Chapter 3: Being Transparent: Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Hide
Being Transparent
- Being transparent enables you to express and release emotions without getting stuck in them. For example, sometimes after you report a judgmental thought, it disappears; or after you have been suppressing a deep emotional longing, like a longing to be touched, you may find that with its expression comes a sense of relief or relaxation. You are no longer contracting, no longer holding back. Feeling and expressing things that have been withheld often lead to feeling more relaxed and whole. Your energy is flowing again, and with this renewed energy comes a sense of inner peace.
- Withholding feelings is a way of giving them more significance than they actually deserve. No one feeling is such a big deal, except if you hold on to it and don’t allow it to be expressed. When you express a feeling, it usually changes or dissolves.
- Any time you notice yourself lying, pretending, or withholding, you can use this information to help you get back into the flow of life, to get your energy moving again in a direction that you choose.
- Hiding is a treatable condition. It is not terminal. But it does signal that there is an energy block in your system, probably based on some false belief that you took on years ago.
- The way out of such a block is into and through: feel your feelings; sense your body; and notice your thoughts, fears, and imaginings. Be still and pay attention. Listen. Focus. Don’t run away into compulsive activity or addictions. Experience what is. Learning to be transparent depends on your ability to notice and experience current reality, both the good news and the bad.
- Revealing your self-talk as you notice it helps you get over your identification with the ego-mind. It’s a good first step toward freeing yourself from taking the mind’s shoulds and judgments too seriously.
- When you practice these suggestions with others who have read this book and agreed to support you in Getting Real, you’ll find you have a lot of fun. You’ll learn to laugh at your mind’s machinations.