Recently I had the opportunity to feel what it is like to not fully express my truth. I was in a situation where I had said part of what I felt to say, but I held back on what was there to be said in full. I held back because I was worried about how the other person might respond.
I thought it was my responsibility to not say too much, so the other person did not feel awkward about what was there to be said.
In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety. A lot of thoughts came up about what was right and wrong, such as:
- Maybe what I have to say will upset the other person.
- It may be confronting.
- Is it my place to say anything?
In all of this I realised that the other person missed out on hearing my expression in full and instead got a watered down version of what I thought was best to say. So in the end we both missed out.
I missed out on expressing what was there to be shared and the insight this sharing could have brought us both. We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.
Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?
I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.
Although I know the truth, I have sometimes chosen to ignore it, or reacted when someone has exposed it to me. I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.
In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.
I remember as a young child I was deeply hurt when I found out Santa Claus was not true. I felt that every adult in the world had lied to me; this made it hard for me to fully trust adults and what they told me
When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out – letting myself be liked rather than being the apparent bringer of upsetting news. The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.
I have come to a greater understanding of Love, truth and expression through the teachings of The Ageless Wisdom and The Hierarchy presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. These teachings have inspired much grace and beauty in my life.
By TS
Further Reading:
Learning to Express Our Feelings – Part 1
Finding My voice Again
What happens When We Do Not Speak Up?
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
‘The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known’, that is a bomb of a statement. We cannot deny truth, it is felt so deep within, it is the reason why we have the internal destructive dialogue because we have gone against it.
If truth is truly spoken from the body, what happens to the other does not matter, because it was delivered with no outcome, for the person to get it. It is done out of love and from love. It allows the other ponder, and leave a seed in them that will eventually grow one day and the realisation will eventuate. Truth allows another space…
This has been a biggie for me, hardly expressing in my truth when I was growing up, and if anything it came out wrong, angry, frustrated, often with tears and the thoughts of, should’s, could’s and would’s, would consume me.
Over the years, my expression has been unfolding as I develop my relationship with me and myself. It is far from perfect but, what I love is that I express from the fulness of who I am. There are times I express from such a force, that is not shouting, but from love and authority, that people don’t say anything as the message delivered doesn’t require any responses. Other times, I don’t say anything as there is nothing to be said, but my expression of silence says it all.
There is another expression I am learning to master next and that is the academic one…
To add to this, when we are in our bodies, steady and in the fullness of who we truly are, we let out this (I can only say), a vibration that penetrates another. That being me affects another, and sometimes we don’t know how it affects them as it cannot always be seen, it is felt further then the eye can see…
“I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.” A lot of things can get in the way of expressing including thinking that what we have to contribute is not valuable, or beliefs like “women should not speak up”, and fear that others will react. Sometimes it is not even some earth-shattering truth to be delivered, just what we feel to say or contribute to the discussion. What I am realising is it’s not just the words that people miss out on when we hold back, but everything that the person is that comes through with the expression as well
Melinda another biggie for me, ‘women should not speak up’. Culturally it has had a knock on effect, but boy when I speak with the fulness of who I am not only as a woman but as a being, even I find it sexy. So women out there, speak from the fulness of who you truly are and not from your hurts.
Sometimes it is a necessary process for another to feel uncomfortable with what we have to share, and this is not a bad thing as I have been taught originally. IF the person is not comfortable with hearing the Truth then this does not mean we should not share it with them. rather we can share with them the truth and then give them some space and understanding and in this way support them with hearing the truth.
We don’t really think about truth being a part of ourselves or who we are, but it is, and if we hold it back we hold back ourselves. Everyone is short changed when we hold back. Even if the truth is not received well, we have honoured ourselves and our integrity by expressing it.
“We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.” And it takes awareness and practice in how we are with ourselves when we express.
I had the opportunity to feel the harm of holding back expression today and yesterday. I knew I had to say something yesterday but I didn’t and it left a relationship in a stagnant, unresolved place. So today when I felt something to express and wasn’t, it was even more obvious the harm it was doing to hold back. Once I did and we all expressed the whole feeling and cohesiveness in the group changed.
It’s a great example Fiona of how when we hold back the truth we actually hold everyone back.
And when we hold back truth, we hold back love, ‘I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.’
When we are true to ourselves and put ourselves first in our lives, it becomes easier to express what is there to express, even those challenging conversations, simply because, we have a marker to being true to ourselves.
Truth cannot be owned it simply is what it is and is inclusive of us ALL.
Yes Victoria and when we hold back the power of our expression it does hurt the situation as they have missed out on your exqusite truth, love, harmony,stillness or joy – or all together.
Spot on Victoria, Truth cannot be owned and there is an arrogance in thinking we can own it. When we look at it this way, then we realise the importance of speaking Truth and not holding it back or owning it in any other way.
Your example of Santa Claus highlights how very much we are used to to not speaking our truth.
And how easily it is common for us to tell and make up things that aren’t actually true.. It has become about the surface, not the inner-depth truth.
There is no such a thing as ‘my’ truth. There is only truth or the truth.
‘My’ truth and ‘your’ truth have got us into a lot of trouble. Truth is absolute.
What I truly appreciate is how much we are able to express when we allow to drop any barrier and dare to go there and be raw and honest saying exactly what is there to share. I find it very strenghtning once you start doing so, it becomes your new marking point ( a point where you can come back to you, and after becomes your foundation). I big joy expressing is. And it enriches all of your relationships too !
Well said Danna – for when we express Truth, even though it may create a moment or two or awkwardness, at least we know what has needed to be said has been expressed and this is a joy to the body always, for nothing is kept locked in and hence it paves the way for an honest and open and truly intimate relationship.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.” If one acknowledges and accepts this then expressing in full is easier because who does not want to be loving?
Our bodies are already communicating before we even open our mouth so not expressing what we feel gives complications instead of bringing simply the truth.
“Truth is the same as Love” – absolutely, and one cannot happen without the other. ‘Truth’ cannot be heard when expressed without Love, only the imposition of righteousness gets felt. ‘Love’ without Truth stinks of the shallowness of falsity.
This is a theme I seem to keep coming back to, and what I am getting now is that there still is this element of trying of getting my expression right, constant unconscious censoring of what I think I should say, to whom, when, how etc. But there are moments when expression just happens, and that’s really beautiful. Maybe if it is truly about love, and that is truly where I am at, the body is left to move without any interference, and what I would express is not for me to own, and how and when that happens is not for me to decide or control.
true inspiration comes from feeling truth – than living it makes the love be felt and possible for others to live too. It is implementing that which is your felt inspiration.
We have accepted to live way beyond the truth we know deep inside, in other words we have accepted to live in constant disguises instead of the simplicity of our own being.
When we express the truth we feel in full with each other we are saying ‘yes’ to deepening our relationship with love, that which we all deserve to be met with. Truth is not ours but for all to feel and know. When we know and feel it, it is our responsibility and far more honoring to reflect this in full regardless of the what the outcome might be.
Just exactly what do we support when we don’t speak our truth? Could it be the lies, deceit, fake-ness and the multitude of empty so called connections we have in our life?
Absolutely it does Leigh. When we hold back expressing truth we give permission for the momentum of lies to continue to circulate and be further embedded as ‘normal’.
There is true grace in speaking our truth, for as others have done for us, we can do for another. Such openness provides a space for us all to simply be ourselves.
And opens our body to receive even more truth to speak, move and walk.
When we only partially say what has to be said those listening can only get a partial understanding of what needs to be shared or learned.
Re learning that true love is expressing all of you in full no matter what may comes back at you, or no matter what anther may feel is a massive claiming in one’s evolution. One claiming that I am continuously working on.
“We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.” When we play nice we miss out on so much, when speaking our truth with honesty we offer each other a true relationship where we each are free to be and express from who we are.
It’s almost like being bullied by the potential reaction or resistance that we can feel from another if we did speak up in full. I can remember putting this out to people, but secretly wanting them to call me out or share what I could feel they wanted to. Yes I have reacted and yes others do react but it is not up to us to hold back as it may be just confirming what they have also been denying is true deep down.
The more I have expressed my truth, the more I become solid in expressing my truth, and the more I start to see and feel the benefit for all involved when truth is expressed.
This blog is music to my heart. “Truth is the same as Love”. I know this through and through, and on reflection I also know that all the times when I have thought people were not ready to hear the truth was because it was not delivered with love. Which means even if all the words were said, it was never the whole truth.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love.” When we hold back from expressing truth in full we invite misunderstanding and misinterpretation to creep in.
It is fascinating to observe how an unspoken truth leads to a very known pattern of behavior that tries to cover up the incredible tension that we feel in the body. Over time we build more ways to avoid being fooled by ourselves.
Yes, and who says that tension is not good for us or that it is to be avoided?
The only reason that awkwardness exists in the face of truth is because we have lived in disregard to our truth for so long. Yet the fact is that we all know truth, deep down love truth as it is the true expression of our Soul, who we are. When we express truth, we feel the fullness and realness of who we are, as such we confirm the light of who we all are in essence. Truth is what unifies us and allows us connects us to every facet of the universe that we are all intrinsically part of.
Beautiful. Truth is inclusive and encompassing of All, we know it as it is within our very essence.
Love this unifying quality of truth that you’ve identified here: truth doesn’t take sides, favour or judge: it is simply there for everyone to see, feel and read, holding everyone as an absolute equal.
Imagine if people actually understood what happens when we don’t express our truth… the world of lies that we live in would collapse like the pack of cards it is.
What a beauty of a blog – as truth is actually way more easy than lies. As it just is. Thank you for expressing clearly what it is to express truth in full.
I find it easy in some instances to be open and present the truth, in full, but not so in others. It is this discrepancy that it is my responsibility to unravel until such time as it is only the full truth that I offer.
So true Leigh, I can see how I measure myself as well and only express at times where I feel comfortable, everyone misses out including myself if I hold myself back with others.
I find it excruciating to hold back and yet often do due to wanting to avoid the confrontation I think will ensue. It’s a no win situation and one I am step by baby step, working on letting go of.
I know that if I withhold truth my body feels heavy and a tension, it is there giving me the signals to speak my truth. When I express truth openly I feel lighter in my body and this allows others to have the opportunity to feel the same too.
Beautifully shared Amita – we certainly do wear truth well. Our body comes alive when we freely express truth, offering a reflection to others of our true way of being.
Not expressing the truth has consequences, it is our responsibility to express the truth with love, in whatever way that needs to be expressed, this may mean just observing with love, ‘In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.’
The importance of truthful expression (in our full wake) simply because if not — we will only allow lies, mistruths to be expressed instead.
It seems when we get caught thinking that it’s “my truth and I need to say it or express it” there comes a thing of me not doing something for myself or even someone else. When it comes to truth though isn’t it just one truth? So then if this is true then when you have something to say or express you are just sharing what everyone already has or knows, it’s not ‘yours’ in this way and you aren’t the carrier, more the deliverer. So if you hold back what is already there for us all to know then this again makes it all about you and has little to do with us because we all already know. Life as we have said in many ways for thousands of years is about energy first and so in this way truth is something to feel, we are all connected and so holding back something becomes about 1 and nothing truly to do with truth and us all.
Truth stands head and shoulders above those little white lies that keep us from feeling our essence. So expressing in a Loving way, which is being Truth-full is simply who we are.
Absolutely expressing our truth is simply who we are from our essence. So connecting to this truth and allowing this essence to come out is the only way.
Agreed Amita, our essence or Soul when connected to shares so much Loving Wisdom that we can-but-only-express a deep level of Truth!
It’s so ironic that we hold back because we don’t want to make the other person feel awkward.. but in us holding back, they already feel awkward because they can feel that there’s something that we’re not expressing. When we disconnect from what we can feel by going off into our heads, we can’t feel whether there’s something to say or not. When we keep things simple and stay with what we can feel, there’s either something there for us to say, or not. Trusting that what we have to say is not even for us, but for the other, helps us to get over the fear and allow it out.
Haha, yes indeed Bryony. It’s the ‘elephant in the room’ which everyone tries to ignore and yet feels so uncomfortable about!
Not expressing in full, not expressing our truth for whatever reason can feel quite horrible in our body, and also affect those we are not being truthful with, ‘In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety.’
Whilst it may appear harm-less to hold back it is in truth just as harm-full as a horrific murder or other such crime as the end result is just the same. We allow the lack of love to continue to lack.
There are consequences for us not expressing in full, for holding back the truth, ‘In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety.’
Withholding our truth, or not expressing in full is us not being fully loving with ourself and others.
The body won’t lie it will show us when we are not expressing our truth in some for or another. The body is constantly communicating to us all the time.
Yes, our body is amazing, it is like a wise best friend.
This simply means that holding back – simply has no truth and is about comforts, ideals and creation deviating us away from that which is natural to express. You can say that it is a need we put before it, one individual need that we think is more important than what might be actually real and true. I become to know inside my life, my choices and free willl – how much I have been playing this game of allowing the truth to be expressed through me – simply because I thought I had reason enough to put my individual needs before any other. This itself is without judgement – a hurtfull matter, as it is dismissive of the whole and separative to mankind to do so. This is my powerful realization recently – an awareness of my own acts in life – teaching that there is something I need to shift in life – making it about One, the whole of who we all are. Now that is something to start living.
Keeping the peace and not wanting to rock the boat may sound good intentioned, but my experience is that lies, or half truths cause much confusion and more mess than the anticipated fall out that may come from expressing the whole truth. Often the reaction I imagine will come from expressing the truth never actually materialises, and even if it did, at least everyone knows where they stand with the truth.
There is so much investment in the responding that often outweighs the healing that is offered to all when we choose to express what is need in the moment.
One thing I am working on is accepting and living the fact that truth is not ours to hold back. It belongs to all, we are only the vessel that delivers it.
A great point that if we are holding back in any way and not expressing what is there to be shared then we are not expressing truth and we are part of the lie.
This was a real ouch moment for me when I felt the truth in this. Not only are we part of the lie but our body has to deal with the repercussion of holding back.
What I am observing more and more in my bodies movements is when we hold back how we feel, what affect does this then have on our body? There is a very palpable feeling of tension particularly in my chest, neck or throat when I hold back what I feel to share. Showing me that when the truth is there to be shared it is felt and when we surrender and allow this expression to flow there is no right or wrong just the honesty of the moment, but if we hold back we also feel this and stress and tension usually ensues until we surrender to this movement and express how we feel too. Its a great learning to observe our movements and behaviours and uncover who we really are and what holds us back from this.
When we hold back the truth of what we can feel, we then walk around with this unexpressed expression and it feels like poison. Why do we hold back? Because we’re pre-judging how another person will take what we have to say, fearing we’ll upset the apple cart and upset them, instead of trusting that they can take it, and that maybe even their lives will be enhanced by hearing it. Learning that it’s never for us to judge, but always for us to deliver what is there to be said, with absolute truth and love, is a forever deepening process.
I had a situation the other day where I expressed my truth, what I observed was how apologetic I wanted to be when I seen the reaction of the person receiving this. It allowed me to see how I have held back what is in my body to be shared not wanted to deal with the reaction of another.
Having just attended phenomenal and awesome Level 4, Sacred Esoteric Healing course with Serge Benhayon, it has been very easy to feel the destructiveness on the body of holding back our expression, whether in movement, voice or even the quality of thoughts and communication with others.
A gorgeous blog to return to with a powerful reminder to express in full as everyone benefits.
While we hold back the perception of what might happen turns into this huge, circulating mountain of what might, could and supposedly will happen. We shrink in fear of all these pictures but when we do express I’ve found the outcome to never match those scenarios in my head. Expressing how we feel is the most anticlimactic feeling and yet so freeing and beautiful.
Beautifully said Leigh.
I keep returning to this blog as I feel it is so supportive for me on this moment. What stood out for me today was the line: truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.
‘In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety’. And when we do this on a consistent basis, is it little wonder that we become sick? All that is unexpressed builds up in the body and at some point has to be cleared and released for the body to function optimally and maintain all its systems in good order.
Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share? Definitely, recently in a relationship I held back expressing all I was feeling and now dealing with the consequences of that now with much regret. That said, this experience has also served me to never again hold back my feelings and my truth to another.
I now know, Truth is the same as Love. This is a powerful reminder for me today.
Withholding the truth does cause devastation.. do we allow our silence to do our talking for us, or take the risk, open up and share what we feel? When we look at why we hold back, the potential short-term discomfort doesn’t outweigh the longer-term costs of holding back. We know holding back harms us and others, so why do we still do it? Are we holding onto control and ‘the way we like to do things’ for our own benefit, and is this actually hurting us and others?
What you describe here we have come to see as normal – to measure and evaluate what we are saying and reinterpreting what we originally feel to say -, but as you have observed it is actually not and thus relearning to express our truth again is a blessing for us all.
One of the main regrets on a persons death bed is everything they didn’t say to those they love. Same goes for those who’s loved ones have passed over – what is devastating is what wasn’t said or what was said but not said in truth.
If we hold back the truth others don’t get the opportunity to grow or evolve and when we express in full we offer a powerful reflection that inspires and ignites others to also make this same choice.
When I hold back my truth my whole body contricts and contracts and I feel uncomfortable and tense. It is interesting how much pain and discomfort we are prepared to put up with in an effort to not be in the spotlight.
It is interesting that we fear the reactions of others when we speak our truth and yet we know how very hurting lies are.
It’s true Esther – why fear reaction when we are physically and energetically harming ourselves and another when we hold back truth? Truth is something that unifies us, connects us to a point of knowing that we are more than our physical form – so when people reject that, it is devastating, but that reaction shouldn’t change the way we express and hold others in the knowing that they are part of the same unifying truth.
Hi Amita, although the truth can be at times very confronting and challenging but to me it is always an opportunity for healing and in that never brings hurt, that is only what we do to ourselves when we ignore this truth and dig in our heals to protect the comfort we are in.
It is indeed confusing when we do not speak up and hold back that what lives in us. By not expressing it is not gone, instead it will fester within our bodies and will be the basis for future illness and disease in any way shape or form.
Truth lights the way to the inner heart and brings others together through mutual essence, and also highlights that which is not true for us to feel and know.
‘If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that’. To not live in truth, is to not live in love with all, including thyself.
Truth is a loving response to start the healing process in every situation. When a lie is exposed and if there is a reaction it may well be that a conditional truth, which is a lie has now foundation and thus energetically a conditional truth does not hold water as far as being true energetically. Seeing everything is energy truth has to stand up and be energetically true so we all benefit equally.
If we have an attachment to certain images, an investment in life being a certain way, we may not like the transparency of truth as it exposes our untruths. Truth though is unifying.
We have no right to hold back our expression, so when we do it inevitably feels devastating.
Beautifully said, thank you Linda.
I have had so many experiences where I have held back from fully expressing. It was a way of life. To express in full is something new that I am getting better at. One thing I have observed is that I feel so much better for it. I don’t go away with a feeling of the words being stuck inside of me. The other thing is that people don’t normally react badly or in the way I used to imagine they would. The world still turns, and actually my relationships have improved because of it.
Holding back our truth creates more harm than what we can imagine, as once it is felt in our bodies it is not ours to keep but to express it in full regardless of whether others choose to resist or accept the pull back to our soul.
Yes that is so true, the short term gain of not telling the whole truth for fear of a reaction always leads to further complication! Expression is everything and what we hold back poisons our body.
At times we may believe truth is uncomfortable to feel, hear or express though it is actually very healing and empowering when we openly receive and express truth. It is evolving for both parties.
Absolutely Victoria, truth is very evolving for both parties. I have been having so much of these experiences lately with family, friends and colleagues. What I have noticed as I express truth, the other feels it and they may not like it in that moment, but they have the strength to express where they are at and it gives them the opportunity to release what is going in there body, so an opportunity to evolve.
Lovingly expressing our truth is the most supportive thing we can do for ourselves and anyone else we are interacting with.
Yes, there cannot truly be one without the other…Love and Truth are one.
Thank you for exposing the responsibility we have to express in full ‘so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort’. We have to play our part and express what is there to be said to support the expansion of any relationship and allow the other person to respond from where they are at. Letting go of trying to control outcomes allows us to express from our truth without our fearful editor cutting in and blocking the flow of our truthful expression.
I am certainly learning to express first, rather than concern myself of the outcome first, and then measure my expression to fit around that. Years and years of old habits to undo!
I love how you say that expressing truth can start the process of coming to a common understanding together. Yes, it works both ways and so it can be very awakening when we are open to both expressing truth and receiving it. We can support each other in this way.
What I am more aware of that if I hold back expressing truth my body feels heavy, as soon as I start to express my body feels lighter. So what is not expressed openly causes heaviness in the body, something I was not aware before, which caused pains in my body as I walked with unexpressed within me.
Yes me too, the body is such an honest reflector of our expression or lack of it.
One thing I have come to realise is that not expressing is part of my making others more important than me instead of holding us both in equality. After all it’s good for my wellbeing to simply express how I feel, yet I make another’s comfort more important, so we both miss out on the opportunity to truly connect.
‘We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.’ And this comes from not choosing to connect, connect with ourselves and make this our foundation and thus not able to connect and open up to others. To be intimate and fragile asks for letting people in and letting yourself out, I know this a joy to be and I am choosing to live this more and more by discarding ingrained behaviours like holding back and hiding etc.
not only is it hard when we hold back truth, or love or joy, but in fact the common human life that is sold supports this, and is made to look like that pleasures come in forms of DVD’s. sales, glorious food and special times with the ones we love (which is a small group). This falls far short of the expression of our Soul, which is made to be in everything we do, serving all to see the same.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. ” This sentence stood out for me today We are not taught this – that harmony, stillness, joy, truth and love are all facets of God and we are sparks of God. However knowing and living this are two different things.
This time by reading your blog I was get caught by the line about that ‘we will miss out on intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full’. And I am getting a real body feeling of how it is to open up to another and let the other feel and see everything, to truly become transparent and also aware about what is going on in the other. This is so beautiful and a fragile feeling. But the intimacy we are all longing for is also something we protect us from – why? The hurts we try to avoid can not be healed by control and more protection screens. Fear is not a good advisor to come closer together. But where does the fear coming from? If I am strongly connected to who I am and belong to, I know what is going on and therefore there is no insecurity. So if I feel anxiety comes up – I can connect deeper to my inner stillness and with that: connecting to all, because we are all connected via our stillness. So in fact my connection to mankind, my going for intimacy gives me the strength and power to let my hurts heal and go. That is the opposite of how I ‘normally’ think it works….
Expressing the truth is what is needed in every situation, but I also realise that sometimes it is not needed to be communicated verbally as it is not fully part of my Livingness and therefore would be felt as a love-less directive.
Absolutely Sandra, sometimes it is true to say nothing, which serves the person and in these situations I have honoured my self through a nomination of what could have been said. Then I feel everyone would be in the wisdom of their inner-most because nothing has been imposed when something needs not be said. Every situation is different and must be understood for the truth of what to say and when to say something.
When we hold back our expression, not only does our body start to contract, it also feels awful. We have a responsibility not to hold back our full expression because we both get short changed from what there is to be shared, if we don’t express it.
Our body shows us clearly through contraction when we don’t openly express. We loose the opportunity for us sharing ourselves in full and getting a reflection of another sharing themselves in full.
This is something that keeps coming up for me. And one of my reasons for not expressing in full is that I don’t always trust what I am feeling to be true and I pre-judge my expression to be judgmental. And because those situations are not rare, I already kind of set myself up for possible another case of ‘failure’ in expression, and there comes tension in my body even before I say anything, trying to ‘fix’ my expression issue. I can now feel how it is simply about not being in my essence to begin with for my true essence knows and is the truth and can only express with love.
Whenever we hold back, the effect can be felt as a contraction in our body. A tightening and tensing of certain areas that we don’t like to feel and hence retreat into the mind and ignore what our body is saying.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.” So true. We have so many pictures of what love is and most of them include being always nice and sweet yet that is not all that love is and this does not mean to hold something that is true and needs to be said back. And with expressing truth it is important to express it in a way that is loving and that the person can understand.
Truth = Love ♥️
Even when its uncomfortable, so true, thanks for sharing/ expressing!
Great point Laura, when we hold back the truth we effectively separate from love – ouch!
Expressing in truth is powerful and we can increase the volume of this by expressing even more when we bring understanding and the grace to allow another person just to be.
I have always felt that when we hold back from sharing and expressing the truth, it not only delays the inevitable process of growth and understanding but it adds unnecessary staring on our beloved bodies too. The one question I love to ponder is why do we hold back when we have so much to share and express? It not only deepens our relationships but makes our bodies feel oh so lovely too.
Being absolute in expression is one of the most rewarding choices I can, and am more than ever before, choose.
Oh this struck a chord…”When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out ” ummm tumbleweed moment…how often have I preferred that to the upset. Trouble is I will never know if the upset would actually ever have come because I never gave so many of these situations or people the opportunity not to be plastered with my pictured outcome eeeek, such humble pie being eaten right now!
I have held in a lot of what I wanted to say since childhood, and this pattern continued into adulthood. One of the worst things about it is feeling blocked because of the withheld expression, and I’ve noticed how tiring it feels physically as well. When I do express and not hold back I feel such expansion, and each moment of true, connected expression beings more expansion and clarity. And it’s not just uncomfortable things we hold back, but also our love in expressing to one another.
Truth is something that is ontologically and energetically different from right and wrong, It dissolves any tension immediately. Yet, sometimes we choose to hold on to the tension that truth is called to dissolve. This happens when we assess whether is right or wrong to speak truth, that is, when we try to bring truth into the right and wrong realm; a realm it does not belong to.
How common is it to hold back so we don’t hurt someone’s feelings? I’ve done it my whole life, and found out the hard way that this is not only untrue, but it also robs the other person of their opportunity to grow and evolve. Ultimately its a rather selfish thing to do, and we do it because it makes us more comfortable.
When we are not truthful with ourselves in the first place we cannot be true with someone else and don´t invite the other to be open, loving and sincere themselves; basically we choose safety over connection, protection over intimacy.
So true Alex, if you want the other to be open, loving and sincere, first we most be that. So simple yet our ingrained habits can have us choosing the safety, which I fell into recently in a new experience and now I am feeling the big ouch from that!
“Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?” yes when we hold back expression our truth we hold others back too. When we speak our truth with our connection, we inspire others to speak the truth too.
When we hold back from expressing our truth in full we are keeping ourselves and others from feeling whether our truth is equally in them.
It is worth noting too – Expression is not just words, but in every moment of our living way.
I have held back from expressing fully for most of my life saying what I thought the other person wanted to hear, but I had not felt what this was doing to my body. There was a constant tension and anxiety of not supporting myself or the other person in saying fully everything that could be said.. On reflection I can see that the holding back was because of the hardness I would feel in my own body as I reacted to the situation. If I express my truth lovingly and supportively then there is no reaction in my body and if there is in the other person I can allow it to stay there without the guilt and self doubt that I would go into knowing I had caused the reaction in the first place.
The other day I expressed truthfully how another’s behaviour made me feel. I did this without emotion or attachment to any outcome. The other person was embarrassed and didn’t cope with my honesty, avoiding me for days and not looking at me. It was interesting because the way I felt was not a criticism, but the horrible event was something that person had been witness to. I found that with commitment to meeting this person and by being consistent, that our relationship was fine. I realised that this person’s past experience with emotional accusations flung around meant that they went into protection and I didn’t take this personally. It was lovely to continue to be open and to see that this then gave everyone an opportunity to feel how things can be different.
What becomes clear is that we do know the truth but that we have very much learned not to speak it. So it is simply a relearning to express what is there to express in truth.
“Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?” In addition to this, I can also feel how there is a judgement placed on the other person or an attempt to protect them from something, rather than to express in full without holding back and allow them the opportunity to feel the fullness of the expression. Any reaction following expression can then be addressed, however, to not be given the opportunity to receive the expression means that a judgement has been passed.
Thank you Lee for this insight. I had not seen it this way before. That makes sense to me.
It interesting to observe how holding back our truth affects not only ourselves and our bodies but it also greatly effects the other person. We are shutting down our connection to our truth, and our openness to connect with another in truth. We then miss out on deepening our connection to Love for ourselves and each other, the opportunity to learn and evolve, and as such the relationship to grow. The gift of expressing the truth is one that is not about being ‘nice’ or about making someone ‘feel good’, as the truth when expressed from the heart is the truth of who we all are in essence. It is the truth of Love.
I can relate to the anxiety in my body from not expressing in full, whether it be verbally, physical movements or how I dress, do my hair etc. Any form of holding back the real me, and not letting people in.
Accepting the reality that I can at least bring honesty to most situations is my stepping stone to claiming and honouring the truth.
When we hold back truth we create a tension in the body. It is a tension that is constantly held until a moment is offered for us to express what needs to be said lovingly. I have often felt as to whether it was my place to speak up thinking it would be better it coming from another but when I am connected to me and steady in my livingness sometimes no matter who it is, it is me to deliver it. This is work in progress as I develop the relationship with myself.
I’ve had this same feeling Caroline. I now realise that if I felt it then of course it was for me to say… sometimes another will still say it, then I can feel regret.
Truth is always deeply felt if not consciously known – a truth for the ages and one we all know. It’s habitual to hold back I often find especially when I make it about me and my comfort (fitting in, being nice or liked) rather than what is there to be said. I feel very clearly in your sharing that in those scenarios what I am holding back is me and the connection and intimacy I could share with another, I am holding back my love.
I have learned that holding back on my expression is like putting a lid on a steamer, it builds up an inner pressure that leads to uncomfortable feelings in our body and eventually to illness and disease. We are designed to express in full and not to keep in that what is given through heaven for us to grow and expand from.
I like how you describe what happened when you held back what was there to express, as it shows that the ‘negative’ thoughts come in afterwards, after we have not expressed our truth. It is like we decide to not stand in our fullness and then this part, that is not filled with our fullness/truth, is immediately filled with thoughts of doubt or the likes.
When we hold back the truth from someone – it’s like we are saying that they are not worth knowing the truth. I feel like it hurts both parties and causes an element of rejection. Speaking the truth allows everyone to come to the same point, it equalises us because we all have a relationship with it deep down.
I know if I withhold the truth it feels heavy in my body, like a twisted knot in my stomach. There has been many occasions where I haven’t told the truth or the full truth and in this I feel the other person knew anyway when I wasn’t being truthful. Even though I thought I was getting away with something it felt like the lie carried with me in my body where ever I went.
‘… devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.’ I have not always allowed myself to fully feel this, while in fact always feeling it, and I know this as I’ve been in many situations where I felt a truth and did not fully express it and in order not to feel that devastation I numbed myself, through drama, over-eating or whatever distraction served the purpose. All to not feel the devastation of having reneged on truth.
Thank you for your comment Monica. It gives me a clearer understanding that whenever I hold back from expressing truth there are consequences; I can either feel the devastation from not expressing or I can bury it which leads to further complication where I create something to distract me from feeling the withholding of love that was to be expressed in the first place.
As I come back to this blog I feel the frustration of not having moved forward with my expression since last reading. I know so deeply important it is for Humanity and myself
The truth is indeed there to be expressed, but i feel it needs getting used to, that the truth doesn’t always crest comfortable situations. But knowing that truth is love brings it back to the simplicity of living life, love brings us true joy, even when life isn’t always comfortable.
We all know truth. I love truth. Truth is love and when another expresses truth and I can feel the discomfort in my body I know it is the greatest act of love they have presented before me in that moment.
When I read the word “devastation”, it really resonated with exactly how I feel when I actually stop and look at the level to which I cap and distort my expression… super devastating
Curious to see how things work out. Yesterday, unable to respond to a communication received`(I didn’t know how to or ‘lost for words’) I didn’t force it but stayed with space. This morning, I woke up, felt the truth of the situation and found a form of expression that said it all very simply. The outcome is irrelevant, expression of truth everything.
If we make everything that’s there to express “ours” we complicate something simple – all we need to do is feel the truth and deliver with love. And, like a postman delivering letters, we don’t need to rely on how people react to the letter, we just deliver and be the love that we are. Whether they accept it or they don’t is not our business. If we are invested in others we need to ask why, as opposed to being with the truth.
Relationships can feel empty and shallow at times, and it makes sense because if I hold back my full truth then the opportunities for an authentic connection and all the fragility and raw honesty that can come from that are not present. I can see that worrying about upsetting people is really secondary to the deep misery of not truly connection to others, living behind a mask.
Such a good point Sarah, and I totally agree. Something I very much need to practice as I can be guilty of holding back to avoid another person feeling something that might be less than pleasant. But as you say, that could be the very thing they need to hear in order to better support their own expression.
Holding back the truth supports no one, we just all need to start practicing speaking up, even if it does go against all that we were taught.
That truth itself has a resonance that is palpable is something that we all innately know, and yet for most, have to rediscover, re-awakening the senses that can actually feel this.
Recently I chose to go full circle in getting to the truth from saying ‘No’ to something because of hurts held in my body to saying ‘yes’ to that what was true all along. It was an uncomfortable process but step by step I shared how I was feeling along the way slipping up at times. The point I am making is there is no such thing as perfection. Speaking up has been a big one for me but making life about love and truth, it then becomes difficult to hold back from expressing what is there to be expressed.
It’s a great point Caroline, if we are waiting to be perfect before we begin to express our truth we will be waiting a long time!
In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time. I absolutely agree, and it is our bodies that feel the impact and assault.
‘ I now know, Truth is the same as Love’ For such a long time I was ignorant to this truth. Expressing our truth sets us free, for it is our human design to express and share our love.
To me, to accept that we are vessels of expression in which we either express love or that what is not love based on the choice we have made, is the way to go. We then can find that holding back in that what we feel to express perhaps is not loving at all.
‘The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.’ This captures very much what we all know is true and how we do know truth, we just avoid it, often to be liked or not stand out and yet always ultimately truth will out, and it’s up to us whether we live it now or later.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.” Absolutely if we are holding back and not expressing truth we are not truly being love, as with love there is no truth and with truth there is no love, they go hand in hand.
When the truth is withheld the body suffers the consequences and we all miss out.
I have noticed more recently that if there is any holding back in expressing my truth with another, the other person is not able to connect to expressing their truth. When I don’t hold back I have created space for another to express.
Truth is considered taboo by many now days as we have become accustomed to the fear and back lash that comes with speaking up. When we build relationships with others and show that our way of living is about honesty, no perfection and willingness to listen there is an opportunity to feel less anxious and worried about reactions.
Too many of us play the game of holding back to not step on someone else toes, making silent agreements with each other to not cross a certain line the might challenge the status quo. But as you share we keep each other small in that way never allowing the full bloom.
And it is these silent agreements with each other that keep us all prisoners, keep us in comfort and in ignorance of our true and natural essence, which is to hold each other in the love that abounds all around us.
Expressing our truth in full inspires others to do the same.
Holding back expressing what we have felt to be true is harming to us, but also for others who have missed out on an otherwise truth that was there for them equally.
Not expressing what needs to be said when it needs to be said is like swallowing a poison. In turn this feeds the vicious circle of muting yourself and not wanting to speak up all the more which creates many an issue for us that does not need to be experienced both internally in our bodies, and externally in our lives.
On the other side is to be offered truth lovingly and know how that feels. Sometimes the only way to support another is to be more aware of their actions and take responsibility. I have experienced this recently and feel the truth offered helped me to self-reflect and reach a deeper understanding of what happened and why. It helps to not have any attachment to anything that might have been, but to simply surrender to what is offered. When I did this I saw truth lovingly given and it offered an opportunity for me to stop and simply rest.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love.” And that to me is so important to understand, so even being a little harsh with someone by telling the truth as how I sense it, is is an act of love as with that I do stop someone from living a lie and with that hurting themselves.
When we hold ourselves back and don’t express ourselves in full we all miss out on the potential of what could be shared to inspire all others.
I love where you describe the inner conflict after you’ve held back the truth – this is a spot on description – when we hold back the truth it actually creates a turmoil inside us. It’s so much simpler and less harming to everyone involved to just express what needs to be expressed.
‘I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.’ I know for myself I was one of trying to be in harmony with everybody else but this was not true harmony as a lot was not spoken about to keep it al quiet and nice. There is a dismissiveness in this pattern is what I see now, we are all worth the truth, discomfortable or not. That’s what I am learning to express what I feel inside and to not let it slip away for the sake of not rocking the boat.
And we can actually get used to feeling what its like to express with all of us, and once this is truly embodied, we will never look back to configuring our words for others.
I think we hold back truth because we don’t think people can cope, a perfect example is letting a child know there is no Santa, yet it is very presumptuous and quite condescending to think you know how another person with feel, cope or react. It doesn’t offer the other person the space to respond as they see fit…at any age.
I can feel the heaviness in my body from consistently shying away from expressing my truth. I also sense how much I make this into a thing to beat myself with as I know it’s actually all so simple and easy…I use the holding back to make issues in my life, and to make myself feel down. It’s amazing to get that kind of support from your expression here, so thank you for not holding back. It’s an inspiration as I appreciate more now through constant expression comes great healing.
What I’ve noticed recently, is holding back the truth when you sense something is amiss or not quite right can actually lead to real damage for someone. The truth is there to be expressed, always in love and support of another, not held and contained within. That little piece of truth might mean everything for that person.
What I have been noticing lately is that I may say many words in my attempt to express myself, but sometimes there’s still things left unsaid. It is horrible to feel these residues in my body. And this puts me in anticipation of the next opportunity, the next encounter with the same individuals to somehow try to complete what I have still got to say, and this has been causing anxiousness and I am finding myself not really being present, so in the end creating further opening for me not to be able to express in full.
The truth is not ours to keep or bend or distort but ours to know and share and live equally.
Yes Susie, by avoiding to express the full truth we are withholding one another from evolving to that deeper level that is there for each and everyone of us to return back to. It feels like we have an arrangement with one another to not go there as we have invested too much in the self created world which is void of love but is rewarding us in one way or another with the pleasures we have created for ourselves.
Holding back, calibrating what can be said and what cannot be said is not a very healthy thing to do, not for one’s body nor our relationships and not for the wellbeing of us as a community, but it is such a common and normal thing to do, which reveals a lot about where we are at as a society.
Holding back the truth only delays us moving forward. We can either move freely from our expression and what is there to be shared in that moment like a rabbit or delay what we feel from fear of being judged or fear of reaction and sink back into our shells like a turtle. Either way we will still get to our desired destination, because in the end truth will always come home strong.
I have come to realize that there is no dimmer switch to the truth. We are either expressing from our essence or not. The light is on / or off. No mistake – any variation – The light is off.
Expression in full includes the way we move, speak, walk and interact with the world. Expression is EVERY thing.
It so does Kathryn, very well said.
Expressing in full is not something we have been willing to do as a society. We fear rejection and making waves. And yet the more love we connect to within ourselves the more we know that we have a responsibility to express in full.
Expressing truth may be difficult and awkward at times, especially if you have played the nice and don’t create waves, game, it is a great opportunity for growth and an opening up share a deepening in the relationship.
Reading this blog again, I can feel the extent of disconnection I have allowed in myself by choosing not to express myself truth-fully over life times. Everything is an expression, what we say, the way we move our body – it is not something I only activate and engage when it suits me, it is happening ceaselessly. Just like having a healthy heart muscle to keep it pumping, this expression muscle of mine needs to be looked after, and what I am feeling is the result of this neglect over the years that has taken away the freedom and spontaneity of joy-full expression. Yet, my body has never stopped communicating all this time, and is the re-entry point for me.
Good point about Santa Claus, of course when children and young people find out this isn’t true but for years have been told it is, there is bound to be issues of trust. How amazing would the world be if it was only based on truth.
I feel that I’ve held back because I don’t want to rock the boat and upset others because of the possible outcome of what another may feel. I feel that its our responsibility to live truth-fully then let allow others to adjust to the way we are living. Living in truth can be a powerful reflection for all to see.
‘In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety.’ I read this sentence over and over a few times before reading on. I have been there myself and could really relate to the enormity of what these words mean when they descend on us in this way. What strikes me particularly is the amount of emotion, mental activity and self-talk that we put ourselves through when we don’t speak the full truth when we have the opportunity. It’s as though in the holding back we release a commensurate level of emotion in whatever form(s) that then run their course, ruin our hour, day or week and really take a stranglehold on our equilibrium, all the while the other person being none the wiser of our internal turmoil and also the lesser for our lack of truth.
So very true Cathy, I can feel that the quality of the way I feel lessens if I don’t express the truth in full. This is a real healing for me as I realise how much by not fully expressing creates feelings in my body that are not so great. The more I express the more natural my body feels in expression.
The other day I had a funny kind of day. It’s not as if I deliberately didn’t speak truth, I just fell into a conversation that was a learned way of speaking and getting along. It was not particularly real. I was on my best behaviour. It was not as if I suppressed any great truths that came up to be said, it was more like I didn’t allow myself to feel anything. I had let my mind take over. I felt this as a dissatisfaction within me. Afterwards I realised what had happened and how awful this felt in my body. So, the key for me is to stay present in my body, to surrender to truth as it comes rather than to go into a default way of talking because this holds a lot of protection and doesn’t let anyone in. There is opportunity for real connection and growth every day and it doesn’t need to be a big conversation or a big truth, just a surrender to what is real.
” devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.” I can feel the power of truth in this sentence as holding back in any way hinders and stunts our evolution.
I love this Linda, it brings it back to feeling our worth and then walking and expressing in all that we are.
What you have said Joshua is absolute truth, what comes through us is not ours to hold back, but we live as if it is our right to hold back the voce of God. This feels absurd when put this way.
What if our voice and what we had to say was not just for us but actually for another. If something comes to us to express and it is truly coming from our soul then it is not for us to hold back as it is for all
Absolutely Joshua,when we honour our connection and trust what is there to be expressed we understand that is not “ours” but it is given to us to share with all.
I have held back much in the past by not wanting to say the wrong thing and get a reaction, or not wanting to look unkind or unloving. I realise now I had totally deceived myself, and that by expressing what is true, not holding back, a moment of evolution can be offered with greater love and understanding.
Not holding back is a great medicine for ourselves! It literally blows out all doubt, fear and creates clarity between people and a topic.
Well said Harry, it’s time I start upping my Meds as my body is in need, not to mention the rest of humanity.
By holding back our expression we potentially are stopping another receiving what they may need to hear for their evolution. I’m one who has and does hold back. It’s a continual work in progress as I feel what great responsibility we all hold to express in full.
I can relate to this Kim and I’ve found that in that holding back there can be a tension that builds in the body so that we when do finally express, even if it’s truth-full, it can often come loaded with the frustration from the previous lack of expression and this can be where the danger lay for the reaction we may then receive back is sometimes not because a truth has been expressed but that the frustration in our expression is felt by another.
You just explained my life at the moment Deborah, I’m now in the thick of feeling the repercussions of holding back and what damage it has done. And how when I finally started expressing it was loaded with eons of unexpressed stuff. Not very loving to the person the other end. I’m now seeing how by holding back for so long, I held another back by not continually offering all the love I am. A very painful lesson that I’m still feeling and learning from.
I can relate to this Deborah. It was only yesterday that I was expressing with someone with whom I haven’t always expressed openly with. Because I hadn’t expressed openly with this person for a while there was a build up of tension that caused my body to shake as it was expressing what needed to be said. This is a reminder for me to express in every moment I feel to so it doesn’t store in my body and create wall between myself and others.
I always feel the truth in every situation and have come to realize that if I am not living in a loving and honoring way with myself that when I go to express the truth it does not come with the love and understanding that is required. This is a painful and uncomfortable situation because the truth lays inside me like a bomb exploded and dying to come out, but if I express it not in a way that is truly holding of the other then it comes like a machine gun at them, no matter how hard I try for it not to be like this. The key is that trying doesn’t work and living is what actually works. Starting with being fragile and feeling my body and feeling when there is more truth for me to be aware of for a personal situation of something I am currently experiencing. Then surrendering and allowing myself to feel the truth and being super understanding, loving and supportive with myself to come to this new truth and put into place any changes that are needed, with no expectation and judgment. When I am living like this with myself then there is an open doorway to express with others in a way that is super loving and not imposing or judgmental.
I am inspired by your blog to express my truth more – simply because it reminds me what I know deep within my heart, and how it is to be re-connected to my heart and share what I feel. This is a choice I have come to make , and so I am now more willing and open to discover the truth in me and feel and express as much as I can all of that in whatever way it comes naturally. I now don’t worry about how I must sound, as I know that sharing my truth , that comes from a deep love, knows no bounds and never needs any limitations as it comes in full. That is the best part of truth!
I imagine that we don’t have to go around telling everyone what we think of them. Truth is not an opinion, it is something that comes up to be said or a way to express however we feel to, something that deepens our relationship with each other and ultimately supports us and them to appreciate how amazing we are.
I know what it is like when I hold back and not fully express the truth, it sends me in to anxiousness and my mind goes into it’s mulling, trying to justify why it was ok to hold back. I now know that speaking my truth, though it may be uncomfortable, is a wonderful opportunity for us to come to a deeper understanding with each other as we evolve.
What an awesome feeling you do get when you do express from truth in full
I also find it interesting that holding back our expression can be in the way we move – it doesn’t necessarily have to be the words we express – to allow the fullness of our truth.
Sometimes the greatest truth can come in silence and observation – with understanding and allowing another space.
This is beautiful Gyl, this is a way of living that I’m really enjoying living at the moment. So much love and support for others when we are living what you have wrote.
Yes Rosanna, even though the Truth may be somewhat uncomfortable to feel, this is minute to feel compared to being in the separation from Truth.
I love the use of ‘minute’ here Chris as it brought the confirmation that the uncomfortable feeling of being exposed in the short term is well worth the everlasting learning that can come from it.
Yes Brendan, this is so true, I find a lot of the time the reaction is different from or not even there from what i expected.
I can relate to giving a watered down version. For me i’ve always avoided conflict, so I feel to keep things dulled down for another is just that, the avoidance of what it may bring up and this is also the avoidance of responsibility.
Yes Chris Vale, it is indeed the avoidance of responsibility and the commitment to stand for truth no matter what. It also reveals how we have let things come in our way to express truth. It reveals the pockets where we have fallen for, holding truth back, which is absolutely painful. Yet, we must feel, observe, and deal with these pains in order to express our truth in full again.It is to realize that truth is all that matters, and that it is done by honesty first, as we know that this brings us closer to soul, and so to the love we are. This is better than any form of holding back.
What I am leaning now is that feeling and expressing truth can sometimes make me feel isolated, and want to go into self-doubt, but I see the whole thing is a set-up to stop me from ever expressing truth. I am not going to let that happen.
I’ve often looked back at situations and wondered why I didn’t simply say what was there to be said? Why didn’t I just express? What was so scary? It is devastating to continue holding back and as a society we do it for comfort. It is the comfort in not having to follow through on something so our day goes the way we control it. You’re right Kathryn, we just need to surrender to what is there to be expressed.
‘Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?’ and when we dare to simply surrender and just say it like it is… it unlocks a well of expression from us both. Pure Magic.. and much needed to deepen our relationships 🙂 🙂
What is being revealed here is profound … That we actually harm ourselves when we don’t express our truth. This simple powerful message in itself contains such a message that if understood and adopted, the healing for humanity would be enormous.
When I express all that is there to be said—simply in honesty and not in perfection, it is already a healing to myself and to the person I am speaking with. Sometimes expression can feel like a soliloquy (one sided), before there is any communication (back and forth), but expression can work very deep and we have to respect space is needed for all to come together . The trick is to keep expressing and not invest in whatever response/reaction that comes back. When the response/reaction that comes back feels harming, express that too. Every opportunity to express is golden, no one and nothing can prevent us from expressing when we get out of our own way.
I love what you are offering here, Adele. I can feel your total commitment to expressing truth-fully. Very inspiring. Thank you, Adele.
Adele, I always find your expression inspiring and this comment is yet another peice of inspiration. Yes no one can stop us from expressing once we get ourselves out the way. So true.
When we’re expressing truth it’s never just for us but for all and so what you’re saying here makes sense Adele – to keep expressing and allowing whatever truth to come through by making sure we’re not in the way.
Every opportunity to express is golden – I love the simplicity of how you’ve put this, Adele. Often I’ll put a conversation off because I’m worried of how the other person will respond, but what I’ve found, more often than not, is that the conversation has opened up quite naturally, just by me being me, and keeping it simple, without investment, expectation or judgment of how the other person might respond.
Yes deborahmckay, this point of destroying trust is an important one, and highlights to me yet again how important it is that we take responsibility for our expression wherever we are and regardless of who we are with.
I am learning not to have investment in how what I am going to say would be received. It’s interesting to observe how holding back takes place in various forms, sometimes it could be in words spoken, but it could be a delay or lost moment – whatever that is, it is love that is being held back – that I need to remember.
I could so relate to the part about holding back truth for short-term gain (for fear of upsetting someone etc.) and have experienced this myself many times over, – however what I’ve come to realise is that even the short-term gain (if I’m truly honest) never feels that great and when something doesn’t feel that great, I can now feel how it can be a great reflection that the truth was not fully expressed, providing me with another opportunity to express in full without holding back!
I agree Angela holding back the truth for short term gain doesn’t feel great because we do know that we are avoiding the truth and that eventually we will have to be confronted with it so all we are really doing is delaying what needs to be said.
It is a very good reminder to go to the feeling as a child being lied to about Santa Claus to know it is always healing to speak truth.
Having just completed an expression workshop with Serge Benhayon I am blown away by the evolution on offer when we express without regret, judgment or justification. When we allow what is already there to be connected to and expressed, we are witnessing true magic in communication. For me, it felt amazing to know that the truth and what comes through is not mine but for everyone.
Rachel this is so true. The truth is for us all to feel and share. Getting ourselves out of the way to simply express is pure magic.
Beautiful Rachel what you have shared is gold, the truth is not ours to keep it is for everyone – there is a level of responsibility we have to humanity to express the truth that inspires and supports others to also express in full.
Beautifully said Rachael, when we express in full, we feel how it is not ours to hold back but words for the all.
Truth is simple and unimposing. Though it might cause reactions if people are not prepared to see it or it triggers hurts and patterns, truth is the greatest gift we can make. By expressing our truth in full, we offer others the choice to feel inspired and do the same.
Truly loving means not taking the way that will not challenge you or the other, but speaking out the truth. If we express in full and with love, no topic is too challenging to handle.
Even in some situations when we cannot express truth to the other person, we cannot hold back this truth to ourselves. As our bodies are the markers of truth, we will know when to say what and how it is to be expressed, and whether it is to the world, or not. But the important thing is to not let truth slip us by.
Expressing truth and expressing love are no longer normal in our world. That is why when there is truth to be expressed simply because it feels natural, there is so much hesitation. The true devastation is—what we have made to be normal is our own choice to continue to perpetuate devastation in our lives.
Not holding back expressing truth and love is normal. We are love to begin with, and love only knows truth.
The first line of your comment Adele Leung hit home. There is nothing normal about expressing through truth and love hence why it is held back by so many.
We always know if there is more to say or not from how the body feels. When truth is expressed completely, the body just feels surrendered.
Which also allows us to be open and responsive to all that is around us. Beautifully said Adele.
Truth is the same as love. Who am I to decide who gets truth and who doesn’t? If something comes up to be said in truth, perhaps consider that we all belong to the universe, we are part of the rhythm of the universe and if that truth comes through us it needs to be expressed as part of that rhythm.
I once lived on the edge of a forest and had a pair of owls take up residence in the tree outside my window. They hatched 2 babies that were very cute. I loved that they were there. One day a huge commotion with much screeching came from the yard and I was in time to see a large black hawk dive past the chicks and knock them to the ground. I tried to save them but couldn’t. In pondering on it I realised that the hawk was feeding its babies and the Owls caught babies of other animals to feed theirs. Who was I to decide who lives and who doesn’t? The truth of this is that we are a part of a large picture and sometimes to cut to the truth is painful and swift and necessary.
Wow Amanda what powerful truth you present here is, “painful and swift and necessary.”
I recently had an experience where I avoided speaking the whole truth and the pain and complication it caused was shocking. It is an old habit of avoidance that doesn’t work for me anymore and I’m left to ponder why I continue with this illogical behaviour that hurts others, especially those closest to me.
I’ve found these experiences uncomfortable as well hartann60 – and have observed that sometimes what we hold back not only has short term consequences but can be felt for years / decades after… What I have also observed is that when we ‘don’t’ hold back in expressing truth, – and even though it may at times be uncomfortable to do so, – it’s often no where near as uncomfortable as we imagine!
Im finding its more uncomfortable to not express and have to hold something that is unsaid in my body rather than express in full. Sure it may be uncomfortable at first but when its out I don’t feel it being held in my body any more. This is a work in progress for me, not perfect but the more I express the easier it becomes.
I love the simple truth that truth and love are one and the same when expressed in full
‘If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.’ For a lot of my life I have also separated truth from love and believed that telling the truth would not be loving and therefore held back expressing the truth. This has always left me feeling less and now, I see, that it has also been a disservice to others, leaving us all missing the truth and the love that that inevitably brings. Of course if we bring any emotion with the truth it no longer can bring love because we have contaminated truth with emotion and it is no longer true.
Withholding truth is something we all do – more or less. The way out of this is not to limit ourselves even more and creating our own prison, but to start to change and express honestly and then truthfully.
“I was worried about how the other person might respond”. This can be what holds back expression. The backlash of truth can be quite a force or it unsettles even our own foundation, causing an uncomfortable shift, which is a great thing as it breaks up the comfort that we live in.
If I wonder about what will happen after I expressed truth and become fearful about it – I am already in an ‘untruthful’ state of being, I am not in love anymore. Otherwise I would know that what I bring (Love) would not have any investment in the outcome. If I need a positive response from someone – I am in a need and so can’t express truth or love, because I am not connected to my source in this moment.
I can relate to the “internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence and feeling of frustration and anxiety” when I hold the truth of me back.
True Matthew brown, a full reflection offers a full healing
True. Holding back expression is to choose comfort before Love.
Yes. Looks like we did become very comfortable with being uncomfortable and we find ourselves going round and round – repeating what did become comfortable – why? Just to avoid responsibility. We look at responsibility as being heavy and burdensome, but that is an illusion, created from us so we can avoid it. In truth responsibility is a grace, giving us space and glory. Time to bring some truth back to this word and meaning.
Thank you for this expression Victoria, especially for the word ‘withhold’. Truth is given to us to serve us all. We do not own it, it comes through us as a healing gift for someone. If we hold that back by not expressing what is given to us – we withhold truth, withhold healing and withhold evolving. It is in fact a painful action, what has an impact on all of us.
Well said Sandra. Truth is not owned, it is everyone’s.
Hence the importance of truly claiming and honouring the truth we know through sharing it – in whatever way it is there for us to express. The world is starved of ‘true truth’, the truth that unifies us all. One need only look to the way Serge Benhayon lives his life and expresses truth – even when it can make others uncomfortable – to see that there IS another way to our withholding and subterfuge. Truth can be lived and expressed in full.
To see that it is possible to live truthful & with full integrity is challenging and uncomfortable for all who do choose the other way off course…but it is also a big GRACE for us all – if conceded or not.
Yes, agreed Sandra. If someone reacts to the truth another lives and expresses, because it calls to account where truth has been denied and avoided in one’s own life, then that is indeed a blessing. For by virtue of the reaction itself, truth must indeed have been felt.
We all have some level of reaction when our comfortable but self-deceitful ways are exposed (from our wilfulness to eat something that’s not supportive of our health and digestion, to any larger-scale lie we may be living..). It’s not always ‘pretty’, but without those wiling to honour truth and live with integrity and love in a way that considers all, we would surely be far more lost than the state in which we find ourselves.
What is ‘not always pretty’ is the thing we created and put in the way. To face it on our way back to who we truly are is taking responsibility about what we created in the first place – to shy away from it is to try to avoid being accountable and staying in a comfort-zone. But ‘staying’ is not really available for us. We are pulled back to who we truly are = movement and to delay this way is going against it – also = movement. So it becomes that our ‘comfort-zone’ is no longer comfortable at all, because our movements against truth have to become more hard, more hurtful with every lovely expression on earth which is reflecting our truth and strengthen the pull to it.
Well said Jonathan, clearly from someone who feels and understands this process of ‘accumulative damage’ in the body acutely. We know what hurts us – the withholding of love, of truth, of the depth of all that we feel and know… and yet we have by and large, lived an existence of self-torture and harm in our holding back.
I can still yet feel a great power of love and truth within me yet to fully express itself, but am deeply appreciative of how far I’ve come from my own holding back, and the integral part the work of Universal Medicine has played and plays in inspiring the claiming of a full and unhindered expression in life.
Serge Benhayon, without doubt, is the greatest living example I know of living in such a way. Truth, love, the lot expressed – without hindrance and embracing of all. Absolutely amazing to know him and be so deeply inspired every single day. The way forward is well and truly set.
“In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety. A lot of thoughts came up about what was right and wrong”. Expressing the truth in full not only waves you all of this; it also confirms your divinity in every particle.
expressing ‘confirms your divinity in every particle.’, and that feels so amazing….true love.
“The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” If we would allow ourselves to be honest we would know that this is true and that we are able to feel this truth since day one on earth.
I also remember feeling deeply disappointed and very much let down as a child when I realised that adults were not fully expressing and telling the truth; I actually learnt to not ask questions anymore and that made me feel very much alone and like I didn’t belong..
Great point Gabriele – we should never stop question everything. There is another way to be and by giving up questioning the ‘traditional’ we give up on us and all.
I agree, it might feel safe or relief only until the body has had enough of accumulating poison and breaks down. Expressing our truth creates space in our bodies for more vitality and harmony within,
I so agree, beautifully expressed Marion.
You cannot ever escape that feeling of living with the could of, should of questioning from within – it just says next time you will get another opportunity – we can say whoops at this point or bury what we do not want to have to feel- that holding back our truth supports no one.
I am learning so much to do with expression and how I can express more and how I have been holding back in expressing for a very long time. I have just been talking with friends about letting people in and feel this goes hand in hand with expression. I feel if we let people in first then we are more likely to express in full instead of holding back and worrying about what they think of us.
When I read your comment Vicky it resonated very loudly and clearly this is exactly the way I feel now that a ‘thick wall’ of separation that is built between one person and another. Not ‘letting people in’ – not trusting ourselves or others to just be in their fullness and express freely – holding back on a beautiful gift.
In holding back our truth does not allow ourselves to be seen. How can we let people know us if they don’t know what we feel to say or share? Are we then shutting out the world by holding ourselves back?
Like this Natalie, can deeply relate
Yes Brendan, we have expectations that another will react so we set it up to keep us from not expressing truth, therefore remaining small. The cycle keeps presenting itself until there comes a point when we say enough’s enough.
When truth is exposed, it can be very uncomfortable and often ignored but when felt and in doing so letting go of pride, we evolve. There have been many times when I have felt extremely uncomfortable when I have been called out because I have not been living in truth to myself and therefore to others around me, but in that moment I have come to realise that to surrender to my body is key as there is no point in fighting it.
There is such an awesome feeling that is felt in the body when you call ‘a spade a spade’ . Not as an aggressive proving a point way, truth doesn’t need that carriage of delivery, it just is or isn’t. This feeling is noticeable when there has been a pattern or history of not speaking up and letting things slide, but to express out how you feel really is true medicine for the body.
This is so true johannebrown17. I know i am still unfolding in this area but it truly is so powerful.
It all starts with us to speak the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. As you said if we don’t speak the truth – “it is possible that the other person then missed the opportunity to connect to and express in full what they felt to share.
It has been a great revelation for me to realise that when I hold back from expressing my truth when I am fearful of the outcome that the other person is missing out. There have now been a number of occasions where I expressed what I am feeling when previously I would have held back and the outcome has been illuminating for both of us. At the time I found it quite surprising and with every occasion my trust in sharing what I am truly feeling increases.
This short-term-reliefs lead us to a form of existence instead of a vital being alive. So if that is worth to do so depends on our choices to be satisfied with less or not. This choice gives as well a reflection on our state of lived responsibility and Integrity.
The truth belongs to all of us, when we share it we are sharing something we all equally know. What we often expose is why we are choosing not to live with that truth.
The truth may be the last thing you wish to hear at times because it vilifies the way we have been living.
..but also the only way to get out of this illusion and abuse. So it is a choice: pride or truth.
This is what so many of us do. ‘ I held back because I was worried about how the other person might respond.’ And yet when someone holds back we feel like they are not truly sharing themselves with us don’t we? We feel a loss and we do not feel the love that is there to be expressed.
And why are we so afraid of the response? Rejection? Anger? Exposing the other? We cower and contract and hold back the very thing that will bring us closer… the truth.
Yes kathrynfortuna, well said and what I am finding out is that there are many hurts coming to the surface as to why I don’t express truth in full. Only recently I got to feel more deeply rejection and how this can hold me back from expressing. Only when we are absolutely honest with ourselves and call out and heal our hurts, truth in full can be expressed.
I agree Caroline, healing our hurts is important, My experience is the more I express truth the more chance I give my hurts to heal.
As long as we hold back what is true we hold back the love that we are.
‘In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.’ And the devastation is felt by all.
if you let things build up, you are reacting to a reaction, to a reaction and on it goes, this can get hard to untangle.
Not expressing our truth potentially stifles any evolution in the relationship.
Agree Elizabeth withholding the truth is against our expression and the harm on the body is very strong. For me expressing truth is not only speaking truth, but living truth as how we live is our expression and from our lived truth comes then the verbal expression of it. If we live truth, if our movements are true what we speak aligns to the Universal truth and cannot be anything else than truth.
Expressing truth is founded on my choice to take my responsibility and on the awareness of our all connection & equality. This is love.
This is beautifully expressed ,Sandra. We cannot be responsible for how another may receive the truth- this is also their choice.
To express truth is living love. I found the more I become aware of how much I love people, the more I express the truth to them.
This is what I am finding too Sandra. When love is the foundation, there is no holding back, truth has to be expressed. Expressing truth is becoming easier in my life but I am becoming increasingly aware of where I hold back from expressing truth especially with certain people.
For if no truth between us, how can love grow? One with out the other is not possible. Indeed they are one and the same.
Great line: “…I now know Truth is the same as Love…” It wasn’t when I was growing up, in fact it could have been said if you ‘really’ loved someone, then you were allowed to keep the truth from them so as to not hurt them. But was there another kind of damage being done instead?
Yes Linda and it is like we have a measure of how much to express or not express at all which only creates tension within ourselves and our bodies. When we express with truth and honesty it is felt and flows freely there is no tension, as truth holds love at its highest peak.
If I am not living truth-fully, I do not have a body to express truth in full, even though truth is what I have in my inner-most. I often doubt my feelings, whether what I want to say is truth or not; and even when I do express somehow it doesn’t feel quite clear and complete etc. For me, it’s about building a lived authority, it needs my consistent connection to my inner-most that is able to say ‘if this is what feels inside me, that is the truth’.
There is this picture—we are receiving from heaven all the time and if what is received is not expressed back out, simply because of a natural flow, the body which is the medium for this exchange to happen will be in clogged up and obviously uncomfortable. And I realize, this is the picture being felt and reminded by my body every day!
When my children were little we gave presents from friends that were addressed from Santa. When we were asked who is Santa? We gave them the story about Santa and we could see their faces changes as they worked out something didn’t quite fit or made any sense. When my son asked me if he was real, I simply told him the truth. He was even more baffled after that because he couldn’t understand why parents would make up such a lie. I then told him that we weren’t actually being honest or truthful about the whole Santa thing because we held back telling him the truth until it was questioned. I feel it is never too late to express truth to our children or anyone. To be completely honest about what we’ve previously chosen and start choosing to express truth was very healing for us all. The best way to teach our children to express truth is to allow ourselves to express truth in full too.
Children anyway feel everything – they feel very clear in their bodies what is truth and what is not. Maybe for us adults they seem to not be able to express that they know, but this is an arrogance we carry as adults. Children just differently express this than adults. They express it more honestly, sometimes with pictures, symbols or just crying.
So when we lie to someone, who actually anyway knows if it is truth or not – what are we doing?? How can we expect children to become truth-speaking adults when we condition them from the very beginning to the opposite?
Well said Sonja. We load our children with lies we are comfortable living ourselves, but truth is, this is always felt. Interesting how we can fall for lies when they suit us also.
Santa was a no brainer for me – I told everyone what was going on as soon as I could speak really… But totally still appreciated the love behind the playful ‘Santa antics’ and the ‘traces of his presence’ that might be there in the morning – knowing it was a fun game to play, and just wanting that teensy bit, to believe the lie, for it evoked a sense of magic in the world that seemed so deeply missing.
The thing is, the lie wasn’t needed – only love was, the love of family, being appreciated and held, being playful and having fun…
This is true, Victoria. I was very little when, I wondered why the neighbors son got for several days in a row ‘Nikolaus’ presents. (This is the ‘German’ Santa Claus at beginning of December). When he asked me if I did not know that Nikolaus does not exist and that this our parents are all doing, I felt hurt, very sad and cried. My first illusion which was revealed and many others followed.
What all the Christmas period presents is actually what people miss most – intimacy, connection and love.
I can relate to this chanly88 because i remember being very upset when i found out Santa was not for real. It was disturbing as a child because it wasn’t just Santa, it was the Easter bunny too! It was like a rotten trick had been played.
Expressing truth in full is something I have recently learnt and realised the impact it has on me and others when I hold back in expressing truth is massive. I have always thought I was honest but by not fully expressing truth in the past now actually feels dishonest. I also realised by not expressing myself in full hurts more than trying to make peace.
‘holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety. A lot of thoughts came up about what was right and wrong’ . I too know this experience and have held back a lot because when I did not hold back, I would be verbally attacked. I am learning however that when I speak from within my body, people can hear me. Whether they take it in and listen, is of course, their choice.
Yes, great point Michelle… “when I speak from within my body, people can hear me…” How true this is. And not only heard, but speaking this way you certainly feel its vibration through your own body, and you hear it back… the healing of love in sound and vibration.
Yes, when truth is regurgitated through the mental, it not longer holds true. Truth comes from the heart and the fullness of our body.
Another’s response to truth delivered is always their call, isn’t it Michelle.
The true mastery (myself a willing and ever-student!) is to allow this to be so in full, isn’t it…
Any expression is certainly better than no expression at all, for at least all is exposed and out in the open to be dealt with. However, as we learn to express once again – to speak and and say what we at least believe to be true – what we eventually learn if we are humble enough is that quality of expression is everything, and part of that learning curve is realising when we express something “just to get it off our chest” it provides no healing whatsoever for either party, only the relief that comes from the release of excess tension caused by the suppression of thoughts and feelings in the body – and that is fine, to a certain extent, for better out than in, as long as we do not fall for the old illusion that this is healing, for it is not.
Great points Adam and I agree – saying something just to get it off our chest so to speak isn’t healing; if we say something from a hurt or emotion that’s what the person being spoken with receives too. And having an attachment to someone ‘getting’ what we say as well is a sure-fire way to pollute any truth that we can feel.
Yes Fiona. I can slip into the need for another to ‘get it’ instead of expressing what I feel to say and detach as it is not my responsibility what happens from then on. When expressed in love there is no attachment.
These are both really good points. Adam’s in saying something is better than not saying anything at all and I love how you have taken this further Fiona in saying yes but if we express from a hurt, emotion or reaction then this is in fact not healing but confirming the hurt instead. It shows there is so much more to expression (the true energy of it) to be aware of and learn. I feel how and the way we express is something that is very much taken for granted.
Yes Adam, truth expressed with love is healing.
I agree Adam, expressing form a reaction or emotion does not cut it as even if said with nice words and a smile if it coming from a hurt it won’t be healing. Healing occurs when we allow ourselves to express from the connection within ourselves, so it is the quality and so much the words.
I agree Adam, it has taken me quite a while to begin to feel the truth and express what comes up – my early efforts have felt ‘clumsy’ and awkward. Humanity has lost its way of feeling what is true and thus expressing it with love. What I have come to know is that by connecting to my innermost first and knowing that truly, when something comes up to be said then it is important to have a go and not hold back.
Well said Adam. If we have held back, then when things are first given the space to actually express, they rarely come out without some ‘charge’ or emotional loading. And so we learn, if we are willing, to take yet deeper responsibility and also hold each other in a depth of understanding that ‘gets this’. That even if someone is emotional or blaming, how are we? Need we react personally?
Undoubtedly none of this will be a ‘perfect process’, but in it, we all have the opportunity to deepen in dealing with our own reactions, and thus the hurts still harboured at some level that lead us to react.
We have a great responsibility in all of our expression – not to be perfect, but to do our best, and not fuel the cycles of conflict that have repeatedly dogged humanity through the ages, and have got us nowhere in terms of returning to the greatness of love we all actually hold.
To be willing to face our hurts on any levels they may show themselves, is indispensable – as we go to the root cause of all separation, conflict and war. This is our responsiblity.
Absolutely Sonja. We underplay the role of seemingly ‘minor’ conflict in its contribution to how our societies and indeed nations relate to each other.
Personal responsibility – without perfection, yet with a willingness to deal with what is there for us to deal with – is deeply needed that we may actually build true love and understanding with each other at a fundamental level.
A good starting point here is to express but in the same way to be open that the expression may come form a reaction and to embrace if this is reflected by the other party. This allows realizations and evolving for all involved.
Great point Brendan, so could it be said the moment we make the choice to hold back expressing what is there to be said we are in fact disconnecting from that truth and therefore ourselves, while also separating our self from another?
Santa Claus is not true….this I always did know as a child, I did know it. But I was longing for some magic in my life and so I was willing to take Santa as ‘better then nothing’. But here is the crux. By not seeing and appreciating the magic in me, my life and all around me, I brought myself to a position where I missed something that was there, but that I had separated from. Then I filled the hole left with untruths and got through life, always knowing that there is more. One thing is to let go of the lies and the other is to claim back what is given and to express it again. So the magic comes back into my life – even it was never gone – but I was.
Whenever we deliver truth in full, at that moment true brotherhood is being offered. If the offer is taken up either in the moment or later on when the truth is felt and accepted we are one step closer to true brotherhood. If it is not taken up and the truth is rejected we accept the other is not ready and that the hurt is still there. But we don’t stop expressing truth in full and we don’t stop offering brotherhood. We just hold ourselves and the other in love and the potential for true brotherhood still lives.
When I’m not delivering something I’m saying in truth or the truth in full, my body gives me little signals, gently telling me that there is something not right in what I’m bringing forth or I’m holding back the truth. The signal is quite often very subtle but at the same time very obvious to me. Our body is the marker of all truth, spoken or not, walked or not, lived or not
When I sit with everything that has been presented here, the part that hurts is this “In this contraction everyone misses out.” More and more I am coming to feel how true this is. It actually feels quite selfish to hold back… for who am I to decide what a person can and cannot hear? If it is there to be expressed, express it!
Bang on Ariana. When I express in full, I feel 10ft tall, full, open and the love is flowing. To be anything other than that is a complete shrinking… and I can feel that that is how I hold myself a lot of the time – which just feels crazy! It’s a constant state of tension, that I am intentionally choosing! I love what you have expressed here “It changes the world around us, and changes us within the world.”
The fact that truth is always deeply felt is because it connects with our essence, our essence that only knows truth. Why do we run from this to hide in comfort only to delay from the glorious return to who we are.
Great understanding! Thank you. “the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” This makes me reflect on how much I and many others hold back, not allowing the opportunity for all to grow.
I love what you have expressed here Ariana and I love the fact that you have given us the full version of expression! Not holding back or expressing in full is not about telling someone everything we thought while with them it is about bringing the love and the understanding to every situation. It is about doing the reading and feeling what is needed to be expressed and what is not. We can only do this by connecting to our body in full bringing all that we are; knowing our glory is to know the glory of another.
I love reading your blog Linda, it resonates so strongly with me, particularly this sentence;
“In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety”.
Your words of wisdom inspire me to express what is felt in my body and to take responsibility for reactions and hurts.
I couldn’t agree more: “In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.”
This is the best explanation of devastation that I have ever heard. It is utterly devastating and totally crippling for the body to not speak truth.
Trust is absolutely essential: if we are not able to trust because of hurts and patterns, we will very likely create complication after complication in our lives trying to navigate through a stormy ocean of lies and unspoken truths.
It is beautiful that you expose here the responsibility we have to express not just for ourselves but for us all. It is the accepted norm to see situations like this from the basis of ourselves and its impact on us but we need to broaden our perspectives and see the grander picture at play that is not just about us but about us all.
Measured expression is a level of abuse to myself. When something is felt to be said, then it must be said, for this is the part I will play in the whole game of life.
By looking at it like this it takes abuse to a whole other level Matthew. Not only are we abusing ourselves when we hold back the truth but we are abusing anyone else involved.
I agree Matthew and Vicky, measured expression is abuse and claiming this truth takes abuse to a whole other level that is far more true than what we have told our self, and want to believe what abuse is.
Very true diana1975. For a long time I have been able to dismiss forms of abuse because I had been conveniently believing that abuse is ‘large’. It is the seemingly little forms of abuse that is actually saying yes to all forms of abuse. I am appreciating learning it is all the same – big or small.
Yes that is true for me too Vicky Geary, as I am also learning and becoming more aware of the effect everything has on everything.
I Agree Matthew, I can relate to how measuring my expression in order to not upset others has been a direct abuse to my body and stops me from experiencing intimacy in my relationships with others.
Without Truth we cannot Trust and to be able to trust we need to have consistency of remaining open and developing our relationships. The minute we know that there has been any sign of deceit we start to shut down and keep the other person at a distance. Love is letting people in all the time no matter what they have chosen and calling out what is not true.
Holding back not expressing my full truth, use to build up lots of frustration and anxiety in me, which also built up into anger and rage when least expected. All because I did not want to upset someone and hurt another’s feeling. Being that way just made it worst. As I started to understand this behaviour through the help my practitioners it was lovely to begin to open up and speak my truth. It allows me to feel open and confidence in myself, as well it also allows the other person to be open and honest.
Every religion thinks their truth is THE truth and defends it to the utmost. We need to bring honesty to the table first, before we make a claim for truth.
In any given situation there can only be one truth, even when you think your truth is the truth.
It will be good for mankind when we all get totally comfortable with expressing truth, and when we all feel the one truth.
Yes this is TRUE. The truth is one unified. The same for ALL. No wonder if feels so awesome. 🙂 🙂
I am noticing the confusion and mess that often follows when I or someone holds back on expressing truth. Truth keeps things simple and everyone knows where they stand. Holding back the truth denies everyone the opportunity to make a decision based on all the facts. And when truth is spoken it gives others the opportunity to share theirs which results in more clarity for all.
‘I remember as a young child I was deeply hurt when I found out Santa Claus was not true. I felt that every adult in the world had lied to me; this made it hard for me to fully trust adults and what they told me’. As this whole Santa Claus myth is so widely perpetuated it is a great tool to teach children and people not to trust what they innately feel and betray our own knowingness to play along with the game. This needs to stop. Something disguised as being so innocent and just ‘fun’ is playing a huge role in teaching children that what they feel is not important. This is insidious.
I full heartedly agree Michelle as it was my experience on the other end with my then 7 year old daughter. When I told her that it was not true and asked if she was disappointed she replied: ‘I knew something was not right about the whole thing anyway, but what I really don’t understand is why you lied to me” That was a huge ouch and I really apologized and thanked her for being so honest. I learned a great lesson here and it was a gift for her younger sisters because they would not have to experience this betrayal. Because you are so right in: ‘Something disguised as being so innocent and just ‘fun’ is playing a huge role in teaching children that what they feel is not important.’ And yes that is insidious!
‘I remember as a young child I was deeply hurt when I found out Santa Claus was not true. I felt that every adult in the world had lied to me; this made it hard for me to fully trust adults and what they told me’ I too recall feeling this hurt. I recall that I had always doubted the existence of Santa Claus so it wasn’t the lie that hurt as much but the fact that what I had known to be true was not acknowledged or valued.
Well said Linda, that feels really true and is well worth considering next time I may be tempted to hold back the fullness of the truth I am feeling. As we know we are all equal, and if something is shared with love, it can be received without any reaction. And even if there is a reaction, that is ok too.
Yes Esther, I feel being able to express from Love and not being attached to the outcome is the key.
When we speak our truth in full, it offers another to speak their truth too. When we hold back truth in any way, the conversation is diluted and the truth doesn’t get heard or acknowledged by the other, it becomes an excuse to stay where we are in our own comfort of not having to live up to the truth that we know.
Brilliant comment Sally, this is so true. I also find I feel awful in my body when I haven’t expressed truth in full. It allows my mind to go round and round in circles repeating what I should have said or not, going into spiral of beating myself up. When this happens I try to understand what was holding me back, talk about it with a friend or even better address it with the person I was holding back on and try again the second time to express truth and how I feel. I find the more I understand why I previously chose to hold back the easier it is now for me to express truth from the very beginning in the next opportunity. It feels amazing to be able to re-imprint what I didn’t choose previously by being aware of what I choose now and to continuously practice expressing truth to the best of my ability.
Everything is expression, so everything is about evolving / growing. This is big! There’s so many events that I would have and would still consider ‘normal’ and not moments to evolve. Like the past 2 days I was with my daughter at a friends’ place – staying overnight as well. This was a new experience for my daughter and she insisted beforehand that I would go with her. As she woke up she felt a bit sick and after taking care of her and resting on the couch she’d loved to sleep a bit more. When we were lying in bed I felt how much it meant to her to give herself permission to feel safe at someone’s else place. As I felt this, I cried and realised how delicate we all are and how we are to always sensible sense what feels good to us and what doesn’t. I felt such an appreciation for herself, for myself and her mum who dedicated her life for being there for her the first 4 years of her life. I could feel how all this dedication now made her able to choose to let go of deep fear that she’s been chosing for quite some time. How important is expression! And how important is that we are never to dismiss anyone’s expression. We just don’t know what is behind the act or behaviour! That is only to feel.
I love it when we don’t hold back truth and just deliver it gently and honestly and the other person opens up more.
I love it too Elizabeth, it feels so much more loving, open, and expansive to express truth, so why hold back at all? It is incredible to share truth with others, the more I practice this the more people open up to me. It’s truly a joyful experience.
I do recall when very young being told to not be so bold. It was quite perplexing at the time. I was only expressing what I knew was true.
Pleading ignorance and not expressing what is there to express, doesn’t help anyone, it just keeps us in delay from expressing something that is right there to be said and could be the difference between true sharing of wisdom that is for all to grow from, or a capping and missed opportunity where no-one can heal.
Truth can be expressed in very little words.
Truth is never wrong or harming. There may be times when it is unwelcome and we do not wish to hear it only because it can present to us the things we have chosen not to feel. No matter how long we hide in the lies… the truth will set us free.
To tell lies will never bring more than a short lived gain, as this always creates tension, hurts and scars and distance. Telling the truth is an invitation to be honest and heal the hurts we all carry with us, stopping our patterns and momentums and truly opening up to others.
Any time we hold back what is there to be expressed, we say to the other person you do not matter, you do not warrant the truth or the love that I could be offering. It is saying to another that they are not worth the love that could be shared. Why do we harm our brothers like this, why do we not honour our brothers in equality, how we want to be honoured for ourself.
That line also stood out for me matildaclark. The ultimate connection between people occurs while expressing the full truth to one another. Then we are able to meet eachother in and as love.
Truth is the easiest way to handle any situation. Speaking the truth and standing for it may not seem easy on the surface, when reactions come up, but underneath it offers everyone involved the chance to heal deeply instead of adding new hurts and patterns to our lives.
I have been learning that there is a line between when to say something and when to not say it, if it is truly heartfelt then we would be a fool to not express something and hold it in our body. But some things are just my reaction, and to say something to someone, thinking I am right and that I am going to help them is arrogant, because it is not expressed with love.
Well said harryjwhite, we do need to discern where it’s coming from and be coming from love, not from ‘teaching another’ or having to be ‘right’.
Yes harryjwhite. Every time we open our mouth and speak it is either harming or healing. I have recognised recently how I am becoming more aware of my body when I am expressing with another. One day this week I said something about another to them and it came from a reaction. I instantly felt the hardness and separation in my body and so was able to nominate it and let it go. Our bodies are the true marker as to whether we are coming from love or not.
It was an painful moment when I first realised that I didn’t speak truthfully. And I questioned how and when had this occurred that my expression was false, and that this had become acceptable to me? Holding back, little white lies, fibs and exaggeration had all had become my normal. When we feel it in the body, it’s very powerful to experience and let go of. Expressing truthfully is a learning journey for us all.
As you describe Gillrandall, it is very easy for “holding back, little white lies, fibs and exaggeration” to become the normal without us even realising it. However, the body does not lie, hence the importance of always discerning what the body is trying to tell us.
You took the words right out of my body, Anne : )
Beautifully said gillrandell. Indeed we are all learning to express truth in full and without perfection. We are going to slip up on the way but what I am becoming more aware of is that when I do, I am more gentle on myself than I used to be.
Oliver I like what you share, tough love, though it is not really that, can be saying no to a child, or anyone for that matter, not saying no is actually more abusive to the person and the resulting situations that inevitably arise. But although we have the saying “cruel to be kind” there is actually nothing at all cruel about it, it is just a willingness to not play nice and accept the destructiveness that would follow not being truthful.
For quite a while I’ve been noticing that I always feel tension when I speak Truth to others or even when I write a comment like now. It is as if I am disconnecting from myself, choosing smallness rather than being with me when I express. Today it sank in that this a strong pattern that creates a lot of stress and anxiety. Because I am used to it, it has become my ‘normal’. Where as I am realising now that this might no be the case, or better is not the case. I’ve expressed during my life a lot of truths and people love me because of this honesty and purity. I could actually never really hear these compliments as I couldn’t feel it in my own body. Now I do see and feel that this is an amazing quality I bring. But that a lot of the times when I express I choose fear so I am disconnected from me and miss out on the beauty and joy I hold in the inside. This honest I’ve not been so far to myself. There’s quite some resistance to feel the reason that I chose this. What I allready sense the last couple of days is the joy and playfullness are coming back into my daily life. Not all of the time, but I notice it’s lighter. With gratitude towards @Mary-LouiseMyers who supported me on Wednesday with a session ECTT – Esoteric Connective Tissue Therapy. And to @SergeBenhayon who founded and grounded this amazing modality.
Truth like Love, Joy, Harmony and Stillness is a quality of the Soul. It is an energetic state of being. Therefore speaking the truth can also be done without words. It is an energetic transmission that can be conveyed by our eyes, our actions, our movements. In fact we can say a series of words and it is truthful and we can repeat exactly the same words and it is a lie purely depending on the energy of our expression. Speaking the truth does not always mean that we have to say everything we perceive because we also have to discern if it is evolutionary and supportive to verbalise what we see. Simply through our own awareness it makes it available to others. Truth comes with responsibility and is not something for self-gain. The more we are in service and the more responsible we are, the more we see and the more we get to experience the joy of expressing in full.
Thank you for writing about truth and it’s expression so eloquently Nicola.
What you have expressed here Nicola feels absolutely true, it is so very powerful and wise.
I love your expansion here offered Nicola, very profound and clear, coming from your true wisdom and Soul connection.
I love this understanding Nicola , speaking the truth is an energetic transmission and the truth can be felt in our expression and delivery also . Through our awareness and responsibility we can get to experience the joy of expressing in full .Beautiful thank you.
This is a very important point you are making Nicola as often speaking our truth is misinterpreted as needing to speak everything we are feeling without holding back. This is actually very self serving if one has not read the situation. Reading another is expressing truth.
This is great Kathleen, Many speak their truth as their own need, with no consideration for the harm that actual untruth may inflict on others.
Exactly, Catherine, as even if it is a truth and we haven’t read the situation before we deliver it then we are not expressing in full.
Yes I agree Catherine, because it is not true if it is not said with love and connection and neither contain any emotion. Therefore if something is said or expressed in some way out of reaction or need it is energetically simply not true. Basic mathematics!
Love your wisdom Nicola. Discerning is key – when to express verbally and when not to. It’s not about self.
I love what you have expressed here, Nicola. Truth can be felt long before any words are said. In fact often in verbal expression we get caught up in justification and preaching rather than just expressing the truth from our bodies. Truth comes from my essence.
Exactly Anne, and as we are all of the one essence there is only one truth – so truth always unifies and applies to all equally.
The thing I find with truth is it sometimes leaves you with nothing to say back. The truth was delivered in full so nothing more is needed. And therefore Nicola in response to you
Beautifully expressed Nicola, with this level of awareness I know the more I develop my relationship with truth and express it, the more evolution is offered to others.
Yes I agree Francisco and equally the more truth and evolution is offered to you.
Thank you, Nicola. I love the expansion you have offered here. Absolute gold. Expressing in full doesn’t mean spelling everything out verbally, it is about the one who is expressing being in their fullness of connecting to and considering of the All.
Yes Nicola, yes the Truth can only be that when its expressed in the energy of Truth. otherwise it comes with an emptiness and falseness.
WHAT Santa Claus is not true!!!???
Wait, what?! Since when?!
I never did the Santa thing with my son then when he was about 3 I did it one year. The next year I came clean with him and he was so hurt that I lied to him. He still brings it up and is in utter disbelief I did that!
It is funny what we perceive as truth or not truth. I just read the most AMAZING book by Serge Benhayon called “Time, Space and all of us – Book 1 – Time”. If you read that book you will learn how our whole concept of time is “a big fat lie” and the HUGE harm of this lie. As far as I am concerned there is something much more honest and less harmful about Santa Claus than there is about our attitude to time and in particular that we consider it is a lineal thing.
ps: Santa if you are reading this I expect a big present this year 🙂
I worked in a prison environment in the maintenance department for 20 years. I found that speaking the truth when talking to the residents of the state that resided there was a refreshing way to be, from the way that was still instilled as the way they should be spoken to or spoken down to! This was before I was introduced to Universal Medicine. At the time it just felt to be a more natural and real way to treat others who ever they were. This just showed me that we never lose the love for ourselves and others… we just forget to use it.
“…we never lose the love for ourselves and others… we just forget to use it.” Beautiful, and what a place to remember that love is so needed, sjmatsonuk.
“we never lose the love for ourselves and others… we just forget to use it.” This is so true and it is quite interesting how sometimes people who have given up on life or have little investment in life are more willing to speak truth. Its quite absurd how we conform to societal norms and make speaking untruth the norm instead of connecting to truth and then we use proverbs such as “Children and drunks always speak the truth” and “a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts” without reflecting that we have accepted to not live truth.
‘Devastation comes from withholding truth’ This is so true in any situation and most if not all of the suffering, conflict and calamity that we see on a world scale has as its roots an unwillingness to express or feel the truth.
For many years I did not make the connection between truth and love but now I understand that in order for there to be openness, intimacy and trust in any relationship, which for me are all fundamental building blocks of love, there has to be truth and a willingness at least to be as honest with each other as you can be and not let anything lie hidden or unsaid.
What a contrast that is from what we are often shown as being the way to love in a relationship which is often, ‘keep them no matter what’ or ‘take care of yourself first’ or ‘take care of them first’, etc. etc. etc. Like you, Andrew, I have learned that communication, honesty and truth are the most important things in relationships, whether that is my intimate one with my wife or with my friends or my work colleagues.
So true Matildaclark, the opportunity to be fragile and tender with another. very special.
It is very interesting that when we do not say what is there to say in full, it creates a lot of confusion and angst within us, and that we have accepted that and found ways to deal with it. Thank you for speaking about the fact that we do not have to do that and the full implications of holding back what we all have to share.
Very true Lisa. Holding back our expression is something we have just accepted as our norm and we find so many different ways to deal with the tension this creates in our bodies. For me it has been overeating, sleeping, shopping etc. The reminder that it is an expression of love to not hold back is refreshing. Accepting that reactions will come is another step to take.
Yes, Lisa, the key to our expression is to know whether this is a moment to say everything that is there or whether it is a moment where something else is more appropriate and the pain comes when we express less than what is being asked for at that moment. This takes a bit of practice but is very joyful when we get it right and it is beautiful even when the other rejects what has just been expressed.
The level of acceptance of our expression is an indicator, but not a very reliable indicator, whether we have expressed in full. Our body, when we are not in reaction, is a much better marker.
Christophschnelle what you have said about whether one gauges one’s expression being full or not on our bodies or how it is received by others is very helpful. I know to put aside my personal issues -wanting to be accepted or liked- and feel from my body what there is to say and when it is complete- rather than drive a point home.
I totally agree Christoph, that another’s acceptance of our expression is not a reliable indicator of whether we have expressed in full or not and whether that has been true or not. We are all still learning to accept what is expressed, sometimes we react, sometimes we don’t want to know, we feel hurt etc. Our best marker is definitely our own body in connection with who we are and our stillness.
Absolutely Arianna, and what a celebration that is!
There is such a lot of protection of kids because we think they shouldn’t know certain things or they don’t understand. But really kids read this game and they play it back very early on.
And we are all kids inside, with that same perception.
Reading your comment Matthew I also wondered if we really do not tell kids because we want to protect them or is it because we want to keep up an appearance not wanting them to know the truth that reveals where we ‘adults’ are at, and we are actually trying to protect ourselves?
“Love, truth and expression”- what an important and prevalent topic/s. This is what we are all seeking! And I say yes to the fact that by not holding back, it allows another to also recognise and express their truth – and thus evolution, true change, togetherness and joy follows. I completely support you because I feel this is it. It is definitely an unfolding process but I am beginning to open up more and express me, which feels so much better and spacious than holding back with all its consequences!
I had an example this week where I did not express fully, simply to keep the conversation from being too extended. Afterwards the tension I felt showed me that no way was it Ok to do this.
How often we only half do anything — and that is a half hearted way of living life. Full commitment to ourselves and the task brings a feeling of appreciation and confidence, and is an inspiration to others. Moving and doing and speaking are all expressions of ourselves. Whatever we are thinking or feeling creates the quality with which we do anything. If we commit to the truth of ourselves and what we feel, then a full expression means living life in full. That feels like an expansion to me , whereas half expressing feels enormously contracting. I can feel the shrivelling up inside when I do that, and the feeling of let down. And what I have come to realise is that expression in every moment with myself, with others or not, leads to a fuller and truthful expression in all of life.
The tension caused by not expressing my truth in full has quite literally given me a pain in the neck and even effected my posture. So the only way out is expression, expression and more expression and then some.
To hold back reflects to me that I put my state over that from us all. I avoid to tell something what is confronting the other and may let them react against. So I want to be safe and hold back, measure what to say…and so manipulate the truth and make it not-truth so. This is a harming act for all of us. That is to ponder on for me.
My holding back of expressing truth is holding us all back from evolving.
Really timely reminder for me as a couple of days a go I was attending a big business meeting and held back expressing my truth in full and yes I felt pretty wracked after, I had let what I thought others would think of my stop me from expressing in full. This made me realise the responsibility to express is huge as from me holding back the meeting took a turn which meant no one truly developed. Me holding back me held everyone else back.
‘Yet all the while we make that place’ – super cool because in understanding this we cannot pretend that we cannot make the other. Expressing the love and truth that we are brings grandness and space to the world that frees us all from the constraints we have imposed. Thank you, Ariana.
‘When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out – letting myself be liked rather than being the apparent bringer of upsetting news. The reason that short term gaan is so short-lives is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.’ To read this again this morning I could feel how uncomfortable it feels to play this game any longer and how it drains us. We all can experience how much energy it costs to hold back, or partly hold back on truth. I sure can.
I love what you share here, Katie, thank you ….
‘There is a responsibility when expressing truth, as truth without love is empty and leaves a void. When truth is expressed with love there is more opportunity for truth to be connected to and hence heard.’
Beautiful …… and the love will also be felt.
Matthew you’re spot on. I often reflect on a friend that a group of us had. She was very controlling and could get angry and dismissive quickly. Not only did the group avoid expressing how we felt but we also all worked hard not to do or say anything that would upset the friend. If we had been able to lovingly share how we felt then she would have been given the opportunity to see and feel how she was being and therefore she would have also had the choice to change. Because of our silence and our manipulation of our own behaviour we held back evolution not only for our friend but for ourselves too.
Using our voice to expressing in full is really important, but equally, this the non verbal communication, is pretty much ‘on’ all of the time. And therefore, how we are feeling at any particular time does get expressed whether we are conscious of it or not. This makes me understand how important it is to have vigilance and awareness about ourselves and address issues, or emotions that do arise, as we are expressing all of the time
We do express all the time Johannebrown, whether we speak or not, so how important to be aware of our energy and ourselves in every second.
Susan I love what you say about truth “As soon as truth is presented it is like there is instant clarity and simplicity and a very clear purpose to life.” Truth seems to actually unite us as one and we move forward instead of occupying our own little bubbles of self disconnected from the all.
Our ears clearly hear love and our whole body feels it. We surrender to love first and then accept the words.
When someone speaks the truth, those who hear it must deal with many things. The truth exposes more than the subject it focuses on. It brings up the discomfort people have with speaking the truth themselves, and all of their issues around expression. Yet to not express the truth is damaging for everyone and also for the body. To truly care for others we must express the truth with love and not hold back. Let everyone feel uncomfortable for its better than assisting them to perpetuate a lie. Not speaking the truth is like speaking a lie or part truth. It’s not being ourselves.
Very true Matthew, the truth often tears down the walls of comfort and illusion, which we build up around us like scaffolding around a building. We construct a life that is false and each little lie or untruth builds on the last. The truth can be uncomfortable because it deconstructs all that is untrue to deliver us back to ourselves, as well as all the comfort we have constructed to live a lie. The truth strips us bare of what we do not need, and as those walls come tumbling down what is revealed is much needed honesty and the true self can emerge – much more beautiful. The truth supports what we already are and nothing more or less.
I feel so much of my holding back is tied up with wanting to be liked and fit in. This false brotherhood stunts my growth and halts any real truth to be lived, constantly making myself less and a master of manipulation, what an exhausting way to live!! So much more freedom and energy if you choose to just be yourself and share that with others.
Reading today there seems to be two aspects of truth for me to look at, one is what I think is truth and comes from my mind, and one is the truth that is outside of the human folly and comes from my heart, there is a wisdom and absoluteness to it, and it still relates to all facets of human life.
Thanks to these comments and this great article, I am deepening my understanding and feeling exactly what comes up when we/I choose to hold back and this is supporting breaking down the actual issues and fears I automatically default to feel and choose in these situations when I hold back truth.
Truth can so easily be expressed when we truly honour our bodies.
I agree jacqmcfadden04 – living truthfully is our natural state of being
I love how you’ve expressed a familiar hesitation I have had with expression, the questioning of ‘is it my place to say anything?’.
It is never an accident we are placed in situations where we feel the impulse to express something that no one else is. I’ve been observing how, when people deliver what there is to say with no apology, people just accept it is OK say. They may disagree but the fact it was said isn’t questioned. Is this because we do all have an innate knowing we are all equal and deliver uniquely important truths that if we hold back on none of us get to evolve? I’d say so.
If we really choose to sit with one of the open sentences in this blog, it would reveal a mountain to those living in caves at the base: “I held back because I was worried about how the other person might respond.”
I agree Oliver Hallock, speaking from experience I lived in this self-made prison once. But breaking down the walls with expressing truth when I feel it is there to express at any moment, no matter the outcome or reactions is a freedom I will never give up on again.
Isn’t it incredible that there are so many reasons to not express your truth. These reasons retard everyone and these reasons are based on ideals that have foundations that are not based on love.
When I express in full I feel an expansion in my body and warmth emanate out from deep within me along with a great stillness.
Margaret what you have touched on here is that there is a science to expression and truth that we can feel as energy within our body. Thankyou.
Yes, expressing in full feels so much more loving, powerful and energising.
I had a job interview recently where I expressed in full. I didn’t say a huge amount because they did most of the talking, but I expressed in full by my presence, through hand gestures and eye contact.
The impact of this blog sinks in a little deeper each time l read it. There’s always more. Just as there’s always a deeper truth that can be expressed in all situations. We need to live in a way that supports us to naturally make this choice every time in every area of our lives. ln the easy situations and the challenges.
When taking this blog into the context of ‘expression being everything’ it is huge exploration of being ourselves in full, whether it be speaking the whole truth, or bringing all of us to a look, a smile a hug or to an activity like cleaning of the house. Expressing in full seems to occur when I live life in full awareness of being a loving, caring and sensitive man in a body that is really being looked after and attended to.
It is great how you describe the feelings within you when you choose to hold back from full expression. I am familiar with some of those feelings. I can feel what needs to be said bubble up and if I do hold back, it impacts on my body a lot, I almost feel like I am about to burst with the tension, if I don’t express I bury that frustration and self recrimination back into my body, it does not feel good at all. I used to feel this a lot when I began to give full expression a go, some times it would come out like a burst dam, I was so out of practice, it wasn’t perfect but it felt true and sometimes when it felt a bit strong I would apologise to the people I delivered it to, and there are times when I still do that. I often feel the truth but am learning to deliver it with more understanding and love. I still have so much more to express and I can feel as I explore expression more deeply there are so many more layers and more expression that can be developed. The key for me has been learning to be gentle and understanding and not just with others but me also. I have a commitment to learn to truly express myself, without practice and the space to learn, it won’t happen. When we do not have ago at expressing, an opportunity of inspiration, new awareness, understanding and a deeper connection with ourselves and others is not made available. Often many of the moments of inspiration I have encountered and learnt from have been through people being willing to share the truth that they feel and not being worried or attached to the consequences.
I am learning daily that any unexpressed tension is really self abuse! If I am made to naturally express then holding back is compression as you state Ariana! How painful is compression?! It inhibits our growth and hides our light.
Toni this is a real corker of a topic! It is one that affects us all deeply. What we express directly affects the world that we live in. We create the world we live in with what we express. So the question that naturally arises is ‘what is it that we are living in considering that most of what is expressed is not the truth’ ?
With age hopefully comes experience. I had found that telling the truth was something that was fun when people expected lies. Saying ‘oop’s I messed up’ is not what they were expecting. It would just de-fuse the situation immediately almost all the time. It also brings closer and everyone moves forward. I enjoy the simple rather than the complex it allows life to flow un-abated.
I love how you made it playful sjmatsonuk . When we stop keeping up appearances we can start meeting each other.
Yes sjmatsonuk and also the appreciation of not lying your way out of not so pleasant situations brings a lightness to the situation. Telling the truth allows magic to happen between people.
Hi Katie, I agree there can be no truth with out love.
I love that Ariana “Expressing the love we truly are inside is a form of dedication, it comes out in all our movements and speech, how we dress and how we communicate, this is all expressing this grand love we all are” So true it is a dedication and commitment to ourselves to express our love to self and others in every moment. I am going to take these words of wisdom into my day.
It’s an amazing statement. We think of truth as just something vocally expressed yet it’s something that is lived. To dedicate ourselves to living the love we are means we take a truth to all we meet. When we live the love we are, we are undeniably the truth, and reflecting that truth back to all we meet.
When we value evolution more than being nice or accepted it becomes easier to express in full and not hold back. Whilst we herald acceptance from others as important we will always hold back to some degree.
Holding back our truth can so create those feelings in our body. I have felt that tension and anxiety due to holding back what needed to be expressed, in fear of what the other person would say. This is never a great outcome, because its now allowing growth on either side.
I understand what you say Ariana and on the occasions when I have let out what is felt and there to say, my body has come to a wonderful rest and there is a great stillness, absent of any anxiety.
You cant argue with the truth. It it what it is.
‘When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out – letting myself be liked rather than being the apparent bringer of upsetting news. The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.’
Great article Toni and so ‘true’ :). The truth is always deeply felt whether we like it or not so why not learn to express fully from the heart?
An awesome quote to take away from this blog, and a great question, Kathryn.
“truth is the same as love” .. what an absolute golden statement…
Absolutely Johannebrown17. We need love to share true truth and sharing true truth is being loving.
I agree, sharing the truth is very loving.
The tension that comes from not expressing what I am feeling is less and less bearable the more I do express. I feel that there is still a fear of being judged in some way which holds me back from expressing all that is there to express. By expressing ourselves in truth we get to claim ourselves back from the lies we have bought into, and any judgement will not have the power that we had previously given it.
Love your honesty Jinya Mizuno.
Yes truth has a way of cutting through emotion leaving you in the simplicity of the choice to be made. There is no longer any identification with complication leaving more space in you body for what is real – there is definitely a clarity and openness there.
Having lived much of my life as a ‘nice’ person, I can relate very strongly to what you have written Toni. I still find it hard to express truth if I think the other person will react badly. I used to think my motive for holding back was to not hurt the other, but in being honest with myself I have felt that it is so I can remain comfortable in the belief that I am still liked. Since becoming a Student of the Way of the Livingness, I have been dropping the need to be liked and recognised by others and have been learning to express truth instead. This line says it all “I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.”. Thank you Toni.
Holding back part of the truth means we are being completely dishonest. A partial truth is the same as lying and as others has shared, creates mistrust and hurt within relationships for even if it is never actually brought out into the open, it is still felt.
Why is it that we are worrying so much about expressing the truth and not expressing lies? When did the word “truth” become worrisome and a source of anxiousness, and not the word “lie”? How much do we care about protecting the self and not integrity and virtue?
Wow Melinda, very good question indeed: when did it become worrisome to express our truth, rather than being worried about lying? Could it be us caring more about protecting ourselves, rather than upholding integrity and virtue?
What a statement Lucy! and what a responsibility we all carry to express our truth in full, whatever it may be. Thank you.
This is absolutely true Lucy. When we hold back the truth, we know it, the other person knows it, and the games, lies and dishonesty continues.
You are right Lucy, we can feel everything. Sometimes we make things worse for ourselves by filling in what someone might think about us because we just know when something is not expressed.
Its incredible what a gift it is to people to fully express and not sugar coat something. Personally I would opt for this from someone any time, and I am practising being that way myself.
It’s amazing how we self sabotage when we hold back on our truth – we instantly know that we are being un-true to ourselves and to the other person, and then try to find convenient ways of justifying our action. This is certainly a waste of time and energy and yet another distraction from just being who we are fully and with a greater sense of purpose and love.
What a great comment Susan, when we sacrifice any part of the truth we sacrifice a part of ourselves. We look at truth as a separate part of ourselves, as something we feel to express, but truth is a part of ourselves and to not express it is as you say, not being who we are fully.
Absolutely Toni, ‘Truth is the same as Love’ Expressing truth was something I shied away from for most of my life and all the reasons you give. Last year, I finally broke this cycle and for good. When I heard Natalie Benhayon say ‘when we hold back, we hold everyone back’ it was an ‘Aha’ moment, I felt I was given permission to change. Expressing truth for first time wasn’t easy. I went through all the stages of being ‘nice’ ‘not saying what I felt and needed to be said’. It was uncomfortable, picking through the false layers. I was shown that truth is full-hearted, not diluted, padded or made pretty to make it easier for others. I resisted and resisted and then broke through and spoke from my heart with clarity and love. This was this was a major turning point in my life, a burden lifted, a new sense of freedom held in my body and my life back.
I find it so interesting to see how the confusion and sometimes the chaos that plays out from holding back. This is a very old pattern of mine, constantly reading situations to find the appropriate words to subdue any tension, which actually just creates a mountain of tension inside that I then have to go deal with. There is a point however when we can say – enough, and begin to take those brave steps in to the unknown of speaking the whole truth and seeing what happens then, like a brilliant experiment with life itself.
It is quite revealing what plays out and happens within our body when we don’t express all we feel. We are made to express and I am thankful for this tension I feel at times as it reminds me that I have been in some form of contraction from the truth I have felt.
Our beautiful bodies are always talking to us, sharing so much wisdom if we just allow ourselves to feel and deeply appreciate all that’s there, in spite of whether it feels good, or not. There is always so much to learn.
Yes, I agree – learning to express is a step by step process where we get the chance to shed the old shackles and be who we are and express what there is to say or write, without agenda or imposition.
Beautifully expressed and so true – “The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” Fact is, we all know when we are being lied to or only given half of what is needed and felt and it leaves both parties well short of the mark. It is in fact a dead end that casts a shadow over future interactions until that trust is established again.
Well expressed Gabriele – to hold back the truth is like casting a shadow over us and our relationships. And it is a burden we have to clear one day. By more and more expressing in full truth and letting go of the controlling aspect I feel lighter and life becomes more simple in the best way.
The ill ease we feel when we choose to hold back the truth and express what feels to be shared with others stops us all from knowing and feeling the truth that is to be shared. We always have a choice at that time to learn and take the next step to deepening our understanding or continue to hold back what we know is a fundamental truth that is equal to everyone and supports their individual development.
Not expressing in full does not support humanity, so why do I do it? By holding back I can feel I have to shut down and that hurts me and doesn’t support the person I am communicating with. I guess for me this could mean I need to continue deepening my connection with my delicate, tender and nurturing self so there is more of that in my expression.
Having read your article Toni what stood out for me today was “I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.” It is ofen the fear of this discomfort that is often the stopper for expressing in full, and un-epxressed it stays in the body, creating tension and dis-harmony.
I really enjoyed reading your blog Toni – much to ponder on. The paragraph that sparked some wonderings was where you referred to how you felt let down by the adults of the world when you were told that Santa Claus was not ‘real’ and that he didn’t come down your chimney, ride a reindeer across the sky etc. etc. and I wonder and have wondered for many many years why it is that we continue lying to our children. I have raised these thoughts with many people over the years and they all come up with the same lame excuse that, ‘well the children deserve a little fantasy in their lives’, and I wonder at the true worth of this when the result ultimately is they all feel betrayed by the people they trusted most when ‘told the truth’.
Two quotes stuck out to me while reading this blog. “I now know, Truth is the same as Love.” And “In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.” I agree with these experiences that you have shared Toni. I find that, if I know the truth, I have the ability to deal with anything, not knowing the truth or holding back in expressing my truth is where the harm is.
Sometimes when the truth is spoken it can be a big ouch for us because it exposes what is not true in the way that we are living. This is when we need to remember the realization that you have come to Toni and that is that ” Truth is the same as Love”.
I have found that myself also Elizabeth, the truth can be a reflection that is for yourself and can be more exposing personally than the person the truth was being told too.
I can relate to that sjmatsonuk. Sometimes when I tell my children off about something I immediately realize that the words were mostly meant for myself.
Thank you, Elizabeth. That makes so much sense, the more we express our truth, the more we can expose what’s not true and we then have an opportunity to choose differently. If we are not committed to living the truth we are feeling to share, I can see why we may have some resistance to sharing it. It wouldn’t actually be our lived truth to share anyway, if we have not made the commitment to bring it into our livingness. Again, this presents an opportunity to choose differently and make that commitment.
And often the bigger the ‘Ouch’ , the more profound the learning that awaits us, if we choose to listen.
I can really relate to the tension that builds up when we don’t express all there is to say or even say it without the love to what it was meant to come with. Expression is like a stream, it is meant to flow, not be controlled at the source by damming it up.
It is an interesting analogy of the dam Fiona. I can relate to the destructiveness that can sometimes happen if I don’t speak the truth at the time I felt it. Sometimes it can build up in my body and come out sideways or out of proportion to the situation.
Great analogy Fiona. Damming it up really takes a lot of force.
I love this analogy Fiona.
I love this Fiona ‘ Expression is like a stream, it is meant to flow, not be controlled at the source by damming it up.’ Its so true isn’t it?
When we choose to hold back our truth because we don’t want to ‘hurt’ the other person, could it be that we’re actually projecting our own hurts into the equation? Maybe it’s something WE haven’t fully resolved within our selves, for we cannot KNOW with certainty how the other person will feel, even if it does hurt. Offering the truth is always an opportunity to heal. If we hold back our truth because we don’t want to anger the other person, this choice is all about us, is it not showing that we’re not solid in our own foundation of love, if we were, we would see the other person’s reaction for what it is, their stuff for them to deal with. I feel it can be the hardest to speak the truth to your partner, I can almost feel myself doing a rekey of the possible ‘fall out’ before saying something sometimes ….. this comes from fear, fear of damaging what I have, however, is this not showing me that what I have isn’t true anyway if I am afraid to speak my truth?
Truth is love. This is very powerful especially when we seem to have all in some way considered that the truth will hurt another and needs to be cushioned. It is a very arrogant standpoint to set our judgement above the truth.
As small children we see and feel very clearly the absolute truth about other people, and when we verbalize what we see, we are often told, don’t say that its rude, or simply be quite, or when we describe energy’s we feel we told not to be silly. Over time we learn to say what people want to hear, so we are liked and don’t upset other people, and we close down the connection to the truth we feel.
“I thought it was my responsibility to not say too much, so the other person did not feel awkward about what was there to be said.” I can absolutely relate to this Toni, its strange that we have a belief that we are responsible for another’s feelings and or reactions, whilst it is their choice in how they respond when hearing something that may be confronting.
By not expressing the truth of what we feel to another, we are both robbed, so to speak of the opportunity that life presented, for more intimacy and greater learning and insights, thus both people have the opportunity to evolve to a deeper understanding of themselves and in relation to each other, thank you Toni for sharing your insights in this matter.
When truth is expressed in a way that comes with a beholding of the other person in love the healing that is on offer is a true gift.
A true gift indeed, for both you and the other person …..
Absolutely – it offers a moment of intimacy, that is two people connecting with no protection.
Beautiful expressed Donna Gianniotis
This is so true, and I do experience this discomfort when I hold back what I want to say out of politeness or not wanting to be noticed from others. But my other experience is too, rather saying my part when it is felt to be said, and not starting to worry what the others would think, all this is just delaying the truth that needs to be heard and to have the chance to evolve together.
I have felt this too Toni and I appreciate you sharing your experience so simply and clearly here. What I have been finding is that as “Expression is Everything” (Serge Benhayon), then the more I walk and move and “do” things in life with all of me – in presence feeling my body – the more this supports me to communicate what I am feeling with others. It sounds so simple to just “say what you feel”, but I am finding after not living or practicing this for so long, it is a challenge. The physical consequences of not expressing what I feel are becoming more apparent and speaking more loudly now which is making holding back and keeping quiet less of an option. Thank God!
Toni, you have given us something very important to consider and ponder on here – thank you!! How many times do we hold back, not delivering Truth as it needs to be delivered, but watering it down as you say. This is a killer to the body of the person who is not expressing and is the cause of much illness and disease in the human body.
I remember an experience of being in a meeting and thinking it had gone really well when the next week someone raised they had felt xyz and I was so hurt and upset that I felt they had fooled me by not sharing openly at the time. We are so conditioned to try and make things nice and pleasant at all costs we lose so much in our interactions. No wonder most people are exhausted, rather than just being ourselves we contort and twist to imagined answers or reactions. Madness.
It is madness Vanessa. It takes so much energy to tip toe around and hold back the truth. We think we are buying peace and quiet, but we are actually draining our energy and not allowing the natural course of evolution to occur in ourselves and in our relationships.
So very true, Fiona.
Absolutely Vanessa – sometimes making everything ‘nice’ and positive is harming, both to you and your addressees. Saying half truths is a form of lying, and doing this can completely change the quality of a meeting or conversation by putting you on top as superior because you are the one with the information and knowledge that you withhold from everyone else. Holding back can be deadly.
I find this frustrating too Vanessa. When I present courses, at the start I always invite the group to be open and honest as a way of us working together and suggest that if anyone’s unhappy about something I’ve said or done, to tell me at the time. Occasionally, how people on the course is totally different to how and what they express on post course evaluations!
It is beautiful that you have brought this up Vanessa McHardy, because in situations like this we can also express how it feels when people hold back and point out the responsibility we all have to express what is felt in the moment because it contributes to a meeting or a course etc.
I agree Susan, although I have always said that truth is all important to me I recently found myself in a state of confusion when I had lost sight of what was true. I had begun to focus on self rather than a bigger picture of which I was a part. Huge appreciation to the amazing practitioner who so lovingly supported me to expose myself in this and return to the simple, unconfused, beautiful clarity of truth.
I too spent most of my life holding back in one way or another, trying to be nice, to not ruffle feathers or to not stand out. If I go there now, it always feels incomplete, like there is something missing from the connection, and there is, my own true love.
“…. it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort.” Thank you for such a powerful, essential ingredient to communication and connection with each other. Understanding is the absolute foundation to all relationships evolving into a shared purpose, beyond our individual needs.
The way you explain the consequences of withholding the truth leaves no room for doubt Toni. Truth is love. withholding truth is withholding love and so it stands to reason that devastation can be the only consequence. I know how painful it is (and how much energy it takes) to withhold truth and this blog also allows me to see how much this choice affects others.
Toni, thanks for sharing this simple truth: that truth is love, and it is about us expressing this in full in all aspects, including communicating with another and not holding back what we are really feeling. I can relate to what you have shared – there are many a time I can think of where I have held back what I have really wanted to say because of a fear of hurting another’s feelings or because I felt it was possibly inappropriate etc, and each time it has left me with a ‘residue’ that eats at me, that does not really let me be. But each and every time that I have actually chosen to express fully and not hold back, through there is a vulnerability in so doing, it builds the openness, honesty and intimacy in the relationship that feels amazing. So expressing the truth is expressing love, even if it is saying something to someone that they may not like to hear at first, with the understanding of course that one is expressing respectfully and in full honouring of themselves and another.
Expressing truth feels for me like honoring myself lovingly and within also every other person. I love hearing and being with the truth as everyone does in this world, because we anyway feel it all the time – but we aren’t used to it! What I am struggling with is to be in reaction, an anger or a judgement or a frustration and so on and that this creates a confusion to express in full. I feel that if I am expressing with love I am not so vulnerable to hold back what there is to be said.
Holding back may not just be not saying something when we know it is there to be said in that moment. Holding back may also be not fully embracing our expression in full. We can say it but also say it in a way that dulls it down so to speak. This could be through not speaking clearly, strong or claimed or even only expressing a part of what we felt to share and not the whole of it.
I agree Joshua, recently I realised I was holding back the amount of love I have within myself. It was not that I did not tell that person I love them regularly but I was holding back a part of all the love I am thinking this would keep me safe. As you say not holding back is letting out every bit of us, our love, our joy, our silliness, to me it is a feeling of being boundryless and without restrictions or protection.
You have described here Carolien what it means to be truly free. Free beyond the confines of our ideals and beliefs
yes Joshua, absolutely free, and therefore safe as what is held within cannot ever be touched.
With that I mean that there is a part of us, our innermost, that cannot be damaged, changed or touched by anything outside of us, no matter how big or hurtful. When we live from this part of us, we still get hurt but we have all the tools and wisdom to deal with it.
Toni as you say truth is the same as love and therefore if we do not express truth, or we hold back, we do not love. This is huge as have we not all been told in one way or another that at times to not say something or lie is an act of love?
Ah yes I too recognize that the “it is better to not tell, otherwise it would hurt him or her” theory. And the false “white lie” theory that so many grow up with as just a classic example when the phone rings and you have to say that the one who ‘s being called is not at home, even when he/or she is standing next to you. And you know the silly thing about being on the receiving end of these un-truths, is that we actually know/feel that we have been lied to or that information is being held back.
And we wonder why most of us have a trust issue. Because we do know when we are being lied to but we override this to play ‘nice’ or not call people out on lying. So inevitably the trust issue lies with us and no one else.
this is true Robyn, we can feel exactly what is true and what is not and not allowing ourselves to feel this is a big part of perpetuating the game we are playing.
Ha ha Robynjones11 though it’s not funny! I absolutely agree why would any one trust anything any of us say if we are always filtering what we say to a watered down version of what we really feel. It’s like we all need to go 1,2,3 tell the truth no holding back from now on, everyone. But we can’t and the only thing to do is do this ourselves and eventually we will be the norm!
Bring back a truthful norm I say.. let us unravel our investment in lies together and reestablish a norm that actually makes sense.
I agree Abby having a truthful norm would change all the deceit that we all live under at the moment. We need to start by being honest with ourselves first, this is the first hurdle we have to overcome, as we do not always want to see the web of lies that we have created by not being honest in the first place.
Spot on Abby and Alison. Bringing back a ‘truthful norm’ starts with us all individually healing our hurts and being honest about the web of lies we have created up to this time. The web can be dismantled in a moment once we commit to absolute truth.
Touche, Robyn. We’ve created quite a ‘merry-go-round’ of hurts for ourselves, one feeding the other and then that one, the other …… It’s well and truly time to get off and face the music and simply be with each other with honesty and love.
It is absolutely time to get off the merry-go-round and take responsibility for the hurts we have taken on, by bringing honesty and love to ourselves as we expose them.
Brilliant. Thank you, Robynjones11. This cuts through my alleged confusion about why I have not trusted people – my own knowing that I have ‘betrayed’ myself.
I just got completely stopped when I read this comment Matildaclark. There is so much in these 2 sentences. Our own betrayal, our own choice to step away from what we know is true from then on affects every relationship we have. It totally confirms that our relationship with ourselves determines all others.
Yes Vicky, the relationship with ourselves is essential. It was never taught to me until I attended workshops by Universal Medicine. Once I understood there was one to be had, the journey began to discover, nurture and learn to love me again, which changed and deepened the relationships I now nurture with all people.
Yes this is a great realisation. I had never thought about it before as ‘betraying’ myself but it is so true.
Robyn I totally get what you are saying, we don’t trust ourselves because we don’t allow ourselves to deeply feel the truth even though we know exactly what the truth is. We continue to play this role of not being aware, we are fully aware all of the time – this is our designed natural state – we choose to dis-connect from it and this is what creates the dis-trust.
That is exactly it, Natalie, thank you for expanding on this so well. We feel the truth in every moment, honouring that and allowing ourselves to be aware of what we are feeling builds trust, trust in ourselves. Therefore supporting us to return to our “designed natural state” of connection and awareness.
This is so true. It is like we dismiss the truth and then of course we can’t help but distrust ourselves and then everyone else.
Natalie what you say really makes sense. We can’t complain of not getting the truth when we withhold, or should I say pretend we don’t know it ourselves. We are complicit in this merry-go-round of lies. Its like we are all waiting for someone else to go first. We have to start with ourselves. I know for myself I don’t want to stand out and be noticed, and this often make me keep quiet. It sometime feels so obvious, its like that story where the emperor is parading down the street naked and no one says a word until a little boy says he’s got no clothes on.
A great point Robyn, we are aware of everything, though pretend we are not.
And we are in the habit of pretending we are not aware which allows the dis-trust to build. Whereas when we commit to being aware again we begin to confirm we have this natural ability which allows us to build up a consistency, ultimately leading us to re-trust ourselves and therefore others again.
That is another thing… the pretending that we are not aware that we are being fed half truths and lies. We perpetuate the dis trust if we are not committed. It feels like the key is to begin to clock it and just say something. Even one thing that confirms that we may feel something is not being expressed.
Agree, not speaking the truth leads to a trust issue. People can just feel when we are not receiving the truth. We call it then lies or double agendas. I realize it takes two to tango: one to speak the truth, the other to speak up when it doesn’t feel truthful. It is worthwhile to practice this in a world where being nice and covering things up is prevalent.
Speaking up is also key to confirming the truth that we feel, whether we do this out loud or just to ourselves. This confirms the truth of what we feel as well as gives us the opportunity to not take on anything that is untrue. This builds trust with ourselves and gives us the foundation to trust what we feel.
So true Robynjones11, all my life I have had trust issues, never trusting others, when in fact I could not trust myself, because in disconnecting from my body, I no longer was able to discern truth, and as a result, I absorbed everything, took on others emotions and became completely lost. Now thank goodness, I have learned (still unfolding) to observe and not absorb…..
Beautifully said, jacqmcfadden04. Magic happens when we come back to ourselves and observe rather than absorb.
It’s a great point, that the real issue is in the lack of trust we have for ourselves which then holds back our true expression. Even if the world throws tricksters and charlatans our way, if we trust ourselves and continue to confirm the truth we feel we are rock solid.
Totally agree Robyn, we are responsible for feeling the truth and can never truly be victim to being lied to.
So true katechorley, we can never truly be a victim of anything really, as this is a choice we make, and we can easily make the choice not to be one.
Very well called out Robyn – your last line – “So inevitably the trust issue lies with us and no one else.” – is so true… and it made me ponder on the lies we tell ourselves. The little white ones or the big blinding ones – to justify how we’re living, our choices… the greatest trust issue that we have is that we don’t commit to truth in full…
Absolutely Brooke, and when we choose to commit to truth again we begin to trust ourselves again. It is the consistency of this that allows us to then strengthen our trust as we know that we will honour what we feel to be true no matter what.
It’s the flip side of the same coin. On one side I am not delivering the truth in which case I am lying, and on the other side the other person is lying. However if I deliver the truth to the other person and call them out, we have the opportunity for true wealth in the relationship
Someone has to bring truth first. When we know and live truth then it is our responsibility to bring it and offer others a way out of the lies. Whether that is by saying something or simply just being ourselves. Truth is felt always because we all know truth deep within, which is why we actually have trust issues in the first place!
Yes Robyn I hear you. . The trust issue lies with the person not being told the truth and the person not feeling they can tell the truth. We all have the trust issue and we are all responsible for it.
Spot on Robyn, we do know when we are being lied to or when something just doesn’t feel right/true, but to fit into the picture of being ‘nice’ or not wanting to call people out on lying – we choose to ignore our feeling and lie to our self and the world.
I always really struggled when my son didn’t want to go to his friends’ homes anymore. I respected his decision but could never bring myself to say that he didn’t want to go; rather, I said he had something else on – a family lunch …. . I felt very uncomfortable at these times, hoping that the message would get across without my having to say the words, which is interesting. If I’m wanting the other person to know the truth, so they understand, why am I not prepared to say it? Because I don’t want to hurt their feelings that my son doesn’t want to go to their house ….. this is exactly why we have got ourselves into such a mess, because we’ve been avoiding the truth for so long. There was a reason my son didn’t want to go, it didn’t feel good being there, he was honouring how he felt and I should have done the same by being honest, with love.
Yes our world is upside down and back-to-front when it comes to our ideas of what love is and what love actually is. Great point Carolien.
I have created many uncomfortable situations in my life because I can just not help expressing my truth. I have spent most of my life trying to change this seemingly unwanted behaviour. Since then I have learned that expressing the truth to one another is a very loving way to be as long as we come from love when expressing it.
And that is the key – coming from Love when expressing with each other.
I agree, it seems so simple once it is expressed. Personally, I find there are little pockets of unexpressed truth that end up eating away at me…all this ‘unfinished’ business, draining me and perpetuating a cycle of lack of expression.
Yes I have also noticed when I do not fully express something it is always in the back of my mind taking up energy. Until I take the opportunity to fully express what I left unsaid it is as if I am doing two things at once, those things being the thought at the back of my mind and what ever it is I am presently doing, no wonder it is such a drain of our energy to not fully express. I have also noticed we keep on getting the opportunity to express what we left unexpressed until we choose to just let it all come out, this is the magic of God and the workings of constellations.
Yes Joel I can relate to this….the ‘pocket’s of untruth’ need to be emptied don’t they?
Joel Thankyou for writing about the pockets of unexpressed truths, this has given me insight into how and why my body feels this way and how draining these little instances are of holding back and how the body feels as a result.
Collectively as a world of people, we kept choosing the same stories and lies, same way of holding back, because we have been unaware that there is anything else. Having come to Universal Medicine and had my mind blown right open to the truth of what is going on behind the veils of illusion has saved me from another cycle of life ignoring the truth, love and magic that is so obviously around us and wondering why life is a struggle and mundane. From this life onwards, it’s all going to change.
I am so with you on that line Jinya; ‘From this life onwards, it’s going to change’.
There are really so many ways in which we can be tricked into thinking that expressing the truth in full is not a good idea. I too have come to realise that these are in fact not helpful in any way, shape or form. Because to express in full, as often as possible, is healing for everyone as it is delivered in Love. The Love that we all are deep within, and so it speaks to the deepest part within all of us.
‘When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out – letting myself be liked rather than being the apparent bringer of upsetting news.’ – My siblings and I would get bizarre presents of our Nan for christmas, when she asked what we though of them I would tell her the truth (not in a mean way, just telling her how I felt about them) while my siblings played ‘polite’ and didn’t tell Nan what they would tell me about their presents. Interestingly I began to get presents from Nan that I really enjoyed still with the same gorgeous Nan flare. My sisters began to complain and were jealous of my presents – I told them they just had to chat with Nan about what they enjoyed. On the surface this may appear as though I was a young girl manipulating my Nan to get what I want, but this wasn’t the case. In these conversations that I had with Nan we got to know each other more deeply that common “politeness” allows. Over the years we developed an understanding of each other and this is what my siblings were really missing out on.
Not telling the truth may seemingly have a short term gain, but the many sustaining benefits of telling the truth completely outweigh any possible gain.
One of the biggest times when we don’t express is when a friend asks, ‘How are you?’. We may reply ‘Fine’ or smile, shake our head and say ‘I’m great, thanks’ but the truth may well be different, it’s just that we don’t want to burden them with our personal troubles, because we don’t want them to engage with us further on that topic, or be sympathetic, curious, or worse, offer us their solutions.
We lie to ourselves all the time when we ignore what our bodies are telling us about the foods we eat, the time we got to bed, the TV programmes we watch and the time we spend on our computers, tablets and smart phones.
Intimacy and honesty with ourselves is one way to begin – accepting and honouring what we are feeling, and then learning to express that.
Carmel this is a great expansion of what the truth is and how we reject it. How awful to feel that my body expresses a truth and I ignore it, and that I don’t say exactly how I feel.
Love the simplicity you express with here Carmel. Yes, we may not be perfect and may live in denial but at very least we can be honest with ourselves about this and then that is a true step forward.
So often when we think of expression, we think of what we say or write. But as Serge Benhayon has always presented, expression is everything. It is the way we move, the way we get out of bed, the way we blink, and the way we breathe. All of this communicates to all of those around us in ways we do not maybe like to consider. We are forever relating to people through the way they move and the way we move in turn. Body language betrays so much about the way we truly feel, and we register it all the time, even if we choose not to be aware of it. When we look at expression in this light, it gives greater scope to the profound message of what it means to express our truth.
Totally agree with you Adam, expressing our truth is so much more than what we say or write, it is absolutely EVERYTHING we do.
Adam you should write a book! Always love what you share! Agree with what you have shared 100%
Every moment is an opportunity to express truth.
The responsibility and simplicity of this in terms of our everyday choices is pure gold…thank you, Adam.
Yes Adam, our bodies speak volumes compared to what we say, and in here lies our responsibility to move in alignment to the love we are and nothing less.
So much wisdom in this blog. Having spent much of my life being nice, in order to avoid confrontation rather than being truthful, it has been a big thing to finally allow myself to speak my truth. It is a constant learning and opening up to expressing more and so worth it.
Funny, but being nice drives me bonkers, I would much rather someone is honest rather than nice.
I know what you mean Heather. It’s like there is a wall between you. Honesty is so deeply refreshing.
Hear, hear Heather being nice is not so ‘nice’ at all and quite tasteless really.
There is a quite a degree of vulnerability when people ask for help or advice, so they wouldn’t choose people they don’t feel ‘safe’ with, unless they are in a destructive pattern of behaviour. Therefore, to not express in full, to hold back at all, is merely validating to the other person the lack of love in our society that people have grown to accept as the norm. Alternatively, when we express in full, we are enabling the other person to feel that there is another way to be, the more that people allow themselves to feel the love on offer, it may inspire them to be more of themselves, in the same way that we have all been inspired by Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine.
It’s interesting how we try to look after other people by holding back what we need to say for fear of hurting their feelings. It’s understandable, but ultimately we do them no favours as we do not give them an opportunity to feel the truth and therefore be free to choose how they respond. Holding back is the ultimate form of control.
Thanks for writing this Toni, I really can’t ever hear enough how important expression in full without holding back is, as my concern for being nice and not ruffling peoples feathers runs rather deep and it has been a hard one for me to overcome.
I agree kevmchardy, it can be a hard one to overcome but if I let it go on, then I keep living with the confusion and lack of confidence Toni mentioned, and I don’t want to live with that anymore. What I’m finding helpful is to remember that speaking one’s truth or expressing in full doesn’t mean imposing on others or blurting things out, it’s more like persevering gently until it is said … to express until it feels done, both physically and mentally.
Kevmchardy, I know where you are coming from, I have spells where i speak truthfully and then other times where I hold back for fear of offending someone and wanting to be nice. The being nice never works, it always hurts myself and other people as i have found out many times.
Yes, kevmchardy, the wanting to be nice and not ruffling people’s feathers is a classic trap we can fall into and one that I am very familiar with!
It’s a choice we need to make between being love or being nice.
Social niceties are like a well-oiled machine in me…so finely tuned. It is a joy to dismantle this false engine and let the real, sustainable, all-serving deal shine through.
Thank you Kevinmchardy, I agree, the deep seated lying ways I have lived ‘ has been a hard one for me to overcome’!
I agree kevmchardy, it is instilled in us from a very young age and becomes very ingrained as everyone else is doing it also! It is now our responsibility as adults and parents to allow our young to have their own voice no matter how much it may trigger us or make us uncomfortable.
“devastation comes from withholding the truth” I am with you on that one – to our bodies. You only have to look at the world wide expanding rates of cancer, diabetes, exhaustion, metal health issues, suicide rates and all the many new forms of illness and disease to confirm this.
“I found out Santa Claus was not true.” whoo hoo!! I love this line – the fact that this huge world wide lie and un-truth, which has spanned millions of lives and generations, has now been broken, and written down in absolute concrete truth. The threads of this will unravel.
Yes we have those ‘romantic lies’, where we smile and wink while telling/hearing. They are the hidden lies (even some are so obvious) we do not take so seriously. But every lie is a hurt and supporting/creating the untruth. This has a huge effect on us all.
This is a great reminder “our body lives in tension if we don’t express truth in full!”
A reminder that cannot be ignored when felt in the body!
There have been moments I have felt to express something, for example a girl walked in the gym the other day, what came to me was to say something about her height to her, she was really tall, and it felt lovely, very beautiful, exactly how she was meant to be. For a moment I stopped and was like really, she’ll think I’m nuts, but it came again, so I may the decision to trust and honour what I felt and go with it. I knew it had to be expressed. I shared with her that I loved her tallness – this opened up a conversation about her height, how she didn’t like it, it felt awkward. You could see this change as we spoke, and as I left I shared it was beautiful and exactly the way she was meant to be. She said thank you, then – ‘were you the same person I saw in a supermarket that said how beautiful I looked in my purple dress, (I didn’t know this was the same girl until then) that made my day’. All this confirms to me to we are given what needs to be said / heard for other people.
That’s gorgeous Gyl, great story to share and very inspiring. By being open and honest we can confirm in others what they are having difficulty accepting, now that is truly evolving and not so scary after all!
Gyl that’s beautiful. How gorgeous for this woman to feel another woman appreciating her… not once, but twice!! I love this.
It does seem as though watering down the truth is expected and has become our norm, but from my experience this only seems to bring anxiousness to the body, because we have to then calculate what can and cannot be said and the reasons why – it’s too complicated. How much simpler and freer would it be if we just said what we felt and moved on.
It has definitely become the norm in society Julie. I’ve been listening to the radio a little bit lately – and I can feel in the way that all of the DJ’s speak and express themselves that there is a certain way that they are told to express – to engage their listeners and get ratings – that feels so unnatural, and forced. Yet, hundreds of thousands of us listen to this, accepting that this is OK – when deep down, we know that it’s not true.
When I let the expression flow I have to let go of trying to control the outcome. I have to let go of investments. This is throwing me back to me, what I am in truth, instead of what I am doing or reaching.
Sandra this is such a great point letting go of the control and a certain outcome that you want. It doesn’t work because you are already shutting down your full expression to a conformed way in which you want it to be. We have to allow our expression to go for it with out any conditions. This one I am still working on and it feels amazing simply allowing my expression to flow.
Brilliantly said Sandra, the truth is who we are, it’s not attached to anything. The moment we are invested we are already outside of ourselves, our body and our heart. There is no love, truth or true self in expressing for outcomes.
Beautifully said Sandra, we have to be unattached to any kind of outcome. Beautiful.
Yes it is beautiful “to be unattached to any kind of outcome”…and quite a journey to do so. : )
When I hold back what should be expressed I try to control, but it is not natural to hold back and by doing so we are denying our divinity – Control does not really work. And so confusion and complications occur.
By surrendering to who I am and letting go of control I can express what is needed to be said and needed to be heard. This does not mean that I have to say everything. But what to express is not my personal choice, not under my control, I do not have to find out what is right here to say or not. It is much easier for me: I just say what is needed to be said. And I know this from my essence, founded on my stillness, connected to me and others by my open heart, by the way I hold others in love and my commitment to be in service for the all.
Ahh Sandra, I can feel your gorgeousness in your clear and full expression here. It’s true, the words we speak do not come from us but from the energy we have chosen to align to, its simply our responsibility to align to the correct energy and what is needed to be said will be.
” I held back because I was worried about how the other person might respond.” I can relate to this, it actually makes me feel sick in my body. What I have come to realise is that it is very arrogant to hold back, it makes it completely about self and not about evolution. It locks into place that what we have to share is about us, when in truth it is given to us, we are simply custodians. Imagine if Serge Benhayon had held back one iota of truth, none of this would be happening.
I know that sick feeling Gyl! There are a couple of situations where I am holding back expressing myself… and the tension in my body is now so great, when I am in those environments I am so cranky!!, because I am holding onto all of this unexpressed stuff. Gross…!
Oh yes, I know this holding back, half truth situation all too well. For me I hide alot behind a veneer of niceness and some hard hitting truth can very much be at odds with that. Yet as you say in the blog… the truth is always felt, so the niceness always feels false and everyone is left feeling that something is not right… a little confused. Whereas an expression of the truth just gets it out there and opens up the potential for something more.
Exactly Simon. Truth is always there being felt, but can be hidden under the game of niceness that we play, and it has a very false feeling like you describe. Our daily interactions could be so much different if we expressed truth in all of them! Hear hear brother!
That is so brilliantly expressed Simon – the niceness does feel false, and confusing – it is so much more confirming for everyone for us to express the truth in full…however it may come out.
Actually, not saying the truth is very hard hitting in that the force that holds someone continues to incarcerate. When truth is spoken it often creates a stop moment for the listener, a moment of stillness, true connection and light – truth therefore is not hard hitting, it’s gentle and healing for the person but it hits hard at deceit and all that is untrue. When we hold back the truth we have to ask ourselves, “What do we truly want for people?”
This is a great point, Toni: ‘Truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known’. If you know something is going on but you don’t want to call it out for fear of reaction, this holding back makes us party to the lie. When we do speak the truth it sets things straight and there is an alignment in the body instead of it being warped by untruth. It might be hard to speak up but it is far more damaging to live with the tension of not doing so.
I agree Sandra, I hate that feeling when I walk away from some-one and I know I have not spoken the full truth. I feel the contraction in my body and have to live with the tension of knowing that I passed up an opportunity for evolution for the other and myself. The saving grace is that if you are honest with yourself, learn from the situation, do not beat yourself up then the opportunity comes around pretty quickly for you to do it differently.
Thank you Mary-Louisemyers for the confirmation that we always get another chance to allow evolvement. We are never left behind.
Great points Sandra and Mary Louise. Our bodies are the markers of truth and speak loudly when what is going on around it is not in alignment to that truth. It does take courage to speak up in a world that is telling us to be quiet and play the game or else! But missing that moment of potential evolution hurts because we have walked away from our own love.
Great point Mary-Louise… there is no point beating ourselves up… just seize the opportunity when it presents itself again!
Very good point Sandra. I have felt this so many times – feeling an untruth, not expressing it, and walking away feeling the tension in my body of, as you say, being party to the lie.
This is so true, Toni, that truth is felt and the example with Santa Claus is showing how we deal with lies in our society. On the one hand we tell lies like this story and on the other hand we blame children or persons when they are lying. How manipulative and contradictory this is.
Awesome sharing here Toni, and thank you for these words… “… Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that”… This is gold and well worth understanding!
That is gold and the more we understand the power of that statement the sooner we will feel the only option is to be ourselves in full, truth and that will be our love lived. It is what the world truly needs.
Yes – that is a golden line Johanne!
I thought for a long time I didn’t want to hear the truth, but now when I do there is no mistaking it, as my whole body lets go and relaxes. Same goes for when something is not true my body shows me and I feel anxious. I have found speaking my truth a healing for all involved.
So true Aimee. The difference between what is true and what is not can be clearly felt in the body. If we pay attention to this feeling we can discern what is true and not true.
Yes I agree Aimee not speaking the truth is becoming less of an option as the tension and anxiety felt in my body is very uncomfortable which shows how harmful this choice is to ourselves and others.
Our body wants truth and it is with every single cell heading towards a truer way of being. It is us who in our heads sabotage this and don’t want to hear truth, but the good thing is that this only works for a while – for a short while or a long while – at the end if we do not see truth – truth will make us see with the help of our bodies.
I have a instant marker of truth in my face.. when ever I say, do, express, eat and so on which is not of truth – the tip of my nose goes red. I do not like it always to see my untruth like this – but it is effective.. and even make-up cannot cover it. 🙂
Hello Toni and fellow reader,
I recently had a walk with a friend that I trust very much, we were chatting about expressing truth in full (we didn’t use those words exactly) but the chat had a similar tone to your blog Toni, it was about the importance of not holding back from what we ‘read’ in any given situation. What we came to: Everyone is reading the truth of what is actually going on under the surface all the time, if we connect to this and acknowledge it within ourselves, leaving no stone unturned – then we have a choice to share it. In my experience there are times for sharing this but we must be careful that how we express in consideration for what point another may be at in their life, as what might be good for us to get off our chest… may not be truly supportive of the whole. I have always been one for telling the truth but what this friend has brought to me is that it is equally as powerful to know the truth within, as long as you deeply feel, don’t hold back the full reading of it for yourself. Sometimes that is all that is needed and in that presence people are able to feel more of what the truth is and come to it in their on time.
This is an excellent point you are making Sarahraynebaldwin as often expressing in full is misinterpreted as not holding back saying everything we feel, this can be self serving if we have not done the reading on the situation first. In fact doing the reading and understanding the whole picture is expressing in full and this takes the full situation into consideration as you so beautifully present in your comment. Our expression may be to hold our knowing and say nothing. This may be the expression of love that is needed in that moment.
Kathleen you totally understand the essence of what I am sharing. Expression is not just talking, expression is everything. So if we feel that we have “held back expressing” it is simply because we have not allowed ourselves to feel/read an entire situation and what is pulsed forth and next to be done. Sometimes very little is needed and the restraint of doing “nothing” is the challenge, as it appear to be “nothing” but in truth it can be the most powerful expression of all, as in that stillness you can become a very clear refection for people.
Beautifully expressed Sarah, to fully express is to be fully aware of what is needed at any given time; no more and no less.
I spent most my life presenting a watered down version of the truth for most of the reasons you presented here Toni. I allowed my fear over how someone may react to be bigger than the harm I was actually causing them and myself. I now know that anything less then truth is not loving or supportive of anyone and while I am still not perfect at it I have come a long way to making truth my only way.
Yes I agree, Penelope, and watering the truth down ends up serving no-one as it is then not true (though I can think it is!) so I have found then no part of it is heard and I get frustrated because I don’t feel listened to or taken seriously!
It’s a crazy thing is it not jsnelgrove36?! Our own frustration at what others are seemingly doing or not doing is in fact of our own doing! Once again it is about our willingness to take responsibility for our own choices, in this case our willingness to express the truth in full.
That ‘watered down version’ you talk about Penelope and what Toni is saying in this amazing blog is where the problem is. I love what you say that you allowed your fear to somehow be bigger than the actual harm you were causing to yourself and them.
Why are we so fearful when it comes to just speaking our Truth?
If we choose to be aware it is actually going on everywhere everyday. Yesterday was an example – I was told to not speak my Truth as it could lead to an incident and the person went into the whole story of what happened to them last week. The fear in them was huge and it was like they were “living” that moment from last week and it was still in their body.
Me – I really did not give a hoot and said what I needed to say and of course nothing happened and there was no incident whatsoever. She said I was strong and could feel that I was fearless when it came to expressing my Truth. Being afraid and not speaking up is killing our world and we each have a responsibility to do our best to make ‘Truth our only way’ as you so brilliantly said – Thanks Penelope.
I agree Bina, being afraid of speaking truth leads to nowhere and as you say it is ‘killing our world’. Speaking truth is something we have to learn again and also to stand there after expressing it, and not contract away.
Bina you are an inspiration for me in expression! There is no need to hold back any longer, the game is over, and there is no need to be perfect – because there is no such a thing like perfection.
So true Bina, and a lovely example of speaking the truth and no harm following. I feel that I can deal with any reaction that comes from being presented the truth, what I don’t want to inflict on myself or others is the harm from not expressing truth.
I feel you are speaking on behalf of almost everyone on the planet Penelope!
It’s true Tamara! In my experience there are not many people who do not experience this in some way or another at times. It is almost like a disease that has infected many – the inability to express truth in full out of fear. The cure is simple but not necessarily easy – make everything about love and from that love it is impossible to not express truth as the expression of truth is indeed truly loving another.
“Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?”- so true Toni.
I can now feel the truth to this.
What I love about Serge Benhayon is that he never holds back from speaking the truth; this then allows us to ponder and connect to truth ourselves.
I agree lorettarapp. Holding back truth retards our evolution (our development and growth), this means that this holding back is actually harmful to us and the other person or people. Holding back truth in any moment then creates a flow on effect, because we have to deal with that lack of expression before we can move forward.
Hi lorettarapp and Lee, often I feel that people misinterpret expressing in full as saying everything we feel without holding back and this can be quite a self serving exercise as we get to off load. This is not to suggest that this is the case here. I feel to add an important point; for our expression to be full we have to read a situation and bring an understanding and a knowing for exactly what is needed to be said and what, even though true, would not serve in that moment. This, to me, is the true meaning of expressing in full.
Awesome the way you bring such clarification to the true meaning of expressing in full Kathleen Baldwin.
I always felt a little guilty when I bought into the whole idea of the tooth fairy and santa clause with my children. One day my daughter came home from school clearly upset after having been told by one of the children that santa clause was not real and when she asked us if this was true, we both felt we could not continue with the lie and we told her the truth. It was heartbreaking to see the huge look of disappointment on her face and she burst into tears. It still makes me feel so sad just recalling it.
There are so many of these untruths that are told to children and almost everybody seems to be a part of it, I can feel how unnecessary these lies are and that children don’t need santa claus or the tooth fairy, it must cause confusion and disappointment about what is true and what is not, what is real and what is made up. I’m sure this happens a lot Tamara, ‘One day my daughter came home from school clearly upset after having been told by one of the children that santa clause was not real’.
So sad but so true Rebecca – it is just one of the many big set-ups that most of us fall for.
Yes the Santa Clause/Tooth Fairy conundrum is quite a difficult one – how can you tell your child for years an outright lie, but then again when almost every other child in the whole world grows up hearing it, what would happen if you didn’t tell a child about these figures – they’d feel totally left out. This is a mess we have only gotten ourselves into because no one has stood up and claimed that this is in fact lying, and there are many other ways of celebrating with our children.
I knew very strongly when our first daughter was born that I would not intentionally lie to her, so we never did Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny etc. I was so clear that I did not want to break the trust our child had in me that it was a simple choice not to go down this path. I know she completely appreciates this on one level, but also finds it hard to be around all her friends who are being lied to. So she tells them the truth and this has caused a few ripples, but I just say to her that those who react to the truth want to be invested in the lie of Santa for their own personal reasons and not to stop expressing the truth she knows deep within.
Absolutely Susie and not only are there other ways to celebrate, our children understand much much more than we think and know all about game playing so for them this conundrum would easily be solved. It is the adults and their attachments that keep it going.
Excellent point Carolien. Kids aren’t automatically born screaming ‘Christmas!!’, their parents are the ones who introduce it, and considering how much Christmas and that period of the year is associated with spending time with family, friends and relatives, eating big meals together and celebrating, a good question to ask would be – is it really for the kids or is it so the parents can tick their yearly list off, ‘grandparents’ check, ‘family time’, check and so forth?
Along with other lies, like the right to free speech – which does not in fact exist, and is used as validation for abuse.
Another lie we tell ourselves is that we live in tolerant societies, when they are anything but.
So many lies Susie, and the grown-up ones are as bad if not worse than the lies we tell our children. The Universally accepted lie – a total mess.
Well said Susie and so true. I have had the same experience with my children and yes – how do we go about it – it is not so easy in this one I feel, it would be so supportive if every parent starts choosing to stop this and celebrate truthfully
Yes RachelMascord, the christmas lie is but one of many that are abound and there is a very widespread pact to play along and not expose those lies. Those who dare to speak truth and blow a hole in the smokescreen that clearly shows truth are being attacked on many levels, as our lies have become very precious to us and we cal them ‘our way of life’
Hi Susie, I can answer this one as my children were never led to believe that the tooth fairy or Santa Claus were real. In fact even though they knew we gave the money and the presents some of them if not all at some stage chose to go along with these popular beliefs as they are so push by the media even though they knew without a doubt that they were not true. I was devastated as a 6 year old when an old nun drove it home about how stupid it was to believe it these imaginary things and had felt like I had been made a fool of by my parents so was not going to do that to my kids.
Yes so true Rachel and the biggest lies of all are that this is all there is so we may as well make the most of it and that we are born and then we die and that is that.
You are spot on Susie ‘This is a mess we have only gotten ourselves into because no one has stood up and claimed that this is in fact lying, and there are many other ways of celebrating with our children.’
That is a beautiful consideration and I so agree Felix, Serge Benhayon is a living example of true friendship.
I have found although it may not feel like it on occasions, truth is the greatest form of love.
And it is the only way that we truly evolve as human beings. Niceness changes nothing and does not assist us to become aware of ourselves or our actions in any way shape or form.
Being super nice and watering down truth is almost a form of paralysis, both for the one doing the watering and the recipient. How beautiful when we just say what needs to be said. And what a level of respect it shows the people in our lives – it acknowledges their strength. Watering down actually implies that they are less.
And on the other hand, I heard a wise woman say: It is not truth, if it is not said with love. Sorry for ‘stealing’ these words but they just came to my mind. 🙂
Its true, love must be present when truth is expressed. But love is not nice or good, love is love, and sometimes that may not match the expectations we have of what love looks like.
Ha, absolutely Heather. Love may not match the expectations we have of what love looks like. True love in expression can also shake you up very well or let you fall on you nose – but then you know where you are at.
Truth opens up honesty in all relationships even with ourselves and this is what responsibility is built on. Love and truth are one and the same. Thank you Toni for expressing in full for us all.
I have heard it said by a very wise man that before truth can be known, there must first be self-honesty. This is very poignant in it’s knowing that we need to get honest first before we will know Truth, as we need to be able to see the mess we are in before we can see a way out of it.
“The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” This sentence really stood out foe me today. I can see that I am constantly having the truth reflected to me, it is evident in every conversation, every move I make, every feeling and symptom in my body. It does not make sense to deny the truth when I am living with the consequences day in day out whether I like it or not.
I always feel very humbled when I notice how amazing the divine works, it gives to us always the choice to go this way or that way and will never judge us for our decision.
We will feel the consequence of the wrong choice in our body that is our chance for learning and coming back to our truth and love.
I love what you have shared monica2808. It reminds me that I am loved by God and looked after every step of the way.
It is beautiful to feel again the power behind these words Leonne Sharkey – “The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” and to acknowledge that even though we choose to ignore the truth it is the truth none the less. As you say ‘It does not make sense to deny the truth when I am living with the consequences day in day out whether I like it or not’ and this only points out to me how stubborn and perverse we have become. As I allow myself to feel fully the consequences of living this way, I am also seeing the truth and by so doing opening up a way to more fully express all that I need to express and to not hold back for fear of rejection or recognition.
Reblogged this on florisvanderschot's Blog.
This is such a profound article. Whatever we don’t express, if we feel to express leaves actually a tension in our bodies. So imagine if we’re not expressing love where our innate being is love, how much we have to surpress ourselves every day to continue the pattern that we’ve chosen. It’s time to acknowledge the stubbornness and let the love out. Because the illness and disease rates are showing us that there’s something not right with our ways of living – or could I say – dealing with life.
Very true, Floris. “…imagine if we’re not expressing love where our innate being is love, how much we have to surpress ourselves every day to continue the pattern that we’ve chosen.” It really is an endless cycle until we stop and see the mess we are in.
Great that you say this Floris, let us contribute to lesser illness and disease rates by not holding back what needs to be expressed in full.
This is what happens in relationships where we don’t stop to truly feel and share what is bothering us until it is too late and we explode in anger damaging ourselves and others blowing everything out of proportion.
I appreciate and relate to what you’re describing here Ilja. It’s a very delicate and sensitive subject. Especially for men. I can say for myself that I’ve been controlling in so many ways towards others that I would never ever have dared to look into in the past. And from that ignorance and arrogance arose explosions of anger every now and then. And all because I didn’t choose to let love out, express what’s going on. Currently I’m actually starting to feel that whenever I choose to close off my heart for someone or somebody that this deeply effects the other one. Even when not with me. Which makes being expressive not only possible, but a very necesarry step to implement, come back to everywhere we go. Love is to be expressed in schools, at home, at work, everywhere we go basically. And when we don’t, we will continue to rise the numbers of abuse, terror, attacks, war, illness and disease, etc.
I am learning more and more that when I do not express when there is something to be said, especially when it is something I think may not be welcomed that it immediately brings me in to my mind and into stories. it may seem that by not speaking up the harmony is safeguarded but really there is no harmony at all because what i feel is still there, the fact that I am not expressing is felt by both parties and the stories there after are creating a separation between myself and the other.
Yes, there is a lot to learn about expressing in full, expressing in truth, expressing with love and not expressing in reaction. As we get clearer, it gets easier but I can feel how much more there is to understand and live when it comes to expressing.
You have described that wonderfully Carolien. So true, everyone can feel, when the truth could have been expressed and wasn’t. Great to realize, what you have written, that this immediately brings one into the mind and into stories. As in the contrary speaking the truth deepens the situation and opens it up for everyone – even, when it is maybe uncomfortable for the moment.
When I am holding back to express, I realized also, that “it” unnaturally remains in my body and that this has a huge impact on my body’s flow and the flow of the situation.
Expressing in full is an ongoing learning for me and what struck me in particular about your blog was the line ‘We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.’ It made me realise that truth and intimacy go hand in hand without truth there can be no true intimacy.
So true, jy36, as without the truth, we are choosing to not let the other person in and to not allow them to feel us in full. Therefore, there is no intimacy, just a pretence of there being something.
Expressing in love is an art which evolves from the love and steadiness from which I allow myself to live.
When I surrender to who I am and then express, what I say is not for me but what is needed. This is my part, my contribution to humanity.
I had not considered the opportunity for intimacy that arises when two people allow themselves to express in full. For in full presence and acceptance, we can allow ourselves to be seen in the essence of love that we are.
I had an awesome experience at work today ….. someone asked me a question and I could immediately feel frustration that the person didn’t know what they were asking me, in that moment I chose love and gave her the answer with the fullness of me. It felt so gorgeous, it shocked me as I know this is not how I have been a lot of the time. Later that day the same person asked me something else, I could feel that she now felt safe asking me for help and that felt so beautiful.
Great example Alison, making it about the opportunity for deeper connection. I have developed patterns around protecting myself from particular people, feeling that if I let them in, they’ll overtake me. Gradually I am developing the confidence and self love to be able to be open but also clear, and not joining them in an anxious energy.
Intimacy can only be built on truth. Trust can only be built on truth. And love is truth. So where are we at then in this world if we do not consider this as our foundation?
This is so true – where are we when we do not express our truth from the foundation of our love. This world would be a different place when everyone would make the effort to connect with each other and sharing truth with another to grow from there together.
When we accept our grandness and the divine quality that we are, from this place it is easy to express truth and we contribute to more love in this world.
I can strongly relate to what you have shared Toni; the frustration, anxiety and loss of confidence experienced as a result of not expressing, feeling less than the other, ‘who am I to say this to them?’
I can see clearly that I developed a theme as a child to be right (perfect) and be liked because I had abandoned my connection to being me from a very young age. So in re-learning to express what I feel, the feelings arise of ‘maybe I will upset them’ or ‘it will be too confronting’, the fear being that they will then not like me or reject me, which feels like a death.
Confirming and knowing who I am allows me to feel increasing confidence in expressing what I see and feel and the ability to hold my steadiness and openness in receiving the response or reaction. And if they do not like what I have said or walk away from me, I can hold them and myself in love, knowing that it is not me they are rejecting and the truth of the expression will be left with them as an imprint and point of evolution.
Reading your comment, Emma, let’s me realize, that I have felt the truth as a child, but virtually learned, just avoiding to talk about it, because I was rewarded or liked or left alone then. It was like “supporting” (today I would say “pleasing”) the other person to avoid, what I felt they had decided to avoid. This is so deeply ingrained, that it is a daily work in progress to tear the veil I have cocooned around what I truly feel and to become honest with myself and every other person too.
Everyone avoids saying what needs to be said, hoping that it will go away and with it, the discomfort. But it leaves so many frayed ends, unresolved feelings and a tendency to want to numb ourselves from feeling anything. I am choosing not to live in this numbness anymore, I don’t want to press snooze anymore, I want to wake up and really live.
Hi Toni, expressing in full is a big one for me. Your comment – ‘We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full’, is so true when a truth is spoken. The intimacy and fragility that is present is uncomfortable and can open up so much more than we are aware is there, the choice is always there to speak or to push down the hurt. Breaking old patterns is something that when we do it, it also allows for another to receive a blessing.
Similarly ch1956, when reading the words intimacy and fragility I had to stop and consider wow. As uncomfortable as the truth can be (or so it seems from someone who does not present it as often as they could), it does open up a new pathway, an opportunity to live differently, and in that metamorphosis there is this very real sense of fragility and intimacy.
Everyone gets a blessing when we do express our truth, I want to claim this!
Last night I held back from expressing how I felt about the way I was being spoken to, and and in truth am regularly spoken to. Instead I hardened a bit and backed away from the interaction, in fact away from the whole scene as quickly as politely possible, again as is becoming usual. This morning I am very palpably feeling the effects of this. My mind is racy with negative thoughts and it is harder to focus, my neck hurts, my hands are puffy, my breath is shorter than usual, and there is a low level anxiousness that wasn’t there before. I feel YUK! and so, inspired by your fab blog Toni I will breathe myself back to my confident gloriousness and gently broach the subject with my friend for I am strongly feeling the disservice and harm I am doing us both. I am also definitely feeling the truth of the opportunity not holding back offers us all to evolve.
Amazing jeanettegold how a situation constellated to help you fully feel the harm in not expressing… and then you comment on this blog. It’s great how you appreciate the fact that you could use it as a stepping stone to further evolve – worth appreciating!
The opportunities to evolve are there for all us in every moment, its a matter of choosing to see it that way, then feeling life as that and responding differently to our usual holding back calibrating ways. That is worth appreciating too Sandra Newland!
When we express in full we take a another step closer to God.
So beautiful Donna, your words just gave me a complete stop moment, just to feel what you wrote …..
‘When we express in full we take a another step closer to God.’
And others are offered the opportunity to receive God through our expression.
I have in the past been very truthful and direct with my expression… I soon learnt to curb that as no one was prepared for the truth and I know I wasn’t delivering my message with a foundation of love. The difference between being direct and truthful or expressing from love and truth has been an enormous change and support in returning to natural full expression.
You are right merrileepettinato, there is a distinct difference between being direct and truthful and expressing from love and truth. If we express our truth from a place of love then whether the recipient accepts it or not, if it is true it cannot harm it can only heal.
Thank you Merrilee, wise words from a beautiful woman. Expressing from love and truth will not hurt and is the offer to return back to love.
You are so right Merrilee – there is a huge difference in being direct and truthful or expressing from love and truth. We can feel it straight away in how the body responds to any expression, and when truth comes delivered with love, it is much more easy to listen to, hear and acknowledge what has been offered.
I realise from reading this blog that quite often we think holding back the truth is about holding back something awful but it can also be holding back expressing how much we adore and appreciate ourselves and/or another, something no one would have trouble hearing if it is expressed in the moment it is felt. It is amazing how much discomfort we have in expressing the all encompassing love we feel for our brothers and the joy we feel in being together in this life.
I agree Suzanne, its important to never forget that its just as harmful to feel how much you love someone but never express it – sometimes its everything they need to hear and you need to say
That’s so true Rebecca. There is great harm we do to our bodies by holding in love and not expressing it (it’s nature is to expand). There is great healing when a person is confirmed for being amazing.
I agree – when I tell the people I work with how much I love them, and how much I look forward to them coming in because it lights up my day, they themselves light up in response to someone recognising how amazing they are and expressing it back to them.
I totally agree, Suzanne, it’s shocking how hard it can be for us to firstly connect in full to the love that resides within us all and then to express that love in full to everyone. We have been so used to being in a loveless groove, it’s challenging for us to pop out of this, in spite of the exquisite joy we feel when we do.
That’s a very good point Suzanne, for us men we often hold back expressing the beauty and grace we feel and see in women, through fear of rejection, hence why men often sexualize, and objectify their expression about women, in this way the rejection is not felt so deeply, we harden not expressing our tender, deeply sensitive nature.
Yes absolutely Suzanne and Rebecca, great point, holding back from expressing how much we appreciate and love people is also harming.
Beautifully shared Toni. It is so true that it is through expressing the truth in full that we deepen and confirm our connection to Love with each other. This is how we restore and build trust between us. When hold back expressing the truth we know from the Love we feel, we have in fact separated from this Love and the truth that we are all equal and that we all hold the within the all-knowing wisdom of Love.
Holding back from telling the whole truth was second nature for me. The need to keep the peace, to be polite, to be liked meant I seldom expressed in full but I always felt the consequences in my body. Yes Toni, Truth is Love.
Truth is absolute and it is easy to cause confusion when we hold it back by giving a watered down version of it.
‘In knowing that He is in me, all round me in every moment, always beside me and in every part of me and in absolutely everything’ so beautifully said we are God and God is within is us. We are all one.
“In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time”. I am really feeling this at the moment Toni about a situation in my life. Thank you for the clarity in what you are sharing.
I consider a person who expresses truth in full a true friend. And I assume this is why so many people around the globe call Serge Benhayon their true friend.
Great comment Felixschumacher.
Beautifully said Felixschumacher8 – I whole-heartedly agree. I deeply appreciate it when someone reflects and expresses the whole truth to me. Whether it be when I have wavered or when I am expressing truth, as it confirms the truth that I know within and invites me to deepen my relationship with All that I know I am. This is someone that I then deeply trust. Serge Benhayon is a true friend as from the first day we met I have been constantly inspired to deepen my relationship with my Love within and develop expressing the truth of this Love that we all are, with everyone.
Yes all the Benhayons never hold back the truth and it is liberating to be around people who have no concerns about how the truth will be received.
Beautifully said, Felixschumacher8. You can feel the love when someone is offering the truth, with love. Even though we may not want to hear it and we may feel uncomfortable, not wanting to accept something, that deep down we already know anyway, hence the tension, the love it is shared with will also be felt. It is so very beautiful, you can feel that the other person loves you so much that they will not hold back sharing the truth, which we are resisting or choosing not to see, and it’s hurting us. That’s true love.
I agree felixschumacher8. Expressing the truth builds trust and this supports true relationships.
Yes, even to a stranger, expressing truth builds trust. In truth the other person feels when something is not expressed fully in truth. Unfortunately this allows misinterpretations and complication to arise. We definitely go better with truth.
Beautiful said felixschumacher8. I consider Serge Benhayon a true friend for exactly this reason also.
True.
On people who do not hold back the truth I can count on.
I agree Felix true I consider a friend to be someone who doesn’t hold back expressing the truth, and I value this very much, yet why do I often do the opposite, thinking that this person is my friend and I shouldn’t upset or cause them hurt by telling them honestly what I feel. It feels super important for humanity to evolve and come to harmony and brotherhood that we all need to ponder deeply on why we hold back expressing the truth.
Yes because there is a trust, a knowing that he’ll deliver 100% truth in honour of who he and we truly are. He has such a known understanding that we are all love that we cannot help but respond to.
Very true. I can definitely feel the love coming from another when they express the truth to me, no matter how confronting or exposing this is. If it is said in a quality of true care, then it is hard to react, and if there is a reaction, it is not about the other person anyway. So there can be a real appreciation in the truth being told.
Beautifully said Felixschumacher.
Awesome Felixschumacher and fully truthfully expressed!
What a great observation, saying what needs to be said is a true friend, and I agree something to be highly valued.
So very true, Felix, well said.
I love this Toni. A revelation for me in the words ” I now know, Truth is the same as Love.’
And ” If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another , and there is no sense in that” I can feel how you have come to a pragmatic, absolute understanding about not withholding.
Beautifully said, and so simple, isn’t it. When we say our truth in expression we spread the love. I always love the feeling after speaking it out what is felt, most of the time the person I was talking to is aligning to my space and the connection between us is pure divine.
What I have often found is that when I only express half or a little bit of what I would really like to say to someone, they can tell that there is more that I want to say, or there is miscommunication and confusion, as what is said is not the whole truth, leaving room for misunderstanding, and that once I finally spit it out so to speak, it clears up the confusion for everyone involved!
It comes down to this in all situations – are we expressing or holding back? I have for so long held back my beauty in fear of what other people may react with. Held back and expressed a ‘tiny’ voice. Thank you for presenting the healing for both parties when truth is expressed.
I know that tiny voice – I used it to play small and hiding away my self from the world. But my body was telling me that I had to make another decision, holding back truth creates issues and illness in the body and tension that is contributing to the hardness. The changes I recognise since I allow myself to express and say the truth are beautiful connections with people. I get told that they feel inspired to do the same.
Your comment really resonated with me Monika and I could feel the truth of what you have said – we do feel everything in our body and the denial of this is only to our own detriment as we harden our body to hang on to our pride, rather than see the whole picture of where we are at and what we are doing. As we express more fully we accept our place in the world and expand to our true and beautiful selves that have always been there in our essence. We become our innate and amazingly wonderful selves and this is inspiring to appreciate.
Thank you for exposing that holding back is an ill for both the receiver and the deliverer. “The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” … And everything will always return to truth. It’s very confirming to feel that we feel everything!
It is an important point that holding back is an ill for both, and if I stop for a moment and reflect on not speaking when there is truth there to be spoken, I can agree it never feels very good.
‘Devastation comes from withholding the truth’ – I could not agree with this more Toni. In every spoken word where we do not express the fullness of truth we allow less and confusion can manifest. This keeps humanity locked in a cycle of confusion and corruption that we all live amongst and in. Expressing truth is the only way out of this, and is a most beauty-full expression of Love.
Beautifully expressed Toni.. “We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.” there is an intimacy that developes between two people when truth is expressed, because as you shared, truth is the same as love. When we express truth there’s no guard up and it’s a tad vulnerable. Great blog. Really highlights how the whole world misses out when someone holds back their expression.
Thank you for sharing this Toni. What strikes me with this, is that when we hold back our truth, how long the feeling stays with us. We have had to suppress something that was there to express and feels like it is trapped inside us. I have had this happen to me on numerous occasions and it always feels complete when I express in full, even if there is something to deal with following this expression, yet if I hold back, there is much more to deal with and then it has to be expressed in a different way.
Awesome sharing Lee, I am only just beginning to feel just how harmful and stultifying the effects of not expressing are. The feeling stays in the body creating tension which is mirrored in the situation as well, as nothing can be truly resolved. Learning to express full, not from reaction or hurt, but just from honestly what is felt allows the space for another to also express honestly and only from this can we grow together in understanding and awareness.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love.” Thank you Toni I love the way you have expressed the real damage of holding back our truth and the amazing feeling of expansion and love in our bodies when we choose to express in full.
What a great point about the ‘short term gain’ of holding back on how we really feel in that we temporarily create a situation of seeming comfort (either for ourselves or for another)! For this short term gain, we suffer tension, anxiety, loss of confidence and frustration etc – crazy really when I think about it in my own experience, because the ‘seeming comfort’ is generally not so comfortable at all! Truth and expressing in full on the other hand is expansive, clear and feels so much different in the body, and it offers an amazing amount of healing and evolution, both for ourselves and for all others.
Wow Toni, this is awesome ‘Although I know the truth, I have sometimes chosen to ignore it, or reacted when someone has exposed it to me. I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.’
Expressing ourselves in full sure is a joyfully expansive feeling Marika and the warmth I feel from you just reading this brings a smile to my face, and my heart.
It is really beautiful Toni, when we come to a place where holding back the truth (love) is so clearly felt in the body. What is there to be shared, if done lovingly so, offers both a point of evolution. When we hold back our expression, we are literally holding back evolution.
I am very familiar with this feeling. Every time, I think I can get away with holding back, I always know that I have done so for the sake of not rocking the boat and avoiding confrontation. It happens particularly with my family. This is strange because I do love them, but then why don’t I share an opportunity for growth? What sort of love is this that keeps each other in the prison of comfort? Is it love at all? People are going through different things at different times and there is a need to be sensitive to what another is ready to hear. It’s not about preaching or converting. All these things go through my head when trying to say the ‘right’ thing. When we do speak from love and get ourselves out of the way, all these things get taken care of. Speaking from the body, we are impulsed to say precisely what the other is there to hear. It’s like the words are not owned by us. They were already the other person’s words coming back to them through me. I can only deliver as much love as I live.
Yes Toni, no-one wins when our expression is held back. We stand in no mans land, a barren territory that doesn’t yield or grow anything. I have felt the effects of holding back in my own life and relationships, and have experienced that the joy of expressing more leads to even more that I can express.
I hadn’t considered that by choosing to hold back the truth I am also not supporting others to express truth. This seems so obvious now. I can see it has been convenient for me to see holding back as being nice or supportive of another when it is the exact opposite. This false belief keeps me in my comfort zone so it is great to have it busted in this article.
I agree Gill, how is it that we would rather hold back from truth than express. Hold back and feel how awful it is all to avoid reaction. But which truly hurts more….i will go with holding back. When i do express the truth, i actually feel amazing and am not affected by the reactions because truth is all holding!
Being nice or not saying something out of “concern” for upsetting another is simply a form of protection we use in truth to prevent ourselves from being hurt, and actually has nothing at all to do with not wanting to upset another.
I very much relate to your sharing Toni, I too used to hold back my expression for fear of making another uncomfortable so was very good at watering everything down and go into my head and carefully choose the words so I could still say something and still be liked by the person but this created not only a deep frustration in my body it was like a time bomb as the more I chose to hold back the more destructive the effects of it were in my body and those around me.
This is something that is becoming more tangible to me now too. When I feel there is an instance to express everything there is to express and don’t there is a huge tension in my body.
I have been learning the difference to express all of me and not hold back, versus not imposing either. We can connect to ourselves and feel what there is to be said, say it and then have no investment about the outcome of the conversation. Whatever the other person takes from it is their choice, but when we express in full, they have the choice to make.
I have been a people pleaser, a keeper of the peace, honestly terrified of confrontation.
I have simply adopted ways and means that allow myself to be less than who i really know i am and in this i have confirmed others in their untrue faces.
The cyclical nature of life means i have infinite opportunities to turn this around, to breathe my own breath, connect to what i know is true and stay with it whatever the consequence.
To express the truth with another in honesty and without emotion , definitely can make a difference to the person hearing it or not. In the past I had to build up to speaking the truth from a fear of rejection or anger, therefor when I finally did speak it was laced with emotion and the inevitable happened! Since learning more about self nurturing and true love I have made changes that don’t involve emotion thanks to the presentations of Serge Benhayon.
I agree Toni, holding back not only thwarts our expression it also means it holds back the other person from hearing what they needed to hear at that time. I also find that when I do not say something, it ends up playing on my mind and I cannot let it go. Whereas when I simply express what is there to be said then the moment completes itself and I do not then go over and over it in my mind thinking I should have said this or that!
I can relate to much of this Toni and I love being reminded that if I hold back truth I am holding back love.
Toni you share so powerfully how we all have a responsibility to deliver truth. I have resisted for a very long time delivering to others what I know to be true simply because it would ‘hurt their feelings’
And in this resistance, I have harboured so much tension that I have no doubt they can feel. So as you share – when we hold back it is more harming than expressing in full and allowing the other person to express equally back. We know the truth of not expressing – it is our responsibility to be that reflection.
‘I now know, Truth is the same as Love’ – this beautifully encapsulates what we feel when we express our truth with sensitivity and understanding. I feel I often hold back on my truth or otherwise feel my truth and then express it without fully connecting to my body, the result being that the words spill out of my mouth are an already formulated agenda with an eye on the expectation and result. When I connect to my heart and allow for expansion and space there is room for mutual understanding and love, and to expand and allow the situation to evolve.
Toni I was considering what you share “I thought it was my responsibility to not say too much, so the other person did not feel awkward about what was there to be said.” and seeing how many times I try and calculate what I say. However recently more and more I’m finding a new freedom in expressing what I feel no matter how I feel someone will react – its certainly not perfect but I can feel my body has a deeper quality of sleep at night when I’ve not held onto things I felt to say during the day.
Great Article Toni and all so true, thank you for sharing this. Not expressing our truth really hurts our bodies and trying to be nice or say things in a roundabout way but not fully simply does not work, for underneath we all feel everything and know everything anyway.
Honouring what we feel and expressing our truth is the only way to true health, vitality harmony and joyfulness within. This is an amazing thing to work on in our lives and reimprinting our true expression is a loving way to grow.
Toni – I can so relate to this feeling, ‘In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety’, in the past I have held back truth, not trusting what I feel and not wanting to upset anyone, wanting to be liked, but if I have not said what I felt to say then this feels simply awful in my body and I go into my head criticising myself and it is so not worth it. When I do express what I feel to say it feels amazing, I feel expanded and actually if I have stayed steady and not said what I feel in anxiety but with love then this is often heard and understood by the other person and often appreciated.
Thank you Toni. This is huge. I have done this a lot and know what a mess it can create. An internal mess of confused feelings because basically lies have been told – anything that is not true is a lie – and that confusion extends to others also. Other people know when we are not telling the truth but choose to accept the lies because it is more convenient. Expressing in full the truth of who we are in the love that we are serves us all freeing us from the padded cell of our self-made prison.
A beautiful sharing with us all Toni – So many years I held back from expressing in full. I can so relate to what you have expressed/shared here. Carrying the incompleteness of sharing/expressing with another lies heavy within the body – this body of expression which is so finely tuned to feel everything that we choose to live (or not). It is such a beautiful thing to share in full with another and in return to feel the healing that takes place and an ever deepening connection to humanity.
This is awesome Toni and I can so relate to your sharing of why we hold back the truth, water it down, be selective about which bit to share etc. And in my experience I have learned that all of this hurts, not only the person we are holding back from but ourselves, and going for short term gain is totally futile. Hearing the truth may be uncomfortable and rock our world at times but always offers us an opportunity to learn and to grow, and of course we always have a choice to listen, or not.
Very well expressed Ingrid and you are so right when you say it can be uncomfortable at times – it just shows us that we love our comfort more than truth.
It’s interesting that you mentioned Santa Claus Toni, as this is one of the first big lies that is revealed to so many children. So many things just didn’t add up when I was a child, how did he manage to deliver presents around the world, how could he get down a chimney, I always felt that something wasn’t right. What Santa Claus does is set us up that somehow it is ok to make up lies because it is a bit of fun and there is no harm, but children know truth and they do not like to be lied to and your line here confirms this, “In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.”
So true Alisonmoir. I also know of many adults feeling awkward lying to children whose carer’s are telling them about Father Christmas because they don’t want to upset the carers. When I worked in schools I got caught in feeling I didn’t want to lie to children knowing this was abusing their trust in not just me, but in people in general. If they couldn’t trust this adult who could they trust?
When I hear adults complain children lie to them I ponder about the many ways adults lie on a daily basis (the discounting of their true feelings, the show people can put on to cover insecurities etc) all of which children see too. I know I have my work cut out being honest with myself as a start.
I fully agree alisonmoir, and remember finding out about Santa Claus well, I was most upset about being fooled and going along with a complete lie while others looked on knowing it was. All it does is breed mistrust. My husband and I look back at videos of us also lying to our children when they were younger, and cringe with how much we got caught up with the game also. Once we started seeing it for what it was our children came to us and opened up with what they felt was going on. I can remember the relief that it was all out in the open.
‘Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?’ Yes Toni everyone loses when we choose not to express in full because of fear of how the other person may react. I have spent my whole life holding back and now need to remember to treat myself gently as I change this pattern of behaviour and sometimes make mistakes.
So true Helen, everybody looses, as what we felt to express is not ours as we are only the vehicles through which the energy flows. So holding back what has been given to us to be expressed is missing an opportunity to expand the foundation of love here on earth to the benefit of all.
“I thought it was my responsibility to not say too much, so the other person did not feel awkward about what was there to be said.” I so know this one too Toni. It is actually the perfect set up for us all to not express the truth. I feel inspired now to express more of what I feel is true in my day.
“I held back because I was worried about how the other person might respond.” How many times a day do we do this? I know I have done it so much that at times I have lost all sense of myself and all because I want to make the other person feel comfortable. Yet, I have hurt myself in the process. The ridiculous thing is that when I have spoken up it hasn’t turned out to be the disaster I think it will be, only it has offered the opportunity for greater understanding on both sides.
I had a situation yesterday where I was chatting with a family member about a particular topic which I have held back on many many times before. Yesterday was a different experience where I offered what was there to be said in full. It felt incredibly easy to do because I didn’t think about it, I stayed connected with my body and the words just poured out. This is vastly different from when in the past when I have held back, it has felt painful to do so. I knew and felt what was being said was challenging, however by not holding back I knew there was a beautiful healing taking place. We both became vulnerable in our communication and there was a level of intimacy which was deeper than I have felt for a long time.
I do agree that we can all feel it when there is holding back Toni. In truth it has become a ‘normal’ thing to do and maintain the ‘status quo’. When we start to see the life created by living this way it’s pretty ugly isn’t it. A life with no one expressing truth in full and therefore a life without Love.
What I have found is that when I express in full, my body opens up and I feel energised. When I hold back, I feel contracted and somewhat robbed. I have also noticed that I actually have to pull in a force and it takes more effort to hold back than to express. This has been a big realisation and the key for me is not to be attached or be concerned as to what people think when I express but rather trust that what is there to be said is there for the evolution of that person.
I can relate so much as to why you held back from expressing the truth, Toni. It is something I have done so much in my life and if I had I more often than not experienced conflict and rejection, which re-enforced my belief that it was better not to say anything. However, to do so never felt right nor did the conflict so ended up feeling disempowered, frustrated and angry. With the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have come to realise my feeling of holding back came about from my lack of self-worth and fear of rejection. Also when I did attempt to express what I felt was true I would become defensive and argumentative when challenged and hence it was I who caused most of the conflict. The more I heal my personal issues so I am increasingly able to lovingly express truth without personal investment and so conflict arises far less frequently.
I have found that by not wanting to tell a lie and burying the truth… by just not saying anything is just or more insidious than a half-truth or white lies. The old saying of to wear the other person’s shoes, what would you feel like if what you were doing… was done to yourself? There is an old phrase “do unto others”. When you speak from truth there is no comeback. The one that receives the truth has the choice of what to do with it.
This conversation reminds me of the saying ‘It is easier to give than receive’. My greatest learning has been to receive truth expressed in full and with love and realise that it is a truth I already knew but hadn’t chosen to be aware of. With this understanding I am learning the responsibility to express my truth with others.
This article made me realise how wrong it is to be lied to just because you are a child even if it is the old Santa Claus thing or how not being straight up with your children only breeds mistrust as they can feel it if we try and pull the wool over their eyes.
They absolutely do kevmchardy, they feel it all. And when we lie it makes them question their own knowing…and this is devastating, I’ve felt it for myself!
‘I now know, Truth is the same as Love’ – Beautifully expressed, Toni.
When we hold back on expressing our truth in full, we are holding back on love. Which is essentially like saying to someone, I don’t love you enough to give you the whole truth’. So, when we think we’re ‘sparing’ someone by not delivering all of what we’re feeling, we are, we’re sparing them of our love.
“I now have the understanding that it is so important to express in full so we can start the process of coming to a common understanding of the truth together, even if this may create some discomfort”.
This is a great blog Toni, thank you, there are many points to ponder on.
I know that it is our responsibility to ensure that we deliver truth from an energy that is undeniably love.
Thanks for reminding us that by holding back from expressing in full (either to ‘protect’ the other person in some way, or because we don’t value what we have to share) both parties miss out on the “…intimacy and fragility..” that such a sharing can offer.
‘When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out’ – well said, Toni. By not expressing our truth in full, we are enabling our selves to stay in comfort, but at what cost ……
‘truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known’ ~ very wise words Toni. No matter how hard we try we cannot escape truth.
Well said Sara, it changes a lot to know that we all know truth just the same… we’ve been so conditioned to think truth is the monopoly of the well educated. Such a falsity that caps so many of us.
True Jenny. This is the difference between what comes from the body and what comes from the mind… We all have access to the same intelligence, it’s just a matter of how much we choose to be aware.
Yes, intelligence is something so much more encompassing than what can be recalled through the mind. Through listening to the body we gain access to the most extraordinary intelligence, and as you say, it is up to us how much of this we allow awareness of. Nothing like a bit of numbing or distraction to dull our awareness of something felt and known to be true when we would rather it wasn’t!
I know this to Toni, not expressing in full what is there to be expressed. For me it feels like being left in a void when I have not expressed in full when I had the opportunity to do so. And from that void comes the feeling of insecurity, loss of confidence, anxiousness etc. as you have summed up that beautiful. It is important to learn this as I know I do not express in full all day in all small moments that form my day and these moments of not expressing in full do of course the same with me only I do not clock it as the obvious special moments when I am aware of this fact.
Great article Toni, the more we let go of expressing to meet the needs of others and instead express the loving truth, the more opportunity we have for a real connection with others. Some of the best conversations I have had with others have come from me expressing honestly and not holding back. It is definitely a truer way to be.
It’s interesting, we don’t express and hold back truth because we think it’s for the needs of another.. Yet what I have found is that when we do express and don’t hold back truth it turns out to be exactly what another needed… I agree, it’s definetly a truer way to be.
This is awesome Toni.
I really feel the effects of this in my own life. How much I am actually robbing myself, and everyone else around me of Love. Essentially I am saying ” I don’t care enough about time or you to offer you everything I feel”.
This is devastating to our relationships. Devastating. We allow ourselves to walk around with a false picture of what Love is and how deep, holding, evolving and nurturing it can be.
Yes well said simplesimon888. It is a matter of time before the truth will come to light anyway, as that is the funny thing about truth, it will stay and be there until all the lies are exposed. But as you say it can be done now and not ‘in time’.
The truth in what you and Simon express here, Lieke is gold. The richness and power of these comments and the whole subject of expression is truly healing and evolving for everyone. The truth just is and we dance around it with the falsities but as you say, it does not go away because it can’t! It just IS. Thank you.
I really relate to the time factor you have included here. It seems to have a hold on us, or so we think. In reality when we make time for ourselves and others in love and in truth, time has a way of expanding, of standing still, enabling all that is needed to be done to be done.
I agree Simplesimon, holding back is devastating to our relationships as we never get the chance of experiencing true intimacy which comes from expressing our truth in full no matter what.
Agree Simplesimon, it’s like we are holding a cap on how much love can be expressed. But this, as you say, is devastating to relationships. No matter what, we always come back to what was unloving and have another chance to change how we were and hence make it more loving and evolutionary.
Wow Simplesimon, feeling your translation into words of your holding back… ” I don’t care enough about time or you to offer you everything I feel”. Who are we to not give and be all that we are, at all times.?
I can feel the arrogance and self protection and separation all at once, here, of some of the thoughts or ‘pictures’ we carry around.
Depending on what false or damaged pictures we carry about life, love will reveal perhaps other ‘words’ and attitudes that may differ, but the effect is the same, devastation to all of us.
Thank you, a lot to keep feeling into here.
True, simplesimon888, it is even mainstream to allow a person a lot of ‘faux pas’ in the name of love. But that is again not true. And this we may only allow because we ourselves are not consistent in expressing truth and therefore love.
Offering another ‘everything I feel’ has felt like an imposition on others and I have doubted my ‘right’ or ‘place’ to express truly what I have felt. In fact what I have felt, I have often not had words to express, just a feeling that what was being said or done was not true. I am only beginning to understand that when I hold back I am abusing others and myself by not contributing my full expression. Expression also needs to be felt into because if it comes with an emotional charge it can be harmful too! What has supported me lately with expression has been to honestly express and in doing so be open to the learning that comes by sharing my vulnerability about it! Thank you Simon.
Truth is love and love is truth, it just makes sense that you cannot have one without the other.
Simply and lovingly expressed, Cherise.
Ain’t that the truth!
Truth and Love have been bastardised in many ways. They, in Truth, have the power to unlock humanity from the foggy hold so many are in. Understanding their true meaning is key, and I thank Serge Benhayon for bringing these forth once again.
Absolutely Cherise – for me too this makes complete sense.
Absolutely Marika and we are supremely blessed when you do so!
Yes agreed Marika and Jenny. The reflection of this joy is a supreme blessing for us all, offering us the opportunity to deepen and expand the Love that we all are.
Beautifully and so simply said Toni thank you… it has been a pattern I know all too well also and there is no question… nobody evolves. Letting go being liked can feel huge but in truth it is nothing more than letting go a created image of what life/people/relationships should be like and allowing what is naturally there to express.
I like this reminder Jenny, that many times it is the pictures we have of pretty much everything that stops us from saying what is there to be said.
I think what you’ve shared here is absolutely key Jenny – “Letting go being liked can feel huge but in truth it is nothing more than letting go a created image of what life/people/relationships should be like and allowing what is naturally there to express.” The difference between trying to control a situation to fit how we think it should play out or look as opposed to allowing it to be and just making sure of the quality we are expressing with.
absolutely Jenny it creates a false sense of harmony that in truth is just a state of peace but underneath all is felt.
Yes it is quite a revelation to understand that we all know everything… it is just a choice how much awareness we have of that everything!
As you say Jenny, when we hold back truth no one evolves.
This is a great topic for discussion Toni. I liked this line “When not telling the truth there can appear to be a short term gain, such as not creating upset, which allows a more comforting scenario to play out” this is so true but there’s no love in comfort and sooner or later we feel that and then an opportunity to fully express, with love, will present itself. We can cause no harm when we express from the love that we are.
Not only that but the short term gain never lasts, another and another instant always arises for you to address the truth you missed out on. Sometimes more confronting instances.
What I am learning is that it takes a real love and understanding of the power of truth to be able to express the truth in order to stop the incessant lies that the world is used to hearing.
Hm, so true Elizabeth. Everyone is used to the lies and so when truth hits it’s so different, yet as we all have had pretty much the same experience (holding back expressing) most understand or recognise It.
It seems that there is a way to express truth which then does not come from reaction or judgement in order to be a healing for all parties involved. Understanding and love is indeed what is needed, Elizabeth.
Yes truth has a power many are not often used to, and yet deep down we do know – we feel it deeply even while we may not like hearing it. And that love and understanding you speak of Elizabeth is key as without we don’t truly express truth, we express right which is not truth at all.
“Understanding the power of truth to be able to express the truth” Elizabeth when we speak from this place I have found people are so attracted to hearing truth, it’s like every word is gold to there ears… when truth is spoken so many people are so open and ready to listen and feel this power.
A powerful comment Elizabeth. We have allowed ourselves to live in a twisted and watered down way, accepting increasing deviation from the truth. It is incredible when we commit to knowing and subsequently living, the truth of any one thing, from the love that we are. And this is something not to keep for ourselves but to share. Coming from this absoluteness, I can feel that expression becomes simple.
The power of truth offers a true reflection which enables evolution, so long as the the expression is from love.
Love this Elizabeth Dolan! ‘…it takes a real love and understanding of the power of truth to be able to express truth..’ I too am beginning to understand that developing my love of truth can only come from developing my relationship with it and understanding it’s power. No expression, short of this connection delivers my expression in full.
Thank you very much Toni for this blog. What you offer here and all the comments are just priceless. Expression is a big subject for me. In my attempts to express truthfully, I have been accused of, and doubting myself of being judgemental or arrogant. Holding back from speaking up, or letting an emotional charge get in a way – either way, it’s the same thing – we are interfering with the flow of the Truth. This is a huge lesson for me.
It is an equally huge subject for me Fumiyo. My attempts to express truthfully have come from feeling less and unsure and so have come across with a charge and been felt as arrogant, critical, harsh, etc. I see it as a theme I have carried for eons as a reflection of how I have not claimed my responsibility and power. I am now embracing this awareness and knowing that my expression is a very much needed part of the whole.
I can very much relate to what you have shared Fumiyo.
Lately, I have been feeling that when I come across similar situations where I am judged by others when I express or I feel their resistance to open up or in general the typical shortcomings we encounter when we express or try to express our truth, I feel is because there is still work to do in relation to the energy I am saying things in. Sometimes the energy is tainted with distinguisable old ways, perhaps self-righteousness, tendency to preach, telling off, etc, etc… or even by the fact that I have decided to “own” knowledge in the past.
However, when I hold back expressing what I truly feel as a way to compensate for all those shameful self-centered ways, it doesn´t work either. I then have to endure deep self-doubt, which is very debiliating, and doesn´t help anyone… because there is always so much truth and wisdom that wants to be expressed through us…
These days I am learning to always be aware when I express in the “teaching/preaching mode”, and instead of going into defeat of sabotage, I choose to pause and remember that I am commited to learn from my own mistakes, deeply connect to the fact that the righteousness or ownership is far away from my truth, and remembering Serge Benahyon´s sharing about holding everyone in equality. I do this at the best of my ability and so much has been exposed about my primitive ways of connecting to others… it is a whole universe that has started to unfold….the important thing for now (as this beautiful blog expresses it) is having the clarity of how harmful it can be to cement self-doubt by holding back expressing in full….
Yes the old pattern of holding back when we express in fear of what others will think, say or do is one that many are well versed in. When truth is expressed it is solid and you can feel it within you. The love that is then expressed will support and connect everyone.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another.” These lines say it all to me, I will hold these close and remember them next time I begin to sensor what I say, thanks Toni.
I have felt crippled inside as a result of not expressing the truth and holding back a portion of what felt impulsed to be shared.
I had a situation recently where this occurred and the feeling I was left with was uncomfortable enough for me to call the person and apologise for holding back, expressing in truth that which I had chosen to avoid during our first exchange. This level of honesty felt very healing and left me more aware of the importance of expression and how that impacts on both ourselves and all others.
I’ve felt this too Nicole… There are times when I either hold back from expressing or say something that is a little harsh or blunt that leaves me feeling crippled too. I have also had those experiences of telling someone later or calling them to apologise for not saying the whole truth during our initial conversation. What I’ve found from doing this is that often the things we hold back are quite silly, and the other person tends to respond in a different way than we might first think.
I’ve blurted out ‘truth’ but in an explosive way which of course is not love, and of course the other person reacts… not necessarily to the ‘truth’ but to how it was delivered. I’ve come to realise that when I’ve done that, its all the times I’ve held back and all the reasons – real or not – that are there as well. Its almost like, going ‘blah’ ok its done, phew and then wait for the reaction. This has changed dramatically for me over the years, after hearing truth expressed by Serge Benhayon and feeling the absolute love and honouring that comes with it.
That is a good point Susie, the expectation of how we think another will react is often not what we think and this is very important to register and this is a huge part of the holding back. Of course lovingly expressing what you feel and not doing this in reaction is an important factor here and one that I have been learning.
Very true Amina. Our expectations are often false and deceive us, but of course we don’t get to see this because of how we control situations and manoeuvre life in a protected way, pre-determining everything that will happen.
This is an interesting topic. For me love and truth are inseparable. If “truth” is delivered without love it will cause a reaction because people are always feeling first what is being said. Words of “truth” are not enough. When truth is spoken truly from the source of energy that connects us all this is what is felt first then the words are taken in in a different way. It’s really a responsibility for us all to make sure what is said comes from the quality of energy that is unmistakably love.
Melinda this is at the crux of it all. So often the words might be ‘right’ but the energy behind it isn’t love and so it’s hard to get. So perfectly said…
Melinda that is great what you share, as we feel first and when truth is not spoken with love there is a reaction. I have felt it in me when that has happened, I also have seen reactions in others when I have spoken the truth and I have not expressed in a loving way. Truth and love both go hand in hand.
Toni you have described this so beautifully that it feels like the most loving choice for us to give voice to what we feel is there. It’s a strange feeling when we start to justify a holding back on why we aren’t prepared to speak truth. My experience is it starts as young ones like you say with Santa Clause. Little white lies are deemed as appropriate to protect another – what are we protecting from? The truthful answer is nothing; there is no truth we need protection from. We just need to start making truth normal so we can talk and share what ever there is to talk about.
Hey Sandra, good point :’We just need to start making truth normal so we can talk and share what ever there is to talk about’ and yes it starts with our integrity of expression and not reacting to children’s expression but guiding them to be able to feel and express rather than react.
It is so important we do not stifle our children’s expression but rather encourage it fully so they grow up very naturally expressing all they are.
Any reaction to truth is a reaction to responsibility.
That is simple and profound Kylie.
I feel the power in your comment Kylie “Any reaction to truth is a reaction to responsibility.” Wow! Thank you.
And expressing ourselves is much to do with feeling the other person and where they are at in regards to what is then delivered, the amount including the specific words/wording needing to be heard, i.e. — the quality of our own delivery being essential for another’s receiving exchange.
Yes Toni, speaking up creates space (for there to be more), where there is freeness, and not saying what needs to be said creates restriction (for there to be less), where there is tension. Learning to speak up or say what needs to be said is probably the biggest issue many of us face and especially prevalent in the workplace causing people to quit their jobs (that they like) from not expressing how they feel, and in turn feel they aren’t being understood by their managers/bosses. Speaking up is good.
It is not truth if there is no love in it, and it is not love without truth – so for me, when expressing and the need arises to be right or justified I am not in love and not connected with the equality of truth. This trips me up often, and instead of going to the other extreme and just sitting mute, I am using this marker to reconnect and be open to want is there to express, not for me but for all.
As we express less for ourselves and more for ‘all’ we come to really appreciate that what we have to say in truth and love will deliver a part that someone else is in need of hearing. We all know what it feels like when someone speaks the truth to us and, although it may not be easy to hear at times, below this we also know it is exactly what we want to hear, when it is the truth and when it is love it is always healing.
“we also know it is exactly what we want to hear”. Every single cell of my body loves truth as that is where they come from and belong – to ever evolving truth.
‘Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?’
Absolutely Toni – for who are we to assume that the other will be upset, hurt or react to what we can see and feel to say? Perhaps they are waiting to hear it so they finally have permission or space to feel the situation out and express what they too have been holding onto. By keeping truth to ourselves we isolate something that is dear and very fluent to us all.
There are frequently times when I read a situation and know that to express the truth in that moment would cause a strong reaction in the other as they are not ready to hear it- the challenge for me is trusting when it is appropriate to speak and even how much to say – is it measuring or is it wisdom? The receiver needs to be ready to hear or it might cause more harm than good surely?
Debra, it is great that you read the situation and not speak from reaction or to get relief and indeed sometimes it is not appropriate to speak up but often something can be expressed if we connect to our love and there is no judgment. Sometimes it works to ask the person a question to help them discern for themselves.
When I was young, it was so very easy to lie. Big lies and small lies, to those whom I said I cared about and those whom I hardly knew. It created such a tension in my body, that I felt that I could not even trust myself anymore.
As an adult, deciding to stop living like this, and expressing the truth has been one of the most important decisions I have made not only for myself, but for those around me.
Yes Naren, I can relate to the discomfort and tension felt by a lie, even as a child it felt strong and uncomfortable and as a result I rarely lied.
The body however never lies!
Very true, Nicole. Our body will always tell us very clearly what works and what does not.
Well done Naren, the lies we tell and are told to tell when young then do create such a tension within us that rather than deal with it as you have done, we continue on lying and thus not living true.
You have exposed something very important, Sally. The fact that we are told to tell lies. Lies to others about who we, are and what is worse, lies to ourselves.
Sometimes I think expressing truth and just expressing all we feel emotionally about a situation gets mixed up. If there is any emotion in our expression it is very likely it won’t be heard or received well. To truly express in truth we are holding another in the equal love they are and it can be felt.
And it is this lack of equalness that allows us to think that another is separate to us and cannot already feel the truth. We are in fact only sharing what is already known – by all.
A beautiful truth confirmed Kylie.
I have felt this lack of separation that exists within us confirmed many times Kylie.
I have often experienced people in my life holding back from expressing the truth of how they are feeling, however that did not mean I was unaware of what was hidden below the surface communication.
When we understand the lack of separation that exists between ourselves and all others we will feel the truth that everything is “already known” and cannot be hidden.
Yes, separation from us all as equal brothers results in the arrogance and manipulation of thinking we know what is best or right for someone else and even ourselves at times; but without the ‘all’ in consideration we are kidding ourselves that we are in love or in truth at that moment.
I love the simple truth of what you’re sharing here, Kylie. How often have I thought to myself that the other person ‘won’t understand’ ….. if I’ve understood, then equally, so can they, therefore, why wouldn’t I give them the opportunity to do so. They may not choose to understand, but that’s different, that’s their choice to make, once they’ve been given the opportunity to make that choice.
Yes Kylie, everyone feels absolutely everything.
Very true Kylie, when we share truth, lovingly so, we are confirming that which is already known. It is therefore always our choice to express what is felt to be shared, when what is felt is true, and also discerned that it is what is needed.
Nailed it Kylie. that’s why most recognise when truth is expressed- we can feel it in our bones….Every part of us resonates with the sound.
Beautifully said Victoria and Kylie. As to express the truth of our Love in full is to honor the oneness of the Love that we are all from rather than to confirm the separation from this Love by not expressing in full.
Yes great distinction Victoria… it is common to mistake expressing in full for downloading all our reactions and emotions with regards someone else. Sometime we need to express from a place that’s not yet ‘truth’ and if that’s with the openness to be offered a point of truth from another, then our likelihood of arriving there in the process is high. If we think our current emotional or reactive state IS the truth, then we will simply magnify and confirm it every time we express.
That is a great point Jenny, knowing ourselves fully is an important part so in-turn knowing whether we are expressing fully or in part means we get to understand much more on what is actually going on with us. Taking the time to really understand ourselves is the part I have been working on as this I now see as fundamental.
Yes Amina, knowing our reactions are not based on truth is pretty key… and something Serge Benhayon has pioneered in his teaching from a perspective that we are not our reactions or emotions, but that our essence comes from and is synonymous with truth. Hence knowing what we are connected to and whether it is our essence or not… is fundamental.
A great blog Toni, I agree it is very ‘uncomfortable’ in the body when we don’t express or withhold a truth that has been felt “no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.” We all know and feel the truth and to excuse ourselves from expressing it actually holds us all back. There is absolute love in truth and absolute truth in love.
I too realise that by holding back my expression it prevents an opportunity to develop the relationship into becoming far more open and trusting and we all miss out. On the other hand if we don’t hold back our expression but express it without judgement, or criticism but with honesty and love then it can’t possibly be harmful and can be a truly healing experience.
This is also what I experience. It just needs the honesty and love, leaving out any judgment. The expressing itself becomes a healing. I can feel that in my body. The hurdle for me is the idea how others might react. I then tell myself it is worth saying it. It just takes some courage in certain situations. How wonderful it is when for both me and the other it becomes a healing.
Thank you for writing about this pervasive problem, Toni – that of the resistance which prevails when we contemplate speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Considering that not expressing truth is actually not expressing love then we are doing no-one any favours by keeping quiet. No-one wins. And I agree entirely that when we hold back our truth, it’s our bodies that take the bashing – through tension, loss of confidence, frustration and anxiety. Expressing truth brings a level of honesty to the table and from there, the opportunity for different choices becomes available.
Thank you Toni for a great sharing, I have, through my life been very careful what I say so as to not create upset, playing the safe game. These days I am more open to say the truth of what is happening, on the occasion when the truth was really being expressed, even though it maybe upsetting for a time, the opportunity it gave for evolution and a deepening love, was trully beautiful.
Toni this is something many of us struggle with unnecessarily with. For myself I always thought it was a lack of confidence but reading your blog I realized that the real reason is that we do not want to hurt, we might as well say, “I did not want to love you.” or “I approve of you treating me this way” As the truth brings love it cannot hurt anyone, it can only heal. When we do speak our truth fully it is liberating, even if the other person is not ready to accept the truth, the fact that you have not compromised the truth holds you in good stead.
It’s interesting that truth is something that we all crave. If we look at the carry on in politics, the general populous become disgruntled and disillusioned because it’s all about playing the game and not delivering any truth, but the truth is what we seek. But we have not yet seen that the truth actually start with each and every one of us, in every part of our lives. Only then will calling for more truth result in the same.
It is a win win situation for everyone when we express in full and not just in parts. We may feel uncomfortable with some of what is being brought up, but we feel a whole lot more uncomfortable when we hold back. For me, remembering that I don’t have to get it right is super supportive, because then I at least give it a go and together with the one I am expressing with, we can unravel what is there and felt.
Yes that is so important Rosie for us to remember we are not in an expression exam, we don’t have to be perfect, we just need to have a go. At times I have had to ‘nut it out’ a bit with my nearest and dearest, but we always get there in the end, richer for our expression and honesty, closer because we care about one another. The more we practice the more natural it becomes, the more we share ourselves and grow together.
Yes, sometimes the nutting it out as you say can bring up other stuff too but it is so great when we support each other to work through it all. The more openly and honestly we share, the more others can understand and just understanding can change so much.
Well said Rosie.
Thank you Toni for your sharing you are right on here. I often hold back when I am expressing and as a result feel awful. In my instance I am mostly concerned about upsetting the other person and the end result leaves me feeling incomplete and restless.
I am feeling more how we all miss out when we hold back our expression. It hurts inside to hold back a part of me and not share that. And yes agreed Toni, we miss out on the intimate moments with people in our fragility and openness.
It does hurt inside, Annie. I’ve often known when friends don’t speak truth, and felt it as a hurt. So giving and receiving less than the truth hurts both parties.
This is beautiful Toni, knowing truth as the same as love. If we saw it like this more, we would not hold it back as much.
Absolutely Annie many of us are brought up to be polite and nice, but how many of us are being brought up to express truth wholeheartedly? There is a depth of connection that only the truth can deliver.
What I realized is, when I don´t express in full, I get angry on myself, because I can feel, how much I am not claiming myself in full. In other words not accepting my power. Instead escaping in the anxious little child and premedicade in seconds what the other person would probably say. And in most cases the endresult is different anyway. So it is definitely time to stop this game.
The trouble for me has been that from early on in life people have reacted very aggressively, demeaningly or dismissively to me when I speak the truth. Often I was met with the silent treatment, and led to me developing a fear of expressing and an uncanny ability to ‘read’ what another wants to hear and give it to them. It has taken a lot of personal development to transcend this fear and habit, but slowly with the unwavering support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have relearned how to speak from my heart, to speak from love and what I have noticed is that people have started to respond more openly, honestly and lovingly back to me. I have found it awesomely evolutionary to break the cycle of holding back with others, for them and for me.
I agree, Jeanette, it helps, not only to allow ourselves to read people, but to know that we can express with love what needs to be said. The more sensitive we get, the more we can feel when our words are laced with any fear, doubt, need or expectation of an outcome.
I find it very tangibly liberating to be authentic Carmel – my voice expresses with a particular angelic resonance and it feels divine in my body when I speak from my inner-heart and very obviously not anything like this when I don’t. Likewise I can feel the difference when people are speaking to me from their inner-heart or not and I am sure we all have this sensitivity but have not been graced with the platform for sharing our feelings around this. I love that Serge Benhayon opens the doors to such conversations – the kind that lets the cat out of the bag! Like – we all feel the truth all the time and that this is a blessing not something to be squashed with fear.
Great blog, thank you Toni, this is such an important topic. I can certainly relate to feeling how I’ve held back expressing in full in situations and agree everyone misses out if we do this. When holding back it’s like we put all these judgments and measurements on a situation to control it rather than let go and allow it to unfold and just know that all we need to do is keep bringing love.
I absolutely agree Toni, for me truth and not holding back on it is the most important thing in life. What I realized though- even if I sometimes don´t say what I know is true, I radiant it with every cell. And this is no holding back, I just feel, how much the other person is ready to here, with no pandering though- this is important!! If I say it then only to myself I expressed it and the other person gets the energy of that, although no sound left my body 😉
I agree steffihenn – it needs to be expressed in what ever form is required, and this is not always words. Yet when we hold back it harms us.
Steffi, i find this interesting to ponder. ‘Even if I sometimes don´t say what I know is true, I radiate
it with every cell’… “I just feel, how much the other person is ready to hear, with no pandering though” i had never considered that it is possible to ‘ say it then only to myself I expressed it and the other person gets the energy of that, although no sound left my body’. I have always assumed that not holding back meant speaking it to the other.
What i feel here is an unwavering in your truth even though you have chosen in certain cases not to speak it. There is no doubt, no backing down, no watering it down to make it palatable, no internal process about it.
I have watered down what I have wanted to say many many times for the exact same fears you mention here Tony. Fear of not being liked is my biggest concern. Although in saying that, I have often been known for my brutal honesty….so there are certainly times I let it rip, but there are other times where I feel that perhaps it is not my place. What I do find difficult is sometimes knowing when I am being judgemetal or in reaction, despite what I feel to be true or not, the message can be quite tainted and come across as an attack…so, for this reason, I also hold back….worried I am imposing my reactions onto another.
Toni, you raise interesting points here in regards to how much we hurt ourselves and others when we hold back expressing the truth. It just goes highlights how much we can create the illusion that we are a ‘nice’ person when we don’t say something that is a bit controversial, but is nonetheless true. We think that we are sparing the other person discomfort but the reality is that we are actually letting them down more through our avoidance. Thanks for the gentle nudge reminding me that speaking the truth lovingly is what the world truly requires more of.
Thank you Toni, its a great question to pose, how much do we miss out on when we hold back our expression. I used to be so afraid of expressing in full lest I upset the other person and fear of all fears, they would stop liking me! These days, with the on-going support of some very honest and forth right esoteric practitioners who have no qualms about expressing in full, I find that my body responds before I am able to stop it and hey presto, I expressed all I had to say in full AND no-one got upset, because it wasn’t being delivered in that horribly tense energy we tend to go into when attempting to walk on eggs shells. And the results can be so amazing, because often we find that the other person was wanting to have that discussion too and what un-folds enriches us all.
What a trick we have been sold Toni that expressing truth causes harm. As you show with the anxiousness and lack of trust that comes from hiding what we feel, the true damage is happening when we hold love back.
When we hold back on expressing the truth to another, we are essentially judging them as not being able to handle it when we filter it to make it sound more palatable. This comes with such arrogance, and that is felt in the watered down version of our expression. The truth when delivered with love, says to the other person – we are equal and here it is.
I have not seen truth as the same as love, I know how it feels not to express both..” Although I know the truth, I have sometimes chosen to ignore it, or reacted when someone has exposed it to me. I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.” This makes great sense Toni. I also find I need to let go of a hurt or a charge or a feeling of taking something personally before expressing truth, because if I don’t it can come out in anger and frustration. Then that doesn’t serve anyone.
Truth delivered in full is alchemy. Truth transmutes metal into gold! Sometime people do react, including us when truth is delivered because we may not want to take the gold in that moment because we are so used to living the metal, that we don’t want to undergo the process of transmutation…but if we do…our lives change forever…and each time truth is delivered this is what we offer and receive!
This is a huge one and one that I am still learning to not hold back in what I have to express. I have been completely invested in what other people think that I have monitored myself in what I will say and do. It is so true what you say about feeling the tension and the self-doubt that comes into play when we allow this to run. Learning and being inspired by Serge Benhayon and the Benhayon family has supported me to feel All of who I am. I am deeply appreciative for this and know that there is always more to express and not to control it any way, to surrender and let it flow.
Thank you Toni, this is a powerful subject and a very needed one to bring out to the open. I’m sure this will resonate for many. I know for me everything you have expressed has been my experience. If i don’t express fully what is there to be expressed it is very harmful, but also we don’t often make the connection that the way we feel is actually related to not expressing in full…as you stated there is confusion etc, i’ve experienced anxiety, restlessness, even exhaustion from holding back. To hold back expression and the impact it has on the body in itself shows that truth is not to be held back, it does not belong to us, it is not something we own, but at that time we are the person who is to deliver it because it is us who is able to do so, that is love for ourselves and each other…when truth is delivered there is always a moment for both and many to evoke and grow from that!
Great blog Toni, thank you. When I hold back my full expression out of fear of how the other person may receive it, or I soften it in any way, I’ve found the other person does react because what I say is not coming out in full. It creates complication and confusion. Whereas when I express in full, it’s often very simple and even if it’s hard for the other person to hear, the response is quite different to when it is laced with niceness or softness in an attempt to lessen the impact of the words.
Absolutely Sandra, we all know when what has been said comes from truth, just as we also know when it has not, and in that moment the choice is forever there to respond in truth that naturally exposes what is not.
What are we actually protecting when we don’t say what is there to be said? By the fact that Truth and Love are one and the same, holding ourselves and therefore each other apart from that which is at our source, proves superfluous. In our attempts to override what is there to be shared, we allow a space of limbo to exist that need not. Love what you have exposed Toni, thank you.
This is so key for me Toni – thank-you for greater confirmation of the power of expression. I see now that every time we hold back, we are preventing an evolutionary moment that gives everyone permission to be more of themselves. As soon as we are anticipating we know we are out, because we are no longer in the moment, no longer expressing what naturally comes up, but calculating the outcome. In those moments when we DO express in full and call our relationships to be more love, inevitably the results are everything that we would NOT expect!
I can so relate to what you share here Toni, as I too held back so many times my truth or watered it down, using the same excuses that you describe. I realize that I was using excuses because I held a belief that people didn’t want to hear what I had to say which I felt the truth of in a very recent healing session. By holding this against myself, no true truth could be felt or known and everyone was missing out on my own loving expression that I now know is much needed as is everyones.
‘If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another’. This line really stood out for me Toni, that truth and love are one and the same, and that we cannot say we are being love if we are not expressing all that we feel…all that is there to be expressed. I really felt how this is what being love asks of us, to express it all, no matter what that may be, or how one will respond. I quite often taper my expression for the same reason you spoke of, and have recently been choosing to express more. There are still areas where I can see I am tailoring my expression rather then just allowing it to be free flowing, but the awareness of this is allowing me to shift it slowly. Thank you for writing about expression, I feel it is a topic we need to speak more about and support each other with.
What I did notice the other day after I did share something what was there to be said and did not hold back what there was to say, was an incredible sense being at rest within my body as if there was nothing more to do, or say… nothing to prove and zero anxiety. It showed me that by truly expressing (and I don’t mean just talking for the sake of talking) I filled my body with the truth of who I am and therefore the other stuff that isn’t me had no space to fit it there and make me feel bad or uneasy in any way.
Thanks Toni for this blog, I too have held back and softened my expression so as to water down the truth of what there is to say. I have a very direct expression which often creates discomfort and awkwardness in others that i have often backed away from saying it as I would. This hurts me and hurts others when I do not express in the fullness that is there for all. There is no more backing away of expressing truth and love.
I know this Marcia- what I learned, if I present the truth held in and with love, everyone who receives it is much more open to hear it. That is no softening but a truth with warmth. 😉 And even then, people get irritated by the simple expression and my directness, but I learned that it is not about me then. I am ok, when someone can´t handle this level of honesty/ truth now and I don´t need them anymore to “get it”.
This is beautiful to read Steffi and Marcia. Even though I certainly don’t hold back expressing the truth much mores these days, I can feel there’s still a lot to go. I can feel how the reactions of others even if something is said lovingly – and perhaps not as lovingly as it ought to be because we’re all developing still — can still put me off from really not holding back expressing what I feel. What it does is it caps us though, it prompts us to go into our little isolated shells and that is in such a stark contrast to the amazing expansion we feel when we share our hearts openly with people. So this has been inspiring to read, to let go of that ickyness of upsetting someone even more, and let myself share the truth of what I can feel at any given moment.
I like the point you make Steffi about not needing anyone to ‘get it’. If we have any expectation that another receives our expression in a way we would like it to be received, it is an imposition on the other. Truth doesn’t come with attachments.
Great point Steffi expressing without need for someone to get it allows you to express in full. Otherwise it feels quite laced. It feels time to begin to express in this way always expressing our truth and never backing down from being who we are in full.
I love this Steffi and so true when the warmth is equally held. I am also discovering that when i am just being naturally me then it just comes out as it is and I am not often aware of the affect is has had because it’s normal.
This really does hurt everyone involved and serves to only shelter ourselves from a perceived hurt, rejection or reaction. What we lose when we choose this behaviour is a way of living that is less than the grand and glorious essences we truly are and thus leaves a void or an emptiness for more holding back rituals to be played.
This is a great topic to talk about and raise awareness of. There is an underlying seed in us that thinks that we can hold back a part of us in one instance and not be affected when we go to the rest of our day so much so that we will be the same as we were when we first entered that instance. The tension already exposes the fact that this is not true and that we will carry such tension and held expression to our next interaction which already lessens its true quality.
There are no winners when we hold back truth but moments of love for all when we choose to express truth.
Yes Jane, every time we express truth we offer evolution to everyone involved. Whereas when we thwart and stifle our expression, thwart and stifle the other person as well.
‘I now know, Truth is the same as Love.’ reading your blog I can now also feel how Truth is Love, I have held back the truth for so long for fear of another’s reaction but if I am not presenting truth then I am also not being loving and that’s the bottom line. Great blog Toni, this is something I need to keep reminding myself of.
And isn’t it true that niceness and politeness and the game that plays out when we don’t express the truth is also a reaction… We have just come to believe that one reaction is more comfortable than the other; however, we can never truly be comfortable when holding back our truth, nor in the energy required to hold it back.
“We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full”.
I love this sentence Toni as I can feel the deep sharing that is possible when we are expressing in full .
The amazing level of intimacy and fragility that is possible is almost other worldly. I have experienced the beauty and divinity of allowing myself to go there with my expression and it is a very tender place to live from. Its a great experience to let go of all the perceived hurts from over the years and just express and allow others in also.
“If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another…”
Thanks Toni for your sharing as it reminds us of the disservice we are doing to ourselves and others when we hold back from expressing truth.
‘Maybe what I have to say will upset the other person.
It may be confronting.
Is it my place to say anything?’
What you have outlined here Toni, are the typical excuses that I feel is the norm in our society, to hold back from being truthful with each other.
It helps us to ensure that no one reacts towards us and makes us feel ‘bad’.
Agreed Eva Rygg – this is so dishonest and keeps us all so confirmed in our separation.
Yes Eva, these are our typical excuses and while we may believe it is about not offending the other it is more truthful to say it is about us not wanting to be offended. When we look at it this way it is rather selfish and we do not offer each other a true reflection.
Toni, reading your blog made me feel that when I do not express what I feel to, I choose to separate from the other as if I say ‘you are not worth to hear the truth, in other words you are not worth to get my love. Ouch and like you said ‘there is no sense in that.’ Everyone is missing out!
Well said Annelies, to hold back from delivering the truth is an unloving act!
Great point Annelies, it is actually very selfish and kinda arrogant to hold back the truth because of reaction avoidance!
Thank you Toni – your blog is very relatable. It has been the hugest comfort of my life to hold back and not express the full truth… Ever since I was a little girl I learnt that not expressing what I truly felt or not speak up at all was the ‘safest’ thing to do. I even convinced myself that it was for the better for everyone. My whole world was turned upside down when I met Serge Benhayon and understood the importance of expression and not holding back what I feel at any given moment.
Love your blog Toni and a much needed topic to discuss. Holding back from expressing what we feel is so ingrained that it is quite a hard pattern to break. Every day is a learning not to hold back on the slightest, smallest, minutest thing that I see or observe because I know that if I do it will come back to show me and usually in a more complicated and more uncomfortable way.
This is a great point Alison, that if we hold back from saying what we feel because “if I do it will come back to show me again and usually in a more complicated and more uncomfortable way.” This is so true, and something that I have experienced, but when I do speak up and say what I truly feel I am often surprised at how simple and straightforward it is.
So true alisonmoir, it take greats dedication to practice this level of discernment, for we are re-learning how to deeply honour all that we feel and read in life.
This is true alisonmoir, holding back does so much more harm than we even realise. It really slows us down and keeps us in a constant state of confusion and fog…Something I experience often.
Very beautifully said Alisonmoir, we always have the opportunity to be there in full, and not hold back. If we are not choosing full expression, I feel the tension gets stronger and stronger until a different choice is made. We are always supported to evolve to a greater and grander love and it is simply our choice as to how much we resist it or how much we allow in our lives.
There have been multiple reasons (!!) for me to not expressing my Truth and Love in full. There’s such a shame in me not having been connected to my own Love that I am still finding my way in being truly loving with myself. In an intimate way. Even though recently I’ve been discovering how lovely, still and delicate I am when choosing to be with me. This is so delicious and the complete opposite of what I had made ‘me’ to be. And in doing so there’s been pretty much always a contraction in what I have said. Where as indeed it is beautiful to not hold back and I am finding that people can hear so much more than I thought possible. As if I told (sold) myself that people wouldn’t listen. But many do. Today I shared with a friend about the meaning for me of God and Religion. I loved that I was able to share with being heard. When I asked him afterwards how he felt, he said that he loved the purity of it. Which was a totally unexpected confirmation. Lots of people do want to hear the Truth, but it is me that also (first!!) has to give myself permission to share in an intimate and fragile way. And the beauty is that from that purity and openness develops from the other or others also a deeper sharing. Which is beautiful and how life should (could) be.
Floris van der Schot I felt your fragility and tenderness in your comment, and your beauty and honesty which has led you to express in your truth . Life is indeed truly beautiful when we ‘ just be’.
Thank you Merrilee. I clearly see that I am building that momentum of fragility and expressing lovingly. It is so different that is has been before. There’s so much more ease and lightness now. I’m really allowing myself to feel how I just LOVE people and LOVE being with them, LOVE working together, LOVE caring for them. Allowing myself to feel this is huge, it makes life spontaneous, without having to proof anything, not having to find reasons to be able to care, not having to compare, etc. There’s a natural joy and appreciation coming with it. This to me is absolute Gold! And the effect its had on people is so profound, it creates literally so much stillness and space. By me simply being me… Yoohoo.
What you say is so spot on Toni. When we do not express Truth in full everyone misses out. Pretty much every disharmony in life I have decided to look into goes back to a moment when the Truth was either not expressed or dismissed.. The short term ‘gain’ is such an illusion, even in the short term it is not really a gain because as you say everyone can feel the lack of truth, so we are also cheating ourself out of love and unity with the other people as well as the possibility for all of us to grow and evolve.
Such a great point Golnaz… ‘every disharmony in life I have decided to look into goes back to a moment when the Truth was either not expressed or dismissed..’ This is worth taking significant note of as – in the words of Serge Benhayon…. ‘Every choice not made from truth will one day require a correction’. A great leveller for day to day living and the choices to speak or act from truth.
Golnaz there is such truth and power in this comment. If we lived as you have described there would be many things that would change in this world.
I like how you describe what is going on within us when we do not express in full, it is like a battle within that takes its course causing havoc and disharmony and the only thing we have to do to stop this war zone within ourselves is to express in full. This is enormous and yet so simple, thank you Toni.
Yes Esther, it is a war zone when we don’t express. Our whole bodies are designed to express from truth and when we don’t, we can get sick. It’s only that we don’t often make the connection that sometimes that odd sore throat could simply be what are we swallowing rather than expressing?
Toni I can relate to what you share “In holding back my full truth, I experienced a large amount of internal tension, confusion, a loss of confidence, and a feeling of frustration and anxiety. A lot of thoughts came up about what was right and wrong”, this is such a horrible feeling in the body and by holding back its hard to let this go. It is more loving to just speak up as once spoken it gives the other person the opportunity to respond and we don’t go through these feelings in our body. I am learning to speak up and not hold back, each time it becomes easier and more natural.
Love this Toni, thank you! I sometimes do a similar thing – hold back from saying everything I want to say just in case it will make the other person feel bad or jealous, guilty etc… This can actually be a form of manipulation, because the other person is not being offered to reflect on the whole picture, instead you are choosing to only present half of what’s really going on.
“I now know, Truth is the same as Love. If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.“ Wow, thanking for sharing this Toni!
Toni, you express with the same grace and beauty you have been inspired by and it is glorious to receive.
The article is a great call for us all to express our truth in full and I love how you have presented truth and love as one and the same. the point that in the absence of truth our expression cannot be loving I sense that I have always known, however Have not truly felt and connected to this truth for a long time.
I look forward to expressing more fully.
I can totally relate to to this Toni. I sometimes feel like I’ve spent a lifetime watering down what I want to say so as not to upset another. Its exhausting and resolves nothing.
We think that telling a part truth or a ‘little white lie’ is acceptable, that it stops the hurt and keeps things ok, but it’s actually worse. It’s like eating a food for it’s taste alone, without considering or feeling the effects on the body. It’s devastating all round for everyone. Great article Toni, thank you.
Thanks Toni, there is something about the fact that as individuals we all see situations differently, so the only way to get the full picture is through us sharing with each other. As you say, holding back, comes at a cost for all involved.
There is such equality and togetherness in your comment Joel – we do indeed have unique perspectives of the world through our lived experiences and how we are with ourselves. We have much to learn from each other.
Thanks Toni, we need to express our truth because if we hold back this effects our body and is the cause of illness and disease. No wonder heart disease is the no.1 killer as a lot of humanity hold back on expressing love and letting love in putting an enormous pressure on their hearts.
Toni, this is so true. Holding back our truth is actually massively irresponsible as it is not only us that bears the consequences of not expressing, but also the other person that does not get to experience what the truth may be. We live in a society that dances around the truth for the sake of not upsetting ideals and conventions all the time. Where has this got us so far? Dynamics, lies and corruption run rife, and we wonder why the world is the way it is? More Love and more Truth is what is needed here.
“We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.” This is really beautiful Toni and I know these moments so well and how rich and loving it feels between myself and another when expressing in full truth and how empty and disconnected it feels when expression is capped.
Being nice to not hurt another actually hurts them more, and hurts us in the process – so much unnecessary tension is created for both people. Being honest and expressing truth can be uncomfortable for our minds but our bodies can’t help but feel lighter when we accept what is offered and drop those ideals and beliefs that are no longer supporting us.
This is a great sharing Toni. I absolutely believe that it is in the discomfort, outside of our comfort zone of ‘polite society’, that the magic happens… Where full expression can change a person’s life and your own, if you allow yourself to get out of the way and not hold back… An awesome reminder for us all.
There is such a beauty and connection in your sharing. Thank You.
I have held back speaking what is on the tip of my tongue for so many years. I am a master of saying it to myself, in my head, but expressing out loud is not what I’m used to. Luckily I am realising how important it is to express and that holding back doesn’t actually help anyone, least of all myself. It still feels strange and sometimes comes out in an awkward way since I am a novice at this, however I am slowly feeling more confident to say what I feel. It is extremely liberating and I dont get that feeling of having something left stuck inside my throat.
It has to be one of the worst feelings knowing that you haven’t said what you really felt to say, truth is it’s just to make ourselves feel more comfortable because it’s never about them but us as we’ve chosen the watered down version. They want the full, why else are they talking to you!!
“We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.” This for me clearly shows how Truth and Love are one and the same, Toni.
As you share, anything less than one’s full and true expression and the opportunity to connect on a deep, but natural level, is completely missed. The first few communications may be a little difficult to accept when one is unaccustomed to such directness and clarity however, once one is re aligned to such clarity, anything less than the absolute truth leaves us wanting. Truth is the foundation for all relationships.
I don’t think we ever really get taught the consequences of not speaking up, it is so normal to fix or avoid tricky conversations. From my experience though, the person you are trying not to upset knows there is more which infuriates them more than just having an open and honest conversation in the first place.
I love the point you make that to share the truth is actually loving. We have come to accept love as ‘being nice’ and in this we are holding back what will actually support people. Everyone can feel it when things are not expressed yet now we are somewhat numb to it as it has become our norm.
You make a great point that both people miss out when the truth is not expressed. This should be taught in primary school, it’s so basic and yet we neglect this fact all the time.
Loved your un-picking of the situation Toni. “The reason that short term gain is so short-lived is that the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” Imagine if the truth was ticker-taped across our foreheads as we chose to withold, waterdown or give only a portion of what is there to be said.. it is no wonder it feels so hurtful and is harmful when we can see (know at a deeper level) that we’re not interacting with truth and love.
Great article Toni, the irony is that when you do speak the truth, it is not that often that people actually get upset, and if they do, it doesn’t last nearly as long as the tension, frustration, torment and everything else that comes with holding back.
So true Hannah – great point. As the unease that we at times experience, when we feel to share the truth we have connected to, is only due to us questioning what it is we feel and in essence know. But I am learning that our trust with this relationship within builds, when we choose to commit to simply honoring the truth of Love we feel(for us all) and express this, without attachment of the outcome of how it sounds or how it will be received. This feels far more nurturing and limitless than does the feeling that comes from dis-honoring and reducing our relationship with truth that we all know.
True Carola, allowing ourselves to feel and connect to truth and honour this by expressing it feels “…far more nurturing..” and expansive than trying to keep a lid on it, or dismantle it into parts we believe others will find palatable.
Thank you Toni, in my experience it is best to say it as it is otherwise there are no opportunities for increasing our awareness. I find that people usually appreciate the truth even though they may not understand it all, but it has been felt and received just the same. If we don’t increase our awareness of life as it really is then we are holding back humanity’s evolution and our own.
‘If I do not express in full, then the truth is I am not being loving with myself or another, and there is no sense in that.’ No sense at all for we are withholding love. For me this is a leap in trust as I have mastered the art of the chameleon, but that is changing day by day because I know the great harm it does to my body and the opportunity that is lost for the other to hear love-truth.
I love that you are reminding us all of the inherent responsibility in expressing.
How often we can make our expression about ourselves and our comfortability, stories -stopping well short of understanding another and the all. Holding back holds us all back.
Great blog Toni. I’m sure many of us in humanity have all held back our expression and putting truth out there no matter what the outcome. How amazing is the body to communicate to you that you weren’t expressing in full. It is great that you had the awareness to feel into that moment and call it out for what it truly was. Next time round you will nail it and your body will lovingly confirm your evolution in speaking truth.
I know what you’re saying is absolutely true Toni but I still find myself holding back for fear that it may hurt another and also because at times I can go into doubt about whether it is the absolute truth – but that’s really only a game I play. Most times when I have spoken the truth and the other can feel it to be so it’s more of an “aha” moment for them even if it’s uncomfortable to hear and I know the same works in the reverse if someone speaks truth to me – there’s no arguing with it. And it does open up the opportunity to deepen the relationship.
Telling the truth is always worth the short term discomfort of a situation that may arise from it. For even in that discomfort there is a much greater expansion of knowing we have said what needed to be expressed. I wonder how much complication and misery we create by not being honest and see that it really isn’t worth the effort to not be truthful, yet I would never say that I always am for that would also be a lie.
The difference between the effects of expression in full or of holding back (even 1%) is indeed the difference between truth and lies or love and not love. At first my focus was on how stuck it would feel in my body after not saying what I really wanted to say. This would influence my whole day, everyone I met and everything I would do thereafter. The damaging effects on my body are not the only things going on here. Like Toni so beautifully wrote, the other doesn’t get a chance to connect to the truth and express what is there to say for them. So no opportunity to come to truth together, build intimacy and deepen the relationship. We all miss out on love here.
Toni, this is something that I still, pretty consistently, continue to do. The levels and margins seem smaller, but no matter how small the holding back, the repercussions are the same…if anything I feel them more, ten fold. Holding back on truth, is holding back love, it takes away another’s choice and accessibility to the whole picture, and it confirms them in all of their non-loving expressions too. I now know the devastation this causes, and it is only be staying connected to my body that I am able to catch it in myself.
Wow this is great what you have shared and something I am sure so many can relate to in not saying what they feel to say. I can put my hands up to this one and it started as a child because I felt I was stupid and others were so much smarter than me and knew better; so I would keep quite but could feel how this felt really horrible for me in my body and sometimes I still find myself doing this. A massive illusion that needs to be broken.
This is a beautiful revelation: truth is the same as love, which I can fully account to. Not being truthful is not holding another as the responsible and loving beings all are, as we do with ourself, we are not honouring that which is needed to be said and known.
Thank you Toni. A great reminder that it does not serve anyone, least of all ourselves, if we hold back and do not share what is there to be expressed.
That is so true Rebecca, it serves no-one for us to hold back in our expression. We erroneously think we’re protecting another by not saying what we are feeling, but we’re actually denying them an opportunity to hear truth and harming ourselves in the process.
It does not serve anyone to hold back or manipulate the truth because as Toni says everyone can feel the truth and that it is not being expressed. What ensues if we do is a game we play of not upsetting each other, of trying to maintain our ‘pictures’ of how we, others and life should be, and of outcomes. Its a crazy lose – lose game, compared to the liberation from ideals, beliefs and pictures and opportunity for growth that speaking from our hearts delivers.
Thank you Toni for this reminder that speaking up and saying how we feel is far more healing for everyone rather than partly holding back to avoid a momentary discomfort. Because then the other person gets a clearer picture of what they are not aware of and we no longer have that feeling in our body that when held in only spins and develops into something very unpleasant when it does eventually come out. And it all comes out in the end so why not get it out before it gets to that stage?
Toni everytime I hold back saying what I truly feel I also get a build up of tension in my body. What you’ve shared is really interesting in that perhaps most if not all the lack of confidence and anxiety we feel in certain situations is because we don’t express the truth we feel.
Double hands up Toni I have found myself ‘watering down’ the truth – essentially to be liked and held in esteem with another. The falseness that this supports does not help anyone and we all feel slightly deflated. I am practicing calling out what I feel and need to say and whilst not easy the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has allowed me to make steps to making expressing truth my everyday lived experience.
Whenever we have something to express, it is usually for someone else to hear. If we are full and complete with ourselves we naturally feel others and can feel how they are, If we make the leap into expressing the glory of what we know is truly connecting then the other person receives a healing and we are confirmed in our expression. Expressing less than this is holding onto a bit of truth, to not let it all out, but it is always felt. This ‘holding back truth’ creates illness in our body, by the compounded energy of holding back the natural expression that is impulsed by God. Every time we hold back truth, love, communication and Joy, then we all miss out.
A great comment HarryJwhite,
If we truly feel to say something we not only harm ourselves, but the others who were present that needed to hear what we had to say. We have no idea how far reaching our expression is, for what we say may well bring great healing to another.
I don’t think it is widely known that truth is always felt, even if not consciously known. And so fully expressing that fact here Toni, means many people will now be aware of this fact, which is a great thing. Brings in responsibility for one’s actions, regardless of who’s watching.
And with responsibility comes power or at least a glimpse of the fact that we are indeed powerful and equipped to deal with the situation when we choose to be responsible.
What a clear exposé telling us that our bodies are here to assist us expressing truth and not anything else. That is why it feels strange to hold back what we’ve felt and it also explains why we have so much illness and disease going on in our bodies.
Great point, Matts: our bodies indicate very clearly when their is truth and when there are any mind games and distractions that are way less than truth. The honesty of our bodies is our door back to truth.
This is so true – it does feel awful when we hold back from expressing the full truth, because if only part is expressed then it is not truth at all. We are lying.
So true Carmel, a half truth or part-truth is not truth at all.
Yes Carmel, what you have shared is a realisation for me – ‘if only part is expressed then it is not truth at all. We are lying.’ Its not just us not expressing. Its a lie if only part comes out. That makes me feel very uncomfortable and is encouragement for me to not hold back. I hate lies when they come to me from others, so I cant be a hypocrite and make a fuss about being told the truth if I am not living that for myself.
Dear Toni,
I deeply appreciate your blog. For I too have held back from fully expressing what I feel to share, for all the reasons you share here. When I don’t fully express I feel immediately that I have lessened myself, and have put the person or people before what I feel is true and this makes me feel horrible. This for me is now something that I do way less than I used to, as speaking in full feels so beautiful in my body, my voice resonates in every cell when I do so. There are still areas in my life though where I have to be very still and connected, (for the patterns of old where I shrink from and hold back what I have to say are being presented to me constantly). Making instead the constant choice to claim my fullness my love and that in my love there is wisdom to be shared for all.
This is beautiful Leigh, speaking in full does feel fulsome right to the cells and connects us more deeply to our power and our bodies.
‘We both also missed out on the intimacy and fragility that arises between two people when they express their truth in full.’ This is so true Toni and it is serves us well to remember this when we are feeling the conflict between holding back out of fear of the other person’s reaction and speaking fully. The intimacy that can arise from both meeting in truth is precious, expressing in full gives this opportunity – although it may not be the outcome of course!
Thanks for this Toni. When we hold back the truth, in truth it is not really for the other at all although we may tell ourselves it is. We hold back because we fear their reaction and so it is really all about self. The key I feel is to know how to deliver that truth to suit the circumstances and I know I will only learn that through practise, in the understanding that I might not always get it right!
This is truly a pearl of a blog Toni, thank you for sharing this with us.
‘In my experience, devastation comes from withholding the truth, no matter how innocent and well meaning it may be at the time.’ This too is my experience and I am discovering this can come in so many forms. Not simply what we say or do not say to others, but little choices we make in our own actions and responses to other’s actions. Whilst we may feel hurt by another, it is our unloving, untruthful responses to that hurt, that leave us feeling more hurt and devastated.
Well said Michelle.
This is so true Michelle.
Withholding the truth can absolutely have devastating effects. We only but need to look at the world and the high levels of corruption and all the pillars of society that are all built on lies, lies that wreak havoc in people’s lives. What I have always found interesting is that people tend to be more comfortable with someone who tells lies than someone who tells the truth. I have witnessed this my whole life. It is amazing to see people beginning to express truth in full and understand the consequences that can unfold when we don’t.
If we do not express in full to another then there can be no true connection and we walk away from each other feeling a sense of futility.
Yes Michelle, if we take responsibility for our own feelings and emotions we will not react to anothers expression but see it as an opportunity for true learning.
Absolutely Michelle, it is actually our choice to be hurt or not (revelation!). We are the ones that first choose to become a lesser version of ourselves to fit into the world and ‘enjoin’ so to speak. We become small! We hide, we resort to all kinds of patterns to not be noticed or to prove to ourselves that the world is out to get us.
Thank you for writing on such an important topic as expressing our truth. I can relate to having held back most of what I want to say, most of my life and am just learning and feeling the importance of not holding back and how this effects everyone and us. What it also says to others is that it is ok to only express so much and that if you say too much then you will hurt others – how crazy is that. What if we were brought up to say what we feel unfiltered but without malice, how different would our communication be then – I suspect less would be hidden and if it was we would feel relaxed enough to call it out.
Yes Julie, and we would also get to feel our sameness and not our separation which not speaking out endorses.
Hi Josephine, I could feel when reading your comment how for us all to start expressing our truth with one another is actually what will eventually bring us all together, unified, however, many of us are still in our infancy with this and we have a lot still yet to evolve.
So true Josephine because..”the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known.” We naturally feel the separation instantaneously and this just drives a deeper rift though our relationship with the other, making us feel less than them.
What is crazy is that we all know when someone is lying and yet we allow this to take place so we don’t upset the apple cart or offend anyone. If we were brought up to express in truth and communicated in a loving non-judgemental way then the world wouldn’t be in the mess it is in now. It is as if we expect lies to be told nowadays and we are surprised when the truth is expressed. Expressing truth in full feels amazing and gives everyone a blessing.
True Tracy, I know I have been surprised when someone has expressed truthfully in a moment when I was not expecting it. Which just goes to show that I was caught in the momentum of niceness, rather than honesty. As soon as someone does not go along with the game and brings truth you can feel the shift and deepening energetically, it’s like it cracks a facade.
It totally cracks the façade and this can sometimes be quite confrontational, even though it may be delivered in a non-confrontational way. Just truth being expressed is difficult for people.
What you say here, Tracy, about truth being expressed being difficult for people exposes the madness of what we accept as normal. It makes no sense really and yet it is the way most of us live. Then truth has to be provided in the end by the reckoning of our bodies. I find your statement profound.
For too long we have all been accepting what is not normal and when truth presents itself, often through our bodies, our pride and past hurts are triggered. I feel people are scared of the truth as we have seen many people persecuted for speaking it and the pain of this is still held in our bodies. The pain of not speaking the truth though is even more damaging and we must all work together with understanding and compassion to allow truth to become the norm in this world. If we continue to play ball with the lies we will just go round in circles seeing more wars, poverty, corruption, disease and illness and simply keep repeating the same old patterns. It is time for true change, before great calamity comes to our bodies and mother earth.
‘What if we were brought up to say what we feel unfiltered but without malice, how different would our communication be then – I suspect less would be hidden and if it was we would feel relaxed enough to call it out.’ – Beautiful Julie, I was not brought up like this, and most people weren’t – however we need to remind ourselves that it is never too late to start to express truth.
I love what you bring here Julie Matson – the word unfiltered holds such clarity – there are no blocks or pathways to the truth being expressed.
Great blog Toni, you are right it is up to us to express the truth so that the world can move closer to a one unified truth, how else will we get there if we remain in a world of false niceness
and holding back expression through fear of who it might upset. For me I find this is still very much ingrained in me, its like a default nice mode I go into, not to ruffle feathers unless I am fully aware of what I am doing. Being 100% positive that what you are speaking is truth and having the confidence to get that truth across is another thing that I need to master.
Kevmchardy, you have raised a point – to be clear in yourself that what you have to say holds no agenda of self gain but clearly felt as truth and about a greater love. As I remain conscious of surrendering to what is being offered and hold to the quality of love then what comes that needs to be said will be clearly felt. There is honesty and integrity needed in saying all that needs to be said. Holding back does not serve anyone.
Exactly ch1956 – If truth is presented with love, we are able to receive it and hear it as truth, however if truth is presented with the slightest doubt, holding back or is in any way measured, the message does not come with love and is no longer true truth – hence it cannot be heard or received.
Thank you Toni. Letting ourselves express in full is so important because as you say when we don’t we end up with so much inner tension that it affects our health and our relationships with people. We actually have a responsibility to express our truth because it is so freeing for everyone when the truth is told, even if we don’t like it at the time.
So true Elizabeth. I’ve found that even if I didn’t like the truth being told the healing and realisations I came to from truth being expressed were just what I needed to evolve and to heal.
I’ve also found this. The truth being told is not always what I necessarily want to hear, but it always offers a greater level of understanding for me and opportunity to make different choices or see things with greater clarity.
I have had this experience as well Tracy and Elizabeth, I havent always liked hearing the truth but it is certainly freeing and most often just what I needed to get me out of some illusion I was in at the time. Truth and love go hand in hand, when truth is delivered with love it heals.
I have often reacted to the truth being presented myself but have been eternally grateful that it was expressed as it has given me what I have needed to heal and evolve, without which I would still be trudging along in the same old patterns and my life would be a far cry from where it is now.
So true Fiona. It is understandable that we do not like the truth being expressed as it can stir up feelings of being silly, or hopeless etc. The biggest truths I’ve heard have helped me enormously and I’m grateful to the persons who expressed them and I’m grateful to myself for being open to seeing another way. Amazing things can unfold when we bring truth into our lives. It doesn’t have to be super scary if we are open to true healing and evolution.
Beautifully said Tracy, and I feel this is what I have felt in the past. Peoples resistance and peoples tension with what I have shared and hence not wanting to rock the boat. I feel like because I have felt this, this is why I have chosen to withdraw and stay silent! To keep the peace.
Natasha what I find intriguing is how people really love honest and truthful people, but sometimes this becomes tricky when that honesty is shared on a personal level. Humans seem to be more comfortable with lies than they are with the truth if that truth exposes something about themselves.
Agee there Tracy, those that become too honest are those that hit a thread, or hit a raw spot within our emotional and cellular memory. This is commonly known as a ‘trigger’. Those triggers split up marriages, break up friendships etc etc
It’s a shame when the truth destroys relationships. It goes to show that we are very comfortable with living a lie and would rather lose people dear to our life than stop and feel what is truly going on and to have the love to work and heal through what needs to be dealt with.
here here, the lie that paves the way for truth to be stomped on, and squished into the ground. The lie that people hold on to so tight they will fight to the end to have in not exposed.
Well said Tracy Aisbett – and if we are willing to hear truth we are naturally open to a deeper learning and evolution.
That’s right Eva. Amazing changes can enter ones world when we are open to the truth. Hearing the truth may be hard but living a lie is much harder in my opinion. Truth means a great deal to me so I personally love it when I hear it, even if it means something within me is being exposed. Bring it on I say.
And it feels the most natural thing in the whole world to share how we feel and to express unrestrained with no holding back.
It’s our reactions and our previous hurts that get in the way of speaking truth. Crazy thing is if we speak it or receive it, it opens the doorway to healing. Not saying anything or a watered down version of the truth, keeps the door shut for everyone.
It can be compared to disliking the medicine for the ailment we suffer and oscillating between choosing to endure the ailment to avoid taking the bitter medicine or to bring oneself to take the medicine (step out of comfort) and thus taking responsibility (accepting the consequences) for what has lead to the suffering in the first place.
Hi Elizabeth, I recently experienced this tension you speak of in a situation where I didn’t express my lack of understanding around something that happened and what it had triggered in me. As a result of holding it in, I allowed it to become a huge complication that then impacted on my relationships with others at the time. I am seeing more clearly how the simple act of sharing and speaking what we feel is so important. Whilst holding it is in is a way for us to turn things into something they are not, rather then deal with them then and there at the time.
I agree Elizabeth. And though truth may not be spoken out, the affects of a lie or a not fully expressed truth are felt anyway by each involved person, even if we are not aware of it.
Responsibility and making a choice to express the truth or not and living with that choice in our body and the other person’s body. For withholding the truth, neither party receives a healing or an opportunity to evolve.
Thank you Toni. I am learning, in baby steps, how to express in full. Even starting to write this comment, I am reminded that I have held a belief that when we speak the truth it means hurting someone else, or ruining things for people. This is not true. The truth as you say, is simply expressing in full and expressing the truth which is there to be expressed. I have often had times when I have held back in expression, and conversations have therefore never felt complete. Sometimes it has felt that I am holding back the truth, as though I am the only one who feels it. However, as you say ‘the truth is always deeply felt, even if not consciously known’ So it is always felt by everyone, and is always there to be expressed.
Exactly Simone, and the truth may not always be serious, it is sometimes silly and fun. This is what a lot of us get wrong, we think expressing truth has to come with hardness, “being correct” and following the patterns of how we have been taught to communicate, but this is not so for the truth has its own expression, it says what it is and is always spherical.
When we are caught up in our own world we forget that others can feel the truth in what we speak. Perhaps we are not respectful or aware of the power of truth. When the truth is watered down we shrink, but when we align to the truth we are expanded by it. The power of truth is huge but we tend to ignore it. Thank you for this inspiring comment Simone.
Thank you, Toni, for your honesty in sharing and by doing so you have illustrated so clearly and beautifully that, “Truth is the same as Love.”
Truth is the same as love, so if we hold back our truth, we hold back our love. For ourselves and for others.
Yes. This is well said Mariette.
This feels true for me too Mariette love and truth are interlocked. Expression is the key to opening our hearts and speaking our truth.
Yes Mariette and as Toni so beautifully shared this is an “opportunity to express in FULL what they truly felt. There is no greater gift to give another.
Great point Mariette.
Yes. that makes sense. Thank you for putting that so clearly.
As truth and love are only what they are when they are 100% – otherwise we have a half-truth or a bit of love – we also can only be the 100% of who we are when we express in full. Or said differently, when our true nature is love and truth, limiting the expression of love and truth means belittling us – the arithmetics of who we are.
Brilliant Alex. There is no such thing as a part truth or part love, for that is what we see everywhere and honestly it’s not working. In fact a part truth is a lie and part love is no love.
Truth and love can only be expressed in one way, as truth and love. Anything else is not love and we can feel this in our bodies when we withhold it. We are vehicles of expression and truth and love are not for us to hold onto, for the truth is not ours, it is the other person’s to receive.
Simple and to the point Mariette. This is the power message I received from this blog.
Absolutely Mariette, To express is an all round loving choice for the person / people and for yourself. If we hold that back we are holding back our love.
Absolutely Mariette. If we hold back truth then we are holding back love. And so, what then are we expressing if not truth and love?
This was also the sentence which stroke my eyes: “…Truth is the same as Love.” Everyone wants love, but not all want truth. But as you said Mariette, you can’t separate the one from the other.
Raises the question what people consider love to be without truth.
I can say for myself and probably on behalf of nearly everyone that to come back to a conscious understanding of ‘true love’ and ‘true truth’ is part of the healing and developing process during that we piece by piece have to shed off the illusionary, need- and protection driven ideals and beliefs that cloud us from who we truly are.
Mariette, beautifully expressed. Which is why holding back our truth actually hurts us in our bodies a lot even if we are not aware of it, because what we’re doing is shutting our bodies down from expressing love.
True Mariette.
Truth can never harm, but only heal.
Withholding truth can only harm and never heal.
Spot on Mariette. And this hurts more than we may want to feel sometimes…
Exactly Sara, so we seek distraction and/or comfort to keep us in denial of what we feel.
Toni this is a great thing to talk about because we so often hold back what we really want to say being nice or polite or worried how it will be heard. The truth is so much more caring really, because it lets tensions be sorted or lets a behaviour that isn’t great be looked at or just gets you and the other person to a clear understanding. It is confronting but so good too. I will take this blog with me and just check and see if I am saying exactly what is there or if I am watering myself down at all.
Absolutely true Kate, I feel the same. I know I have hold back in the past and still do at times, forgetting the actual truth of me expressing in full this I would have forgotten at that momemt because I have chosen a lesser form of myself in truth, so it always goes hand in hand. When I decide to not be less that day , I will express more fully.
Thank you Toni and Kate for expanding on this great blog. This blog is a wonderful support and stop check for me to understand not only why I and many others don’t express the truth we feel to say in full and the opportunity it gives another when we do. As you say Kate it opens the conversation up for letting the tension of not talking about an issue or stuck point between people ease. In my experience it also opens the door to greater awarenesses and a great opportunity to resolve something that may just sit between 2 people and fester and then explode somewhere down the track.
What you have shared is very true Kate. I have been feeling recently how nice or polite is actually a poison both for myself and for whoever I may be speaking with. Not allowing myself to say what needs to be said sits in my body and rots and does not allow truth to be seen, it keeps it hidden. It’s crazy, working with people who are ill I do see this everyday. This is an important reflection that I really need to allow myself to not only see but feel very deeply.
I love what you shared Jennifer “This is an important reflection that I really need to allow myself to not only see but feel very deeply”. It is only when you allow yourself to feel really deeply no matter how awkard it feels the truth is there to be known.
I agree Kate Robson, talking about this is very important for many reasons. One of them being that holding back is pure poison in the body, we may not momentarily feel this, but the long term affect is very damaging.
Very true Eva, I have experienced this poison in the body as chronic pain for the past 3 years. I have done everything and sought the best practitioners in the world. It does not matter if my practitioner is the best for massage or esoteric chakra puncture, if I do not deal with why I hold back, this pain will not heal. Holding back what you feel is true is not love. A love that is naturally there to express. The point is we are innately grand and if our activity of expression does not match this, our body will show it; and, Why am I holding back?
“Is it possible that by holding back my expression, the other person then missed out on having the opportunity to connect to, and express in full what they felt to share?” A great question Toni. I know I have held back, for fear of upsetting the other person, but am learning that if we express truth with love then it serves everyone. For me an important part is to have no investment in the outcome also.
Absolutely Sue, no investment is a big part of it. No investment whether the other person, gets it, dislikes you, thinks you are stupid, rejects you and I could go on. . . Expressing in full with love gives the other the opportunity to express also and I feel gives back to the universe whether they take the opportunity or not.
Yes Josephine, expressing in full with love! What works for me to express with love is to take my time to really express all that I’m feeling.
Exactly Sue, and an ‘investment in the out come’ is more then just a favourable response or result, an investment in the out come is also having a picture of what we will say and how it will sound at the end, instead of expressing from our hearts.
I agree, Harry; we have the choice to express from within or to follow a mental script. Few ask who writes the mental script, however….exposing that each expression reveals its own source is something that is not publicised in society since it indicates our choice to align with spirit or Soul…and spirit does not like to be revealed as a mere channel of mental scripts.
So true Harryjwhite, having an investment stops us from living and sharing from our inner heart. It is so simple, it is either love or not love. And when it is not love it comes with a ‘taint’ or a ‘expectation’ or how we ‘think’ things should be. Love is not like this, love is ever expanding and has no attachment to an outcome. It simply lets us all be.
Harryjwhite you’ve really made me ponder about the times I plan what I’m going to say. I often have to plan next steps but it’s a sure thing if I’m going over what I’m going to say repeatedly that I’m deeply invested in the outcome- people getting it and making what I see as loving choices.
It’s a great indicator for me to take a look at those investments and see what’s driving them and make different choices. So whether it’s wanting to look good at work and feel secure in my job (so choose connection and trust) or wanting people to change so I don’t have to feel what’s being reflected to me – for example people making unloving choices when there is so much love available.
What’s funny is that when I do meet people what was rehearsed goes out the window because it’s irrelevant. Any time I doggedly try to press a point my investment is blinding me to what is calling out to be expressed from my body via words, tone, gesture etc.
What great comments reminding me to drop any investments I may carry when I communicate.
That’s a great point Harry “having a picture of what we will say and how it will sound” I am learning to express from my heart but the latter gets in the way sometimes – letting go of that picture is work in progress.
Agreed Harryjwhite – We can use that ‘image or picture’ we have invested in as a marker that we have strayed from love and truth and gone into a need.
Great points Harry and Sue, if we are invested in the outcome and how it appears we are still not expressing in full – but instead expressing with expectation of a certain result or outcome.
For me having an investment makes me want to control the outcome which stops me expressing in full in a true way and then when it doesn’t work out in the past I have felt justified to retreat back to not expressing what is there to be said because it didn’t work out so well last time. Taking responsibility for the energy I am in when I express shows me clearly whether I am coming from Truth or not.
Investment into outcome: starts with complication and ends up in complication. Love is simple truth is simple.
I have to agree Karin Barea when I have felt something that might be true and then invest in it I have noticed on every occasion when I express it is not well accepted and not even heard. It might be amazing truth but not expressed with love because it was all about me.
Great point Sue – if we have an investment, ie expecting a certain response to what we express, then we are not only NOT offering an unconditional expression of truth but we are also setting ourselves up for great disappointment and self doubt.
Eva what a great point you make about self-doubt. If I am connected then I will feel what needs to be expressed and the quality in which I delivered it. If that quality feels true I will also feel that it is another’s free will to not choose love and this isn’t personal to me.
I’m getting to feel how much I am invested in my interactions with others and my lack of responsibility in this.
Wow. Beautifully said, Eva. That’s exactly where I have been finding myself in – great disappointment and self-doubt, at the other end of half-baked expression.
It makes sense that the moment I have an investment it is not about truth or love any longer but about me, hence another person involved is not seen and accepted for who they are but imposed upon. Love and truth are always equally for everyone.
“If we express truth with love then it serves everyone” – great point as truth without love is not truth in full. How easily do we sometimes assume that we know the truth but do not check if we hold that truth with love equally and vice versa. To express truth in full is equals loving in full.
‘for fear of upsetting the other person’ – I live with this all the time. I am such a sensitive person that the fear of upsetting the other person is far greater than expressing the truth. The times when I do express the truth, it is instantly backed up by the fear of the person’s response, and when they don’t respond straight away or not all, I instantly go into self doubt, regret and fear of rejection. Fear is something that I have created within myself, for I don’t truly know how the other person is going to react. Is it possible that I am lacking trust within myself to allow this fear to dominate at times?
Ah, the investment in the outcome! Now this is making it clear for me where I might have been failing in expressing ‘truth’. With my investment in the outcome, I would be wanting to control a situation/others involved, and this won’t be a clear communication. And with this being repeated, I start doubting my feelings. Thank you for bringing this up, Sue.
So ‘true’ Sue “For me an important part is to have no investment in the outcome also”. So many times before I speak I am already calibrating what to say hence investing, instead of surrendering and allowing what is there to come. Thanks Sue.