Ten years since we started the bead movement and its been honestly a life changing experience. It has built a frame work for what I think. Even with the beads its amazing how quickly I can live as if I have forever and so the basic thought of ‘spending’ a bead each day is necessary for me to try to keep me present and focused on the finite-ness of all my days here.
We decided to celebrate 10 years by revisiting the original intentions and thinking if our views on those words/concepts/ideals had changed any. So we are starting with the word honest. It is a v complex word as it turns out.Honest means to tell the truth, but the truth isn’t always clear or sometimes we can’t handle the whole truth all at once. As I have thought about it over the last few weeks it seems mercurial almost as there are so many aspects-honest to myself, and to everyone else. And what might be true it seems for me today might not be true for myself tomorrow-so what is honesty. Perhaps in the moment what is accurate and factually correct but sometimes we are not honest within ourselves. As a matter of protection.. Sometimes we have a deeper sense of knowing which might be more honest to think of, but what one might not be ready to believe. I know, as a survivor of sexual assault I thought I was being honest with myself about the assault until I really started to look into it after nearly 20 years of having been frozen effectively from the truth of the situation. I had seen the event in the only way I was able to see it for many years, but it wasn’t honestly what had happened. I had spent all these years taking a basic understanding of what had happened as true, but it wasn’t really the truth. I couldn’t have handled it though until all those years later. So perhaps does that mean honesty is on a sliding scale of what you can handle in the moment? Sometimes one can use a white lie to be what we think is kinder to the other person. With dread this summer a dear friend asked me how honest I wanted her to be about a situation. I always think I want absolute honesty-having been with an alcoholic bf for ages which entailed being lied to I have an abhorrence of dishonesty and always feel I want the truth straight, and that I will handle whatever it is, but just be straight with me. But perhaps I can’t always handle things and am not honest with myself at every single juncture. That makes me think of the inner workings of my own self as something like a labyrinth – which is maybe what it is like in there.
Anyway as Johanna and I set off again on our quest for deeper understanding and gratitude for this one wild and precious life we are starting with an honest look at honesty. Here goes. X
