10 Excuses used for withholding the truth and options

More often than you may be ready to admit, you hold back from expressing how you feel, from sharing what you sense and intuit. In essence, you muffle some of your abilities and hesitate or prevent yourself from realizing certain dreams.

Witholding the truth is always potentially a lie, and each new situation calls for a moral decision. Do you keep things to yourself and if so, do you do it out of self-interest, a desire for power, for approval, for the interest of the person from whom information is hidden? Maybe you are not aware of the why. 

Deciding to be more honest with yourself may seem to be an extraordinary task. It would require the never-ending burden of self-discipline. This helps explain why many people decide to live a life of minimal honesty. They brainwash themselves into believing its too hard to change or, not even in their interest.

This said, rewards exist for meeting the challenges of living with integrity. Although your course may seem frequently diverted, or plans suddenly thwarted, you also underestimate rather than overestimate your foresight. And, excuses are not necessarily bad. Consider ten excuses for withholding truth and how similar views help or hinder you;

1) You do not believe you are ready. Something within you may echo you do not have the courage, ability, skills or presumed experience required to go the next step. What you believe becomes your reality. People also read your vibes.

2)You imagine people will criticize. Part of you fears other people will judge or not understand. Yet many people actually share or resonate with you, and also tell themselves nobody else will get it. Your self-doubt leads to misperceptions that may prevent you from connecting with kindred spirits.

3) You assume things are not in your control. If part of you senses untapped skills or potential, then you may reason these things will be sharpened and a plan clarified by fate if you are mean to use them.  Another way to view this is fear of success or failure.  Either way, you remain where you are.

4) You find solace in secretiveness.  Something may appeal about keeping knowledge to yourself.  It is said the meek and humble are wise and silent.  The expression of thoughts, feelings and perceived insight may seem suitably withheld. This is not always for the purpose of self-interest.

5) You fear embarassment. You may have nurtured feelings for someone, or value something you sense others will not value as you do.  You fear your views or feelings will not be appreciated or shared. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

6) You argue timing is everything. Perhpas you are an expert at postponing or putting off decisions.  You may be assesing and re-assessing the capacity of another person to use the information for reasons you would support.  That you contemplate means you resist listening to your gut.  You decide the right time when you relinquish the need to control.

7) You are too proud.  You feel more secure in the thought that you are not contributing to the confusion of the world.  Your opinion of yourself would not permit you to shatter the image you have created. Appearances can be deceiving.

8) Your views conflict with your entourage.  Rather than sense non-conformity is the way to go, you may be willing to sacrifice what feels right for what appears to be right in the minds of people you respect. You choose to put their needs or expectations before your own, whatever the cost.

9) You prefer the hard way.  The more honest you are, the easier it is to continue.  The more lies you tell yourself or others, the harder it is to keep track, and the more necessary it is to keep lying out of fear of being found out.

10) Someone told you to do it.  You may confide your dream, your perspective or sense of the truth to someone who cautions you who to share this with.  The exercise of discipline is demanding insofar as it requires you to be flexible and insightful.  To be free, you must be willing to take responsibility for yourself and also to develop the capacity to reject responsibility that is not your own.  You determine what needs to be organized or feels right as spontaneous.

10 Tips to clarify your future

People often seek clarity about their future.  You don't need a fortune teller.  Who you are is not who you seem to be.  Clarity requires heightening your awareness and opening your senses to what you've always known but consciously deny.  Why is that?

You sense more about your future than you have been willing to admit.  To seek greater certainty is like a journey to unveil hidden confidence.  As you move beyond your patterns and routines, you will uncover bursts of energy. Consider these ten tips;

1) Lose your expectations.

2) Accept destiny is unalterable.

3) Learn the value of detachment.

4) Develop versatility and improvise.

5) Be content as an astute observer.

6) Use time wisely.

7) Dissolve your self-importance.

8) Take responsibility for your thoughts, words and action.

9) Channel energy with intent.

10) Grasping clarity will escape you so long as your beliefs are mistaken for reality.

How do you "see" what happens?

Realize that you are in fact, your own oracle.  As you learn to see inside yourself, you begin to understand that your emotions and actions follow your beliefs, even if it takes time for you to discern physical results.  Change your thoughts and you change your life.

For example, a man told me a story from his life that redefined how he saw himself and his future.  He relayed how one early morning, he was abruptly stopped from going to work by  authorities.  They came to his home, seized property based on suspicion of a crime, and took him off for questioning.  He was released soon after, but the equipment was retained for an extended period until it could be well- examined by "specialists."

During an uncertain waiting period, where his fate hung in the balance, this man's self-doubt intensified. He began to view himself as victim of an uncompassionate society.  His sense of precarious circumstances caused him to question the state of his mind and life, why his sense of stability or happiness often seemed to be thwarted, and how realistic his dreams of personal and professional success really were.  Then, he changed his beliefs.

This story reminds me of the self-questioning on guilt and innocence in The Trial by Franz Kafka.  In that novel, Joseph K. realizes his fate is sealed after a cathedral priest tells him, he must accept things as they are; he cannot fight them. What is important is not whether everything the court says is true; what is important is the action is necessary.

Like this protagonist, we are each invited to discern what our conditions bring to the surface.  You may ask yourself why certain experiences don't seem of your own making.  And then, you realize you have everything to do with lessons brought to your attention.

You may have lost a sense of responsibility for your conscious thought.  Were you taught it doesn't form your life?  As long as you hold a particular conscious belief about yourself,  you'll experience this reality.  Yet, you are not at the mercy of how you thought before.  How you perceive yourself can change.  To change the physical effect, you must change the original self-belief.  To fear new beliefs won't materialize negates their purpose.

Tap into the oracle of your soul

An oracle may be seen as a trigger or source of Divine revelation.  Consider the medicine wheel.  It teaches four directions of inner power.  Harness them to rethink your dreams.  Reflect on the astronomical, ceremonial, cultural, and spiritual connections.

A medicine wheel is not a tool to increase personal power.  It connects us more strongly to the power of something beyond us, Higher energy or God. The four directions of such a wheel are emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. Each one is an oracle of the soul.

As you sense vibes from a medicine wheel, you gain valuable insight into yourself.  You sense you create mental pictures based on your emotions.  You discern emotions more clearly and reasons why they spiral out of control.  Your life always reflects how you feel. 

Whenever your physical body goes tense, this signals you lose sight of what grounds you. Uptight feelings remind you the best thing to do is slow down your thinking, breathe deeply, or pray and ask spirits to help.  You are invited to pay attention differently.

As you learn to tap into the stillness of the mind, you begin to access your spiritual guidance system. Just quiet your mind.  Believe all is in reach.  Open yourself up.  Explore new directions.  Attune yourself to what you create, express and experience in the now.

Discover the shaman inside yourself

Notice when you feel alienated or 'out-of-place.' Your emotions are a gauge. They tell you when you are listening to soul, being true to self or not. Like a shaman, do you allow intuition and Nature to guide your choices? If you cling to the opinions of others, you allow yourself to live on borrowed knowledge. Ignorance and fear may block your access to timeless wisdom. You may ask, what can I do about it?

Be aware when you focus on stories and dreams of other people. This may result from conditioning. You can also view everything as an invitation to discover the shaman inside yourself. Access innersight that enables you to see deeper into the here and now. What behaviour allows soul secrets to reveal themselves?

1) Watch your thinking process.  Choose to live in such a way as you know life is as easy as you make it.   Be present and focused on a matter at hand rather than lose your focus in multi-tasking.  Change the way you think about thought.  Know thoughts are powerful enegy.  Sense all you do evolves naturally. 

2) Be open to shift focus. Stop believing you need what you don't have or that you must control what is uncontrollable.  Review the personas or facades you put on and let go of the person the world thinks you are. See from the vantage point of equality.  Flow into states of abundance and heed the impulse of generosity.

3) Break down your largest challenges.  Become a master anticipator. Sense that you can manage anything step-by-step.  Set an example by thinking of others and serving them rather than being blinded by self-interests.  Change the way you perceive darkness and fear.  Sense they help you see the love that exists. Discern you are an instrument to something greater that empowers you.

4) Be willing to admit you don't know.  This reflects strength.  Watch the ego impulse.  Admit you never really know what is best for other people.  Trust instincts about self yet, remain humble.  The energy of humility is magnetic.  Release your urge to impose ideas.  Sense immeasurable capacities exist within that are unleashed from the moment you believe in the unseen.