Hip openers, hot bath and truth

So, not a bad day yesterday at all. Finally digging my way out of a couple of weeks of, well, maybe not depression but certainly a big, bad hit of the blues that seems to have circled over the L.A. recently. Kinda nice to know it’s not just me, that there are others sharing my misery. Funny, though, sometimes I’d rather have full on, black-as-night, can’t get out of bed depression than this malaise that has been permeating me lately. I get some things done, just enough to feel like I’m doing all right, but the really big things that need to be attended to just don’t get attended to.

I forced myself to go to Black Dog Yoga yesterday for one of their cheap community classes. It’s always hard to motivate myself to drive over there but I love their instructors and their methodology. It’s very much about the body and mind and spirit, starting each class with chanting and clearing your mind, then there’s always a theme to the class. This week was “truthfulness.” Actually, as Shari, the instructor put it, “truth-fullness.” Telling the truth without doing harm. The truth about your body- if you’re doing a pose and it’s painful or uncomfortable, stop, evaluate and listen to the truth of your body. Also, though, about being truthful to yourself and those around you, without doing harm. That truth can sometimes be used as a weapon. That stuck with me all day. (We did a great series of hip openers and Shari commented on what a champ I was and how incredibly “open” my hips are.)

How truthful am I? This was an area of contention between my ex and I because I stopped being honest with him about our financial status. That became a huge problem between us but every time I tried to be honest with him (interesting, I just typed “you” instead of him… hmmmm…) about our situation, it became a session on what a bad person I was and how I should be able to handle things and how disappointed he was, without his taking much responsibility for our situation. That was a huge problem in our marriage. But as I looked at “truth-fullness” and the concept of doing no harm with the truth, I think that was his failure. He did great harm with his truth and, from what I gather from other sources, he continues to. Truth can be told gently and softly, without stepping on toes and without using a club. That’s what Shari was conveying. Be truthful to others without carving their hearts out.

It also got me thinking about how truthful am I with myself? Of course, part of me immediately states, very truthful, I’m always brutally honest with myself. But, really, I’m not. I don’t think any of us are. We hide bits of truth from ourselves, the ugly bits we don’t want to examine and that our friends won’t point out to us. If we don’t face the truth about certain things, then we never have to deal with them. Denial is human. And it’s easy. And it’s a cop out. I know in what areas of my life that I am not terribly truth-full to myself. And when I try to look at them, I can feel the child inside me running and hiding, saying, “Don’t go there, that’s scary.” Yes, it is. And it’s hard. And it’s painful. But maybe it will make it less painful and less scary if I take it out of the dark corners of my mind and look at it under the light, see what is really there, not what I pretend is there. Take the cover off, truly examine it and see what I can do with it. I’ve done a lot of that in the past year and a half, why not continue down that road?

I like to think I have been truth-full with my friends. I hope I have. I know recently I’ve had some discussions with some of you about what I think about certain situations in your own lives. I lived so long in a situation where almost nobody said anything about what I was going through and I felt so alone in the midst of so much pain. Now, so many people say that they saw the pain and the abuse and the difficulty but didn’t think to mention it because it was none of their business. Well, I think part of truth-fullness should include being honest when you see someone struggling in a situation that is painful or difficult, even if it’s just saying, hey, this looks painful or difficult. Do you need something? Maybe you should look at it some more and see what you can change or move or create to take some of that pain away. Again, truth but do no harm. I have tried to be gentle when I have approached those I felt needed to hear what I saw. I hope I have told the truth without doing harm. And if I haven’t, then I must apologize and try to make that right.

And, I guess, this truth-fullness needs to flow over into the most important situations of my life, force me to be honest with some people that I don’t want to be that honest with. It’s easier to hide how you feel that it is to say it. I’ve talked about this at length with all of you and my friends. It is impossible to tell those who you love that you love. The one person on earth that you should be honest with, sometimes, you just can’t. I guess in order to embrace this concept of truth-fullness, then I have to face the one giant obstacle in front of me. And in a more effective way than I have tried before. It’s time. Again. I know, I can hear your eyes rolling from here but this has been a long and challenging journey for me. And when you care about someone so much, there seems to be so much at stake that it’s almost impossible to change the status quo. But that is not truthful. It’s hiding behind a lie – even if it is a lie of omission. More thought needs to go into this particular situation but I think the truth must be told. And we’ll see if he is up for telling the truth himself.

So I now challenge each of you to look inside and see what truth-fullness you are denying yourself and those around you. Find a way to open yourself to those truths without hurting yourself or others. It’s not going to be completely pain-free but, I think if you approach the truth with the concept of doing no harm in mind, then you’ll find a way to be truth-full without being harm-full. Take from this what you will.

This ends today’s lecture. Oh, yeah, long, hot, oily bath last night just put the pin in everything.