invited to decide whether we wish to participate in drama or low vibration behaviour.
If we continue to modify our behaviour to protect other’s feelings we:
live life wearing a mask and are no longer true to ourselves.
interfere with the experience their Higher Self is bringing them as part of their life plan.
‘Protecting’ a person to not FEEL something interferes with their internal guidance offered through their feelings. If they have come into this life to learn joy through sorrow, lightness through burdens, and understand their own power through victimhood, how is our role to over-ride their Divine life experience?
step out of flow and our own alignment, experiencing low vibrational hurdles rather than ease and abundance.
still need to learn to honor our own needs - both our and their Higher Self will follow our Divine plan and repeatedly bring about opportunities to learn to implement and respect boundaries.
ignore the fact they and we are meeting in physical form for a metaphysical purpose; that this life is like a play or a dream, and not who we really are.
forget to go within - remember what we see in others will mirror that which is unhealed in ourselves.
continue co-dependent patterns.
generally push our emotions down to fester in a favored part of the body, perhaps to rise to our awareness through later illness.
Distraction by focusing on another’s drama is the number one way our Ego shows us it fears us remembering we are one energy and that there is no separation.
lower our vibration and step away from our own joy.
Co-dependence and Consequence
Yes, we can continue to smooth and modify each other’s experiences whether it is in their and our Highest Good or not, that is the gift of freewill.
When we are ready, we can also choose to honor ourselves and others. Returning to the earlier example - if I hadn’t protected my grandparents from my truth, they may have felt I was not living up to their expectations, and would it have mattered? The truth would certainly have challenged their belief system, and would that have been a bad thing?
The key is in the phrase ‘their expectations’. If they focused on the embarrassment or other discomfort they may have felt had their peers/neighbors learnt of my choice, that would have been a clear message that they were not honoring their own lives. People only judge others to remember they are running judgment patterns - it truly is none of our business what other’s think of us.
We are not here to live our lives for others.
We are here having a physical experience to remember to lovingly interact with others and our surroundings, to learn acceptance and tolerance. To release old patterns of judgment within ourselves that will free us from the ties of old earth.
Conditional Love
If we then choose to honor our truth others may no longer love us.
This kind of love, dear ones, is conditional. I love you as long as your behaviour pleases me. Do you want that kind of love?
Or are you ready to open the door to unconditional love? Be warned, it will require you to apply it first!
If those who offer us conditional love step out of our lives, yes, we may feel lonely for a time. However, we must learn to love others and respect their experience despite what our ego may think. This will lift our vibration as we honor ourselves and in time, the void will be filled with a higher vibrational match, by someone who is willing to love and accept us as we are.
Sometimes it takes a Long Road…
Being ready to choose something better comes in the right timing, our Divine timing. That is when we have experienced enough to recognise the pattern, and are ready to risk something different.
Perhaps that looks like accepting someone who doesn’t accept our truth.
And that too is okay - it will always require at least one person to step out of an old dynamic to create something new.
Finally, I invite you not to judge your experiences. We do the best we can with the information, understanding and (especially for parents) the level of fatigue, we have at any given moment.
When we discover better, we begin to apply our new knowledge. Taking a risk and doing something different occurs in steps, big and small, to take us along a new path. Nothing is guaranteed except that your Divine plan is not beyond you. Your Higher Self believes in you and knows you can handle the truth.
And so do I.
Infinite and (unconditional) love are yours.
Blessings
Michelle x
Michelle Cowles
Spiritual Healer
Disclaimer: The information on this page is general, lifestyle information and should not be used to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease. This information is never a substitute for professional health care advice. Any information you find on this page or on external sites which are linked to on this page should be verified with your professional health care provider.