This is http://www.essayz.com/a9012182.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %TRUE SELF OTHERS ACKNOWLEDGE DESIRE FEEL FEAR JOY 901218 When we seek to learn to be true to our own self, we find that thereby we learn how to be true to others. We cannot be true to what we have not acknowledged to be true. We cannot acknowledge the truth of what we have not come to sense within us as having integrity. That which is true has integrity. That which is false lacks integrity. We need to acknowledge the perception of the difference within us between that which has integrity, and that which lacks integrity. When we acknowledge the difference within us between that which has integrity and that which lacks integrity, we come to know our own true self, and find therein how to be true to others. The truth is that what is true is often embarrassing to us because it is embarrassing to others. It is difficult to acknowledge what is true to our self, when in some dim way we know that the truth would embarrass others, were we to reveal the truth to them. If the truth is not in us, we lack integrity, and the truth is not in our relationships, and our relationships lack integrity. When the truth is not in us, we and our relationships disintegrate. The truth is, that we need to acknowledge that the truth often embarrasses us, and that we need secure contexts within which to deal with embarrassing truths. Through Love we can give to each other the gift of a secure context within which to acknowledge the truths which embarrass us, and within such context we can be true to ourselves, and so learn to be true to each other. Through the gift of security given freely and unconditionally to each other, we help each other to let go of the feeling that we can achieve security through manipulative defenses. The less defensive we feel we need to be, the more free we become to know our selves and each other, and so the more free we are to become a true community. Thus the roots of a true community are nourished by our gifts to each other of secure contexts within which to acknowledge the truths which embarrass us. When we seek to learn to be true to our own self, we find that thereby we learn how to be true to each other. When we seek to give the gift of secure contexts within which to acknowledge the truths which embarrass us, we then learn how to be true to each other. Each truth and relationship sheds light on other truths an relationships. We seek to avoid the light, when we have not received the gift of a secure context within which to acknowledge truths which the light might reveal. In the absence of such a gift, we do not seek to be true to our own self, and do not learn how to be true to each other; and so we disintegrate. When we are disintegrating because the truth is not in us, we lack confidence. In the absence of the integrity of truth, there is no secure basis for confidence, and we are not free to confide in each other with confidence. When the Truth is present within us, we often are embarrassed and seek to avoid its presence within us. So, through minor modifications and/or distortions we transform our perception of the truth which is within us, so that we can handle and use our perception of the truth to bolster our weak self confidence. We come to believe that those minor modifications make no difference, and that in spite of them the truth is in us. When we distort the truth, and use it as a tool to achieve what we foolishly think will please us, we come to regard the truth as no more than our own tool to use as we please. When we regard the truth as no more than our own tool to use as we please, we are tempted to modify our tool to better serve us; so we learn how to modify the truth as we perceive it to suit our needs. Then the truth is not in us, or in our relationships, and we further disintegrate. When we do not know the truth as being more than we can handle as a tool, we do not know ourselves or each other truthfully. Then our use of tools in technical procedures intended to bring us satisfaction is misguided and destructive. We and our modifications of the truth deceive each other, and in our confusion we do not know what use of tools will bring us satisfaction. We become addicted to tools which do not bring us satisfaction, and come to believe that we need more, different and more sophisticated tools. We become technocrats. When we do not know the truth, we deceive ourselves to believe that we can use tools to bring us the satisfaction and the security which we are unwilling to give to each other unconditionally as a gift of love. When we seek to learn to be true to our own self we find that thereby we learn how to be true to others in a true community which offers true satisfaction. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================