“You know, in the deepest part of your heart, that when you don’t tell the truth, the world falls apart.”
―Jordan B. Peterson.
Honesty is good for your mental health
Tell the truth. Like the fabric of your existence depends upon it. Because it does.
I don’t know what happens when we die, obviously. Perhaps heaven or hell, something else altogether, or nothing at all. What I am entirely sure about however is that we can, each of us, create heaven or hell for ourselves and for others whilst we are alive.
There is a plethora of ways we can go about elevating our existences to something like heaven or conversely, something that resembles hell. But I am convinced, one such determining factor is massively intertwined with our personal relationship with, and capacity for, honesty.
When we lie, we mess around with our own and other people’s sense of reality. We distance ourselves and others from the solid understandings necessary to make sense of life properly. This real sense making is the stuff of sanity, security, and ultimately wellbeing.
When I was young, I was introduced to the concept that we are each as sick as our secrets. A simple and obvious truth. A truth that has guided me my whole life, thank goodness. I understood, if I was ever to feel real peace and a sense of ease in my own skin, I was going to have to learn to be honest about who I am. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Not occasionally, or on some superficial level, but rather fearlessly and with dedication.
This wisdom is obviously not new. Us humans have been confessing our sins for some time. We clearly worked out, some time ago, that there is real value in admitting our mistakes and flaws in character. To ourselves, to someone else and, depending on what we each believe, maybe to the Gods.
I wonder if, as a result of doing away with religion, we have perhaps rather unwittingly, done away with some of the important practices, that might have been playing an integral part of keeping us upright as individuals, and as a society. And what if, interestingly, it is part of the current mental health crisis.
If this is true, then maybe, in order to remedy this worrying downturn in mental health, we need to find some way of re-establishing such good habits to ensure that we don’t wander any further down this dark and unsettling path.
Evaluating Your Own Capacity For Honesty
“Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.”
― M. Scott Peck
So, how honest are you? How much time do you spend seriously considering the quality of your character, your weaknesses, the mistakes you have made, or the harms you may have caused? This stringent attention to what is true about you is not for the faint hearted. However, if you truly desire a life that is properly organised, you will need to become more willing and able to tell the truth.
To assist you in improving your relationship with the truth, you might find it helpful to begin paying attention to how honest you are being in each moment. Once you get started, you will find that this process is fascinating. You will see that you can observe your thoughts, and also the words you are about to utter, and assess clearly how close to reality they really are. This is a powerful process.
You can then, in a sort of, as you go manner, actively work at thinking and speaking more accurately. This focussing in on detail will, in time, make you more authentic.
For example, if you drink more than you probably should, you could start to pay closer attention to how you think and speak about your drinking. Do you tell yourself that you are a sociable person and that you just enjoy a drink with friends? Perhaps, on closer inspection, it would be truer to say that you often drink at home alone, in front of the tv and before work the next day. Perhaps you also tell yourself that it is just a way to unwind, no harm done. Again though, if you had the courage to face the facts about alcohol, the harm it causes your body, your finances, your performance at work, and your relationships, maybe you might be one step closer to finally cutting down, or even stopping altogether.
Or maybe your husband has been urging you to address your relationship with anger, saying it is causing tension at home. Perhaps if you gave it more thought, you would notice you have been justifying your temper, telling yourself you are bored and dissatisfied in your marriage. Moreover, if you stayed with the process of inquiry regarding your feelings of anger, you would perhaps also admit that you had failed to express these feeling to yourself, and subsequently to him clearly. This acknowledgement of failure in honesty and communication on your part, would lead you to taking some accountability for your feelings of frustration and irritation. Consequently, you might then also feel a healthy sense of responsibility for finding a solution to the problem.
It is perhaps important to note at this point, that the more uncomfortable you feel about being honest about something somewhat hidden about yourself, the more important it is that you are. This is because it is this material, that will be harming you the most. It is this murky stuff that you wish to remain hidden, that will be making you feel uneasy about who you are.
Building An Authentic Life
“In the long run, the most unpleasant truth is a safer companion than a pleasant falsehood.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
It is the content of this underworld you that causes feelings of anxiety, insecurity and low self-worth.
Ultimately, paying close attention to this deeper and often darker stuff about us is the work of being fully human. Once we start to admit such things to ourselves and then to those closest to us, we begin to get to know ourselves more fully and we become freer. This work develops self-trust and feelings of self-value.
This attention to the truth about us is also an integral part of the process of change, as until we can be honest with ourselves about exactly how we might be failing to live well, we will find it very difficult to grow and develop properly.
This attention to truth and an ability to confess mistakes, personal shortcomings, and wrongdoings is what keeps us afloat mentally, emotionally and even physically. If you want to feel good about who you are, you need to devote your life to increasing levels of honesty and the better choices that always accompany it.
Building a life based in truthfulness, and the integrity that accompanies it, ensures we are building a life that is meaningful and healthy. It safeguards us against taking the wrong paths. And although this is far from easy, it is the route to true self-esteem, self-respect, peace of mind, and confidence.
And now for the cherry on the proverbial cake. If we have been thorough and vigorous in our journey towards becoming truly honest, there will likely be someone, or perhaps a choice few, who know us rather deeply. In my experience this is profoundly nurturing. As when someone we love, trust, and value, loves, trusts and values us back; when they know all of us, including the very best and the very worst of us, we can ultimately then rest in the knowledge that we are probably quite loveable and probably ‘good enough.’ And is this not one of our deepest and greatest desires.
Lastly, I am an advocate of removing as many dishonest people from our lives as we can. Things get better when we surround ourselves with people who are sincere and dependable. Begin with the dishonesty in you, however big or small that may be. Don’t stop until you have driven as much of it out as you can. After this initial push, be ever vigilant to keep dishonesty to a bare minimum. Sit back and enjoy how much better you feel about yourself and about life.
Tell the truth.
