Better Living: If You Can't be Honest With Yourself, You Can't be Honest With Others!
As a counselor and minister, I am often surprised by the trouble some people go to to deceive themselves!
I won't go as far as to say "lie" to themselves — even though it's probably accurate — I'll just stick to self-deceit.
Clients come to me for help because they know they need to do something but it can take a great deal of work to just arrive at a point where they are honest with me about why they are seeking help.
In part, I suppose we can attribute some of that to living in a world where we often — particularly in the medical field — go about treating symptoms of problems, rather than the root problems.
When we are dealing with the psyche, it is almost impossible to make much progress if we don't uncover and address the root causes for someone's suffering.
It would be an "easy out" to just say that people are not comfortable talking about their innermost feelings and fears — even with a trusted person — but we have to keep in mind that much of the time the person seeking help doesn't even know how to access those deeper feelings and fears.
My husband only half jokes when he points out that there are really only two acceptable feelings in the world: anger and happiness. Everything else is eyed with some suspicion, and best not talked about... even though they are perfectly normal parts of the human spectrum of emotions.
Emotions like sadness, grief, ennui, fear, bitterness, frustration, disappointment and dozens of others are just not as acceptable, and we're often told to just "get over them." Which puts a lot of people in a place of shame, which then keeps us from being honest about what we're feeling.
Healing begins when we learn to first identify, and then admit to some of these less "socially acceptable" feelings and emotions we may have been lying to ourselves about. When we learn to be honest with ourselves, we can become honest with our mental health professionals so they can help us!
Thanks for reading, and Bright Blessings to all!
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