Emotional Honesty
Emotional honesty does not blame our self or others. Emotional honesty is not about judging our behaviour or responses. It is about looking at things just as they are.
Being emotionally honest means we are forced to see that what we don’t like in others is actually in ourselves. Once we are able to ‘see’ our role in creating the problem then we can then do something to ‘fix’ it and then we no longer are the magnet to that particular problem!
Easy! Not likely! The No.1 barrier to resolving a problem is to be emotionally honest! And to be emotionally honest means facing things about ourselves that we have fought to hide in the past. These are parts of the ‘shadow self’ that we dislike, or even hate, so owning up to them will create a fight with our ego.
The good news is that every human being possesses every trait, positive and negative, in one form or another. You can’t avoid some unpleasant personal characteristics – they go with the territory of being human. Acceptance that we are not only loving, compassionate, caring … but also selfish, sulky, hateful … means that we no longer need to disown those parts of us that we judge as ‘bad or evil’. Then we can be totally emotionally honest with ourselves and our partners.
So, when you are communicating with your partner be ‘in the now’ and show them the emotional being that you are, warts and all! Many people find it difficult to openly express negative reactions. We may fear that our response will be interpreted as criticism. Or we may feel ashamed of our own reactions, telling ourselves we should not feel the way we do.
Expressing a feeling is not the same as expressing demands. Telling our partner that he or she is wrong about something, is not being honest, it is being judgemental. Basically, the expression of feeling should not carry judgemental baggage with it. Only by taking ownership and responsibility by expressing our own feelings, can we have the power to change things.
Posted by Rob 
