Honesty

Today I am grateful for other people's insights into the human desire and need for stillness. (In this case Pico Iyer and Krista Tippett in an "On Being" podcast.) I am also grateful for the fuller understanding of honesty that I am continuing to learn.

Honesty is an essential and loaded word. Essential to deeper living and more fully realizing our own potential. Loaded because we can be masterful deceivers of our own thoughts and feelings.

Inability to be honest with ourselves can be fatal to alcoholics and addicts, perpetuating use and continuing the downward spiral. There is no cure for addiction, only ongoing recovery/remission or eventual death.

Rigorous honesty helps brings us out of the sick thinking and spiritual malaise that is really, in my opinion, at the heart of this disease. It helps brings us out of the powerless victim mentality into the light of solution-focused living.

It takes hard work. It takes the help and support of others. And their honesty with us as well.

But it makes all the difference. Recovery must start with honesty, and it must stay in a place of honesty. Self-honesty to help heal and recover the self.