“We must learn to be profoundly honest.”-Panache Desai

Wise words from one of the most engaging speakers I have had the pleasure of hearing. Back in 2011, I attended the Celebrate Your Life Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. I had not, at that point, known of the British born teacher who exudes a sense of calm welcome. That is, until he began the workshop that was held in a room in which the temperature felt chilly. I wondered why this was so, and then discovered the reason in fairly short order. As he spoke, he paced around the circumference of the room, ever more rapidly, his voice speeding up as well, generating energy that took the form of heat. Self love and acceptance of our innate beauty was a theme. By the time I left class, I felt as if I was levitating a few feet off the ground.

Truth-telling was part of my upbringing on an overt level. My parents expected honesty from us; somehow knowing when we had our fingers crossed behind our backs, and yet … there were times when emotions were repressed and words held back to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Lying by omission. “Don’t tell so and so (fill in the blank), since it will worry/upset them.”

Over the years, I internalized that message and its companion- thank you, Thumper – “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Even with my training as a therapist, I struggled at times with expressing my truth, for fear of disapproval and ultimately, rejection. I have since learned the art of tact and diplomacy, without sugar coating, and still delivering the message, at least to others. It is when I am faced with my own exploration, as I have been doing in waves since the life changing heart attack in June, that I have a huge amount of ‘coming clean’ to do. Internal housekeeping. Getting the cosmic cobwebs out of corners, opening the proverbial curtains, letting the symbolic sun shine in, scrubbing the metaphorical refrigerator shelves; throwing away the ‘biology projects’ left to fester. I have had plenty of time to do that in the last half of  2014.

What has come of it all, is that for many years, in the service of desire not to lose the body-mind-spirit nourishment from my family, I wore many masks and thought of myself as an imposter. Unlike many, I didn’t feel like I had to earn love, but rather, I figured out how to keep it, by that Shirley Temple tap dancing I have occasionally described in this column. I made it all look good, getting good grades, making friends, playing nicely in the sandbox, excelling however I could, when underneath the façade, I knew the infrastructure was crumbling. Still, I kept the frenetic pace; determined to stay a few hundred yards ahead of the fears that were snarling and baring their fangs. They hissed and howled their “Not enough, you’re doing it wrong, you can’t keep up, someone will discover that you aren’t as smart, loving or capable as you pretend you are. You will lose it all, if you don’t keep the wheels in motion,” messages. I presented an emotional Photo Shopped image, hiding the lines and wrinkles, lest people turn away.

One can only maintain that pace for so long. My workaholism, born of parental models for ‘doing it all’ became my savior and tormenter, keeping me in motion, offering success and insanity simultaneously. If we know that a project will be labor intensive, but also that there is an end point in sight, we can keep up the pace. In my case, there was no end point and I was prepared to keep on keepin’ on indefinitely.  Spirit intervened and put the brakes on in the form of the series of health challenges- shingles, heart attack, kidney stones and adrenal fatigue. I could still rebelliously rev my engine; and believe me, I have attempted, but to what benefit? Letting go of the compulsion to prove myself and still maintain professional performance. Even after all these years as a therapist and journalist, I still face learning curves as I add to my repertoire and continue to fill my tool kit. Even though the term ‘best practices’ makes me cringe at times, since there is no ‘right answer’ to every question, I am all about excellence and not halfway measures. I put my heart and soul into what I do.

And as Lily Tomlin as Edith Anne used to say  while blowing raspberries: “And that’s the truth.”