Being Honest With Ourselves . . .

This above all: to thine own self be true. - Shakespeare

How often do we hear the word honesty? Yet how many understand the true significance of what it means to be honest? Honesty is an act of love toward ourselves.

The main value of honesty is that whatever we give out in life we will get back. The law of cause and effect is always operating on all levels. If we belittle or judge others, then we, too, are judged. If we are always angry, then we encounter anger wherever we go. The love we have for ourselves keeps us in tune with the love life has for us.

For instance, imagine that you applied for a job you really wanted and did not get it. Does it make you feel like a victim? Certain questions would probably arise: Why wasn’t I hired? Who did this to me? It is a bad feeling when something like that happens. But do you stop to think how and why you may have attracted such an experience?

Taking responsibility for creating our own experiences is not an idea that many of us accept all the time, and, for some of us, not even some of the time. It is so much easier to blame something outside ourselves, yet our spiritual growth cannot occur until we recognize that there is little of value outside of us in this area—everything must come from within.

Negative beliefs are not the truth of our being. We are magnificent creations of God, and we have the right to earn the very best, and we were given an abundantly plentiful planet on which to do it.

Our good always comes to us by the right of consciousness—making the right choices and implementing them. The work we do in consciousness is always one of refining what we say, think, and do. When we clearly understand that our thoughts create our reality, then we use our reality as feedback mechanism to let us know what we need to change next.

This is what is meant by being honest. Being absolutely honest, down to the last paper clip, is a choice we make out of love for ourselves because honesty helps to make our lives run more smoothly and more easily.