You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: "Confessions of a (healing) Compulsive Liar" My last post before unplugging & going dark for a few weeks, to focus on self-healing, connecting, and calling in clarity!
Kenny, you are a beautiful human.
As someone who has pretty much always deeply valued radical honesty, I really appreciate this post, and it challenged me to be less judgmental. I like how you explained your past as a survival mechanism. I often get self-righteous about my perspective on truth and integrity, and I can get very frustrated with any inconsistency I see in others. This is a helpful reminder to me that everyone is on their own path and (hopefully) working towards healing in their own ways. I think transparency and honesty are so powerful. Self-awareness is so valuable. Thanks for sharing your life journey with us.
Thank you brother!
The funny thing is, I get a little excited when I feel myself get judgmental around something, because (in my case) it almost always points out something from my past that I haven't forgiven myself for yet :-) I spent a LONG time hating myself, then a shorter, but long time seeing all of these different things as problems I needed to get rid of, and now I see it all as opportunities to heal myself and work transmutation on a deeper level, to turn lead into gold as it were.
If I hadn't lived the life that I have... well obviously I wouldn't be me, but in a more specific sense I wouldn't be able to connect with people on so many different parts of the journey, to truly connect & empathize with that part of the process, and share my own insights, follies, and tools from when I was there.
I really want to focus more of my content back on this stuff, to push myself to share more of my healing journey, where I get caught up, what tools help out, etc. I've found it so easy to distract myself from it, but not only do I feel better the more I do it, but the impact that content, that sharing has, is the most rewarding.
I love that genuine approach. It's like, "Hey, I'm on this journey and here's what it looks like." I think so many people are almost starving for sincere connection and they want role models and friends to look to that are not just sharing the struggles, but also sharing the tools that help them overcome.
I sometimes trip up over the word "judgmental" because some think we should never be judgmental about anything. For me, I think we can and should use our rational minds to make accurate judgements about reality when it comes to what increases or decreases human well-being, even (and maybe especially) when that involves another human being. Judgements can be helpful (when accurate), but that doesn't mean we have to add shame, accusation, hatred, anger, or anything like that once we've made a judgement and backed it up with reasons evidence and logic. As your post reminded me, just because something is "bad" (such as lying) doesn't mean the person stuck in that pattern should be ridiculed, ostracized, etc. It may be that they need some healthy separation from others to prevent harm but also that they need love and healing to find new more productive patterns.
I'm so glad you not only found better patterns, but you're sharing them with so many others as well.
Man, listen to me. Someone's going to call me a hippie now. :) Heheh. I enjoyed reading your last post about Solsara as well. It definitely stretches me to think outside the box.
Ya, "judgmental" is definitely one of those words that is so often used with other context added onto it, to the point that even I tend to hear it that way, especially after that Solsara workshop, where it was used in the additional context way most of the time.
I can definitely say from personal experience, that where someone is now is no indicator of who they will be in the future. I find it extremely important to look to potential healing as our first priority in cases of conflict, aberrant/communally-unwanted behavior, etc. The concept/practice of unitive justice is one that I love sharing, and would love to see more anarchists have in their utility belts.