Are you an honest person?

What does honesty have to do with self-discovery…

How do you even find out how honest you really are?

To test this, a Stanford professor came up with a question. Let’s see how you do…

What is the percentage of people that steal from their jobs, or work, or place of employment?

What was your answer?

My answer was 100%, and even funnier, so was my mom’s.

To the person who came up with the test, your level of honesty comes from the level of honesty you think others have. Basically using them as your mirror. How you score others is really how you score yourself.

Now in our defense, both my mom and myself were using time in this equation. Neither of us believed that there is a single human being on earth who is not a time thief at their job. Case in point, I will reference “The Office” episode where Jim puts Dwight to this very test.

Jim holding a stopwatch to calculate any mere slip Dwight might incur. Clicking the timer for even a yawn. Dwight resorts to peeing in a bottle at his desk while taking calls and filling out reports. Do you think you are that dedicated to the companies time?

However, if you were taking this example not as literally as we both were, then your answer reflects your general disposition about the rest of the world. That same notion you hold over everyone else is the same moral compass you use for yourself.

Now how can honesty play its role in self-discovery?

As I went over yesterday, gratitude was my precursor to awakening to the self. The second biggest factor for me was honesty.

I said that I had the realization of my own entitlement. I deserved more than others, which blocked my ability to feel happy for others, which caused me to listen to my inner critic saying I will always be a failure at what I do, leading me to self-destructive tendencies like listening to my inner critic.

Now was the time to get honest…

I needed to become honest at what was in my life and be honest as to why it was there. But total honesty means not turning anything and anyone away. Total honesty means that all are welcome at this table, even the inner critic.

I had to be totally honest that I wouldn’t have a life if not for a mother and a father, even if great pains in my life came from my father. He still chose to be that, and give me a life, and for that I am grateful. Through that gratitude, I am able to see past the birth of my inner critic as I have said in a previous blog “No one hates me like I do” and realize the gift I was really given. I can face this monster and welcome it to my table.

I can see the things I went through with my ex-wife and if I am being totally honest, I can see that through those actions I was lead to this place of self-awakening. I chose to become a personal development coach because I have a deep passion for helping others and I never ever want someone else to go through what I went through, and I want you to realize that no matter where you are in life or what is going on you have the power of choice. No matter what you may think, you always have a choice over how you feel inside.

Total honesty is like a superpower when you realize how to use it. I can take the ugliest parts of my life, the most embarrassing, the most shameful, and turn them into the most beautiful turning points. I can see with total honesty that without that moment of what I may have deemed in the moment as a great trauma, without it I may not have arrived at where I am today.

I realize that there is always more to come.

But with total honesty, I am able to welcome and dig past the inner critic to see the life that has unfolded before me.

What parts of your life do you consider to be epic failures? Incredible embarrassment? Deep shame? Regret?

Look deep with your flashlight, into the dark places. Use this tool you may have known but overlooked. Find the compassion you needed for yourself and others so that you may release the energy around it finally allowing it to flow.

Releasing the energy is the next step in this process and my favorite part, letting go…

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