Liar Liar Pants On Fire

Growing up, I had to deal with the absence of truth and facts in my house.  My brother thought that lying was the way to go. It didn't matter how trivial of a situation it was, he would just lie for the sake of lying.  It seemed that way at least.  It felt like the phrase - liar, liar, pants on fire!

As a kid, we lived with a demanding tyrant and if he thought there was trouble, he immediately stepped in and demanded to know what was going on.  Sometimes it was nothing, but to this control freak, everything was something to him.

Of course, my older brother would lie instead of just telling the truth.  These weren't big issues either.  The simple truth would have sufficed and everyone most likely would have went on about their day.  Not my older brother though.  He thought the lie was the norm.  It was truly a liar, liar, pants on fire type of situation.

He lied about everything and anything.  You pick a moment of the day or any subject and instead of being truthful and honest, he would just lie.  I watched him get beat and have soap bars shoved in his mouth, but it didn't stop him.

I got sick and tired of...

My dad would finally resort to threatening to destroy our toys.  Of course, that's where I drew the line because we didn't have many toys and they were my escape away from the hell we lived in.  So, finally I got sick and tired of my brother lying when there was no need.

I started to speak up and tell the truth of what was happening, not giving my brother a chance to say a word.  While the tyrant control freak would often just calm down and go on, it was then that my brother would be angry at me.  I wasn't good at lying anyway but boy, if I crossed my older brother, there was hell to pay.

Lying was normal to him...

He would either pummel me or call me names or make all kinds of statements to my face.  He didn't like getting called out on his lies.  He didn't care if he lied.  Lying was just something normal to him and anyone that stood in his way and exposed the truth was the enemy.  They were the ones in his eyes that were wrong.

I see so much of this happening today that I feel like I'm reliving those past experiences from my childhood.  I have tried so hard to get away from the liar, liar, pants on fire experience.  They were horrible when I was a kid and what I see today is just as horrible.  It is triggering to no end.

In my life, I've always tried to be honest in everything I did.  I've had large corporations that claimed they never asked their employees to lie, but if you didn't, you risked having your job terminated.  I've been honest to the point of being the one that they blamed for something that another person did - namely, the nephew of the owner.  Some of these were big companies too that would of course deny what I'm saying.

I've paid a price for truth...

I try to be honest in everything.  If I tell you something, you can take it to the bank and expect it to be just as true in the future as it is now.  The words I write here, are my truth.  Yes, I've paid a price for daring to speak out, but it is my truth.

Far too often, I see too many that are not truthful with themselves and so they are not truthful with the world.  There are too many that don't mind if they distort the facts or stretch them to make their argument.  This seems like the norm these days.  The most boisterous ones are the ones I keep a watchful eye out on.

To me, the currency of truly being a conscious human is how truthful you can be.  If your word means little and if your actions don't match your words, then to me, you're overdrawing your account.

If instead you strive to be truthful and honest and real, people recognize that.  It is the currency of saying something and people do not need to second guess what you're saying.  It is being authentic and real.  It is what our civilization should be based upon, not on the lies that we hear all day long through social media or in person.

So, who are you?  Are you truthful at all costs, or just when it is convenient for you?  Can people bank upon what you say, or do they wonder about what you mean and what you say?  Do you tell those little white lies or are you a full on liar liar pants on fire type of person?

#Truth

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
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Some Days I Struggle

I know with all that I've been through in the past that life is not necessarily easy.  I have my good days and bad days.  Sometimes the struggles of the past come up to haunt me and work hard at pulling me under.

Sometimes people try to make it look like all they have are great days, but I know that this is anything but the truth.  I get irked when people try to paint happy thoughts while you're in the midst of the mud and muck making your way to dry ground.

We need more people who are honest and real, instead of those that try to gloss over the moments of difficulty and pain.  The pain has to come out and the more we hold it in, the more we harm our mind, body, emotions, and spirit.  

Below is a list of things I struggle with in no particular order.  I know, we all have our list of things.  I'm just verbalizing mine.  They appear in no special order.

My hope is that by verbalizing mine, it will start a conversation to help others share their lists and give them some measure of healing.  We need one another to lean on, not to chastise and brush off.

I struggle to:

• Accept the quietness of friends who barely speak to me at times wondering if I've done something wrong or they are just lost in their own moments of life.
• Find a way to make it in this world on a consistent basis even though I know I have many talents and skills.
• Do the things I want, not necessarily the things that I have to do.
• Feel the disappointment of those I look up to who don't feel I measure up.
• Accept the pain of a past that is so horrifying that it is difficult to even think about or view some days.
• Deal with those that desire to take advantage of my niceness because they can't balance their needs and desires and honesty in being human.
• Know that my biological family thinks I'm the worst person around because I dared to spill their secrets by trying to heal my own life.
• Grasp everything that I've experienced in life because often it is so overwhelming and too difficult to understand or comprehend.
• Try and hide all the triggers that possess me while trying to heal and remove the power they hold over me.
• Understand why people who claim to have been my friend in the past desire to walk all over me as if I'm nothing more than a doormat for their life.
   
• Realize that anyone loves me and that I truly matter even if I know I they do and even if there are some that show they love and care about me.
• Find answers in the many questions that my mind does not seem to solve or my life seems to demand to know.
• Understand why I hear, sense, feel and see so much but yet it all seems all like a confusing mass of information that I can barely process.
• Comprehend how people can be so mean to one another and not even realize it while they shout insults with such force and velocity and exclamation.
• Make sense of a world that honors religious beliefs but yet those same religious beliefs are hurled as arrows against others, while harboring their own faults in a safe harbor as if they don't exist.
• Understand how to forgive all the pain that was inflicted upon me when the ones who did it act as if it was okay, they are righteous, and I'm the one that caused the problem - not them.
• Not fully understand why others cannot see what I can see and understand what it is that I understand.  It all seems so simple, but to others, it is not.
• Write the words that will help the most because it feels like my words are never enough in a world of turmoil, torture, pain, and disrespect.

I continue to work on these things each day because as I know, I'm a work in progress.  I know that we aren't on this earth to just wait out our days until we die.  We are here with a purpose, but sometimes that purpose is so clouded by what we've endured in life.
 

I'm not one that settles for what is or for the easy meme and saying that will magically make everything seem like it has disappeared and is better.  Instead, I'm one that keeps questioning and going deep within myself to learn more, grow more, and understand more.

Yes, some days I struggle, but it in that struggle that I remind myself - I'm becoming more than I am today.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Are You Ready To Heal It?

Often we come up against things in our life where they feel more difficult than we wish, but we're not ready to do anything different.  We may not be in a place where we've gone through all that we need to or were ready to move beyond it.  The question we all need to ask ourselves is "are you ready to heal it?"

Too often we want to push through what we are at because of the discomfort.  It can be very painful.  It can be very difficult to deal with and it can be overwhelming.  Sometimes we just so badly want the pains and horrible moments of life to disappear.

Yet, we may not be ready to heal it.  We may not be ready to move beyond where we are at and go the distance.  We may only be in the spot where we are beginning to notice it and align with all that it is.

There may be a negative pleasure associated with where we are at.  Often times, there is some attraction to what it is that we face, even if we are unaware or unconscious of it.  You see this displayed all the time in relationships that have gone bad.  Because of the fear of being alone and not loved, two people stay together.  This is negative pleasure.  We all do it.  It is part of being human and experiencing life through the human perspective.

Fallacies Of New Age Practices

New Age Healing Practices can be great and wonderful and so effective. At their core, they are pure and focused on what healing is all about. However, all too often, these practices take on a structure that alters the healing and forms it into something that is more of an institution. I have watched from a distance how this unfolds in so many new age healing practices.

Even though we have the best intentions in the world, it seems like we fall prey to the inadequacies within ours self as healers. We bypass the things that make sense to us deep within our gut and body, for the ability to have as many people connections as we can. We become an organization, complete with followers, rather than stay completely true to ourselves. I am sure that the most noble of healers come to this crossroads at some point in their path and hopefully they have their eyes open wide enough to see where their path becomes derailed.

So what are the fallacies of new age healing practices?

1) Telling a great story that draws people in, where they are mesmerized to the point of signing up for just about anything you are offering that night, regardless of how it truly connects with them.

2) Claiming that you are the only one with these abilities, healing practices or that they have been delivered personally to you from some named entity. Please note, that I know we all pick up on things and there are probably some supernatural experiences but this claim is made way too quickly these days without explanation or a testing of the facts. I'm sorry if I am raining on anyone's parade but this is beginning to get out of hand in the new age world.

3) Appearing as if you have all the answers to whatever issue comes your way. It seems like it is a rarity to hear a healer say, "I'm sorry, but I've got no idea how to help you and this is probably beyond my scope of practice." I've witnessed this deficiency over and over all the time in various people, organizations and practices.

4) Spending more of your time developing classes and giving lectures, seminars or writing books and materials versus the time that you are actually working to help heal people. Sure, I understand that maybe your path involves teaching others but if you aren't doing the work on a consistent basis, than how can you claim it is helping others? Students of your work may or may not prove that your work is helping to heal others.

5) Doing the work on others but doing nothing on yourself or not participating in trades with others. How can we heal others if we don't continually work on ourselves? That seems very inauthentic to me!

6) If you are not able to sustain yourself with your work than there is a lack of authenticity to what you do. At first when you are starting out, this may be the case but if your life is helping others, I fully believe the universe will respond appropriately.

7) The amount of money you charge or don't charge is a fallacy of new age practices. I have seen people ask the universe for abundance and then yet, they do not ask for any payment from their clients. I recently read something by a friend that stated how much this puts the healing relationship out of balance. On the other hand, I have seen healers charge exorbitant fees for their services claiming that they are worth every cent. Somehow, I have a difficult time believing the universe looks at this as normal. After all, the people that most likely need the healing the most aren't the one with big pocket books!

8) Only communicating with those that regularly see you may limit the amount of contacts you make in a month but they often leave behind those that need the moment of connection. I believe that communication is not just when you are in the office being treated but in those times when life is so very difficult. It is part of the healing process and part of being authentic. It is not just about communication that is convenient for the healer.

9) Realizing that not all clients progress at the same rates or on a linear progression. As healers, we most likely are not on a linear progression in our evolution. Depending upon what a person has gone through, it may take considerable time to truly unravel the intricacies of traumatic moments in their life. When the damage is great to an individual, so is the time it takes to heal, process and heal some more. If it becomes too much in too short of a time, it can overwhelm the person to the point of break down. Be patient with your clients and try not to put unnecessary burdens of expectations on them.

10) Each healing modality that you do or are aware of has only so much provable truth within it and the rest is what you and your mind or other followers derive. While that may serve you well at times, you need to recognize that there are limits. Many times, what we feel is effective is nothing more than a placebo, yet we fail to allow our self to see this. By doing that, we do more harm than we do good to our clients.


As healers, we must realize we are human and that it is not about being perfect or being put on a pedestal that makes us effective. Effective healing is about being as true to our self as we can in the moment we are at in our life. However this takes shape and form is entirely appropriate as long as we are true and honest with our self and evolving in awareness.


Further Reading:
1) Illusions In Healing (Blog Post, Mar 10, 2011)
2) Abundance Or Wealth (Blog Post, Jun 30, 2011)




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