Strength

“Isn’t strength the ability to renounce every lie in your heart?”

“Wouldn’t you agree that having the courage and bravery to be honest with yourself is another form of strength?”

~Tamaki Suoh  (Ouran HighSchool Host Club)

Tamaki is an anime character from   shoujo manga series Ouran High School Host Club created by  Bisco Hatori.

I found Tamaki during a Google Image Search for some anime characters I wanted to download and play with on Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I completely believe in what he says here. I have followed it and taught it to my boys too. If you are not honest to yourself , you can never be honest to others. Most of us lie to ourselves more than we lie to others. It is deeply ingrained and comes easy. We live a life of deception and denial. All our life we pretend to be someone else, avoiding dealing with issues related to self. It locks us in a cycle of self sabotage, blocking our ability to move forward. It takes strength and courage to look within, to face oneself, to break the cycle.

Deep within us there is a desire to do the right thing, be a good person but of course we don’t live up to it. We lose our bearings and feel rotten but we won’t let go of deceit, defending it just to prove ourselves right. Bearing the burden of the duplicities, false pride, and self-importance that all of us have in various measures most of us are unable to renounce the lies within.

I try never to do anything which would make me feel uncomfortable when I look into my own eyes. I expect the same from those who are close to me. That is something I teach my children too.

Take a mirror test to begin with. It is very uncomfortable and here comes the need for strength. Look into your eyes. Reflect upon your thoughts, how you deal with others, what do you say. Notice if you want to shift your gaze or avert your eyes. You will know when you aren’t right, that it is a lie you are living. Now comes the time to convert that strength into courage. Courage to accept and rectify. To be honest to oneself and others. I do it and I think that if your inner justifies your action then it is right no matter what society says.

Accepting oneself leads to self-confidence  and greater mental strength which is required to  take control over one’s life. To have a warrior mindset one needs to master thoughts, feelings and emotions. One needs to recognize them honestly and deal with them as they should be rightfully. Only when the mind is free of burdens of managing various lies it can help build strength of character.

We can only discover our true self-worth by being honest to ourselves.

Confession is another way to be honest with oneself. I feel that however difficult it may seem, confessing  always improves a relationship and a person as a whole. Doing a wrong and then covering it up with layers of denial and lies makes everything collapse. Ultimately the truth finds its way out and that pain is greater than the pain of the first wrong done. Most of the time it is too late to mend the bond when the trust is lost and one may have to live with the guilt for the rest of the life. It is always easier to lie than to confess. Confession of truth hurts but the realization that the person is lying hurts more. The pain is much deeper even if the lie was told to save the hurt.

I prefer not to indulge in anything my conscience won’t allow.

This is my feeling. I feel relationships survive on the strength of honesty and to be honest to each other one needs to be honest to self.

If you are convinced about something , if you feel no guilt, no weakness or fear, if you can justify honestly your action to yourself  Then  you are strong. That is the true strength.

So, can you handle that moment of truth? It may most probably will not be to your liking.  Do you have strength to break down, to feel pain, sadness, rejection?  To feel human ?  Do you have the courage to face the defeat and the strength to take it as a challenge to conquer it?

It takes more strength to be true to yourself than to put up a wall.  Do you have that strength?

Self-protection armor, most of the time unconsciously erected at a young age, causes most of our adult suffering. Let go of self-armoring. Let down those walls.

Being vulnerable is not a weakness, it  takes more strength and courage than overcoming most of the obstacles that you will ever encounter in a life time.

Changing old patterns takes an effort and that effort needs immense strength to carry forward but that is the road to self-empowerment and it is certainly worth it.

Give it shot.

Renounce every lie in the heart.  Be aware. Be strong

This post is written for GBE2  WEEK #58 (6-24-12 to 6-30-12): Strength

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