Ready to Speak Your Truth? 4 Reasons Why It’s Time

Today more than ever it seems like we’re struggling with this idea of truth. We’re being bombarded with talk about real news, fake news, and it begs the question, what is truth?

Truth is fact, truth is honesty, and in personal life, truth is the willingness to put what you say and believe on the line.

Are you motivated to be more truthful with your loved ones?

Here are 4 reasons why it’s time for you to speak your truth.

1. Take Your Power

As women it can be hard to stand in your power. Many of us were trained to be gentle peacekeepers. And oftentimes when women do stand up, they’re branded as “bitches.”

Of course there’s another way – to bring the heart of compassion into what we say. Think about your chakras. The chakra of power is in your belly, as you move up, the next one is at your heart center, and then your 5th chakra is your throat.

The goal is to speak your truth – moving that idea or power up from the belly – through the heart and out the throat.

There’s a world of difference between someone communicating from this space as opposed to bypassing the heart and speaking truth from a place of power.

Think about people you’ve heard talk – politicians, motivational speakers, reporters. When you listen to those voices, what do you hear? Clarity and compassion or harsh aggressive, bombastic truth?

2. Be in Integrity

When we are true to ourselves, we are in integrity.

What is integrity?

One definition, according to the American Heritage Dictionary is, “the quality or condition of being whole.”

I think about integrity as alignment. I want my actions and my words to align with my thoughts and beliefs as much as I am able to do that.

So when we choke back words or don’t speak authentically, we fall out of integrity.

How can you say the words that need to be said today?

3. Forgive

Speaking your truth allows you to forgive and I believe that forgiveness is one of our primary functions on earth.

Forgiveness is an act of release – both for you and the “other.”

When we speak to someone about what we really think, how we genuinely feel, we are opening a door through which true conversation, healing and love can occur.

This is the power of forgiveness.

4. Help Others

Are you one of those people who has the ability to see exactly what’s happening? As if you can cut through to the core of something and genuinely understand an issue?

Whether it’s a business challenge or a personal one, you sense which way to go or how it should be navigated – for the right outcome.

But then, you don’t say anything.

Maybe you stay quiet because you feel like it isn’t your place to share. Or perhaps you think it’s presumptive to offer your opinion. Maybe you don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings.

But here’s the thing, by not speaking up, you are denying that person your authentic voice, your clarity, your insight.

Think back to when a friend spoke truth to you. Maybe in the moment it wasn’t fun or you didn’t like it, but did it help? Did those words prompt action from you?

I remember the first time I got advice like this as a young adult. I was living in Hong Kong and had finally quit a job I really hated. In all honesty, I just wanted to run away from everything – the city, my failed existence, even myself.

One day I was picnicking with my best friend. We’d traveled to an outlying island and hiked up a canyon following a trickle of a waterfall. From there, we could see across the harbor to Hong Kong island with its towering skyscrapers. She turned to me and said; “What are you going to do now?”

I replied, “I don’t know, anything, as long as it isn’t here.”

Then she asked; “Where are you going to go?”

And I answered, “anywhere as long as it isn’t here.”

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “you have to make your happiness here.”

Immediately I wanted to tell her to f**k off but I also knew she was absolutely right.

What did I do?

I did what she suggested. I stayed, made peace with the city and my life, and grew up.

I still remember her honest words nearly thirty years later, that’s the impact they had. What if she’d been afraid to speak? It would have been a huge disservice to me.

Hard conversations are hard but they're also important.

Whether they are with loved ones or colleagues, speak your truth. Say what you feel, what you need and what you see. All of us need feedback even when we don’t want to hear it. But that feedback when given with love, kindness and compassion can be invaluable and life changing.

Let me know how it goes! Leave your truth below!

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Before I Die, I want to...

Is there anything you want to do before you die?

I found myself contemplating this question recently as I watched a TED video of the artist Candy Chang. She shared about creating an interactive chalkboard mural in New Orleans entitled; “Before I Die, I want to…”

The wall invited people to write what they want to do before they die.

I ask my clients that same question because it’s too easy to speed through life. You’re in the fast lane with your great job, family, home. But is it actually what you want?

What would you like to do, see, become?

I don’t ask to be morbid. I ask to ensure that your compass is set straight. Orienting you toward what you really want.

I learned this firsthand in 2010, when I worked as a hospice social worker.

I was challenged to look death, life and pain square in the face. My patients were facing imminent demise and they all had at least one regret. The most common of these are:

1.  To have lived a life more true to myself, not the life others expected of me

2. To have not worked so hard

3. To have boldly expressed my feelings

4. To have stayed in touch with my friends

5. To have been happier

Working at hospice taught me compassion and reminded me of the promise I’d made to myself as a twenty year old.

Back in college, my friends and I often read Henry David Thoreau. One summer, we even drove to Concord in the wee hours to skinny dip in Walden Pond.

I floated in that warm, velvety water, gazed up into the star studded sky and swore that I would “live deliberately.” I wanted to learn life’s essential lessons because I knew more than anything that I did not want to “come to die and discover that I had not lived.”

In 2010, I made a renewed agreement with myself to do just that.

What about you?

This is YOUR life to live. Be sure that you do everything you want.

How can you listen and respond to your heart’s desires?

1.  Make a list of everything you want to do, experience, feel, become before you die

Some people call this a bucket list. Maybe for you, it’s simply a To Do List.

2. Start scheduling them right now!

Some are simple and easy, like phone calls to old friends, a visit to a relative. How about a romantic date?

Others might take some planning and saving. Could you go on a camping trip with the kids? How about an inexpensive cruise? Would you be willing to go back to school? How about writing that book?

Think about this as a way to re-orient yourself by making time for the things that really matter to you. After all, life is happening right now.

Those dreams live inside of you and yearn to be expressed. Take advantage of today and carpe diem! Please don’t be one of those people who come to die only to discover that they never really lived.

Be bold, be brave – get out there and enjoy!

Tell me ONE thing you're going to do THIS week!

Leave me a comment below.

Watch the video that inspired me!

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3 Simple Tools for Creating A Future YOU Want

Do you want to keep living the life you’ve always led or are you ready to shift into a new way and a new life?

Choosing to live your life’s purpose, requires you to undo much of what you’ve been taught. After all, you want to create a future different from the past.

So how do you do that?

1.  Forgiveness

 As A Course In Miracles tells us, forgiveness is our only true function. Forgiveness, however, is one of those things that sounds easy but can actually be hard.

A strategy that’s really helped me with this, is the recognition that the person I want to forgive - a former boss, parent, acquaintance - was actually doing his or her best in that moment.

Here’s an example.

My father was completely emotionally absent during my childhood. There were times when I hated him for that, for not paying attention, not seeming to care, not showing me that he loved me in a way I could understand (hugs, praise.)

In my early 20s, I decided I wanted to shift our relationship, from a child / adult one to an adult / adult one. But I quickly discovered that in order to do this, I had to accept him just as he was, imperfect, critical and sometimes really annoying.

As I let go of my disappointment that he wasn’t who I needed or wanted him to be, (a caring, positive presence in my life), I began to see that even if he’d wanted to, he just couldn’t. He wasn’t capable of it. He’d been so wounded by his family that he simply couldn’t show up any other way.

And then I saw that he was trying his best.

It may have been limited but it wasn’t personal or intentional. It was all he could do. At that moment, my heart opened for him and I was filled with compassion. Interestingly, once I completely accepted him, he was actually able to be there for me!

Who in your life are you ready to release?

Can you see him or her as having tried their best?

2. Limiting Beliefs

Bad things happened in your past and you suffered. People put you down, maybe you decided you were flawed, or couldn’t be successful.

Isn’t it time to shed all that old stuff?

What do you want to believe is true for you now?

Doesn’t it feel better to believe that you deserve happiness, success and love? It’s time for you to know that it’s true and own it!

3. Write a New Story

Just because something bad happened in your past, it doesn’t have to define you. We get to define ourselves.

Who do you want to be?

Do you want to be the daughter of an alcoholic who can’t get it together and continues to blame her terrible life on her mother? Or do you want to transcend your past by owning it, learning from it and moving beyond it?

Maybe you still are the daughter of an alcoholic. And? You are reliable, independent, hard working, successful, loving and perfect. Now you get to model healthy behavior for your family.

We are all co-creating our futures.

Why not make it exactly what you want? All it takes is awareness and the willingness to release the past so it no longer has a hold over you. Remember, you can change the future and it starts right now!

Share ONE thing you're ready to let go of today!

Write it below.

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Being 100% Responsible

When I was a girl, I couldn’t wait to grow up. At ten, I fantasized about having my own apartment in New York City and running a chic restaurant.

I yearned to be an adult because I wanted to be in charge. I hated feeling like I had no control over my life – of where I lived, went to school, what I ate.

All too quickly, my wish was granted and I was a young, clueless adult overwhelmed by the world. It was easy to feel oppressed. I couldn’t get a good job because the market was tight and there was too much competition. Poor me, no one could see the value that I offered.

I fell into feeling like a victim.

Life was too hard. I was misunderstood. I couldn’t stop eating the plate of cookies, the bag of chips, but it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help myself.

Slowly, as I began making my way in the world, I saw how I was giving my power away by being a victim. Maybe it was true that I couldn’t control the weather or the attitude of my boss or co-workers, but I could control my response to them.

What if I stood up to my colleague and told her that I didn’t’ appreciate her lack of professionalism?

What if I really looked at how I avoided going to the gym, making excuses every night to watch TV on the couch?

In my journey to self awareness, I’ve realized that I must take 100% responsibility for my life, for everything in my life.

• My Finances
• My Health
• My Relationships
• My Career

When you do this, you officially become a grown up.

Responsibility is about ownership, about acknowledging when things work and when they don’t work. It’s the difference between saying the company almost went under because I didn’t manage the financials instead of blaming the near bankruptcy on the economic downturn.

It is the acknowledgment that I am in charge – always. Even when I choose to watch a movie instead of run errands.

If you’re ready to take 100% responsibility in your life, here are 3 questions to ask:

1.  Are you willing to own whatever happens in your life?

Yes, that means the buck stops with you. No excuses.

2.  Can you discern between what you do and don’t have control over?

In other words, you only have control over you, and how you respond to life’s challenges and opportunities. You do not have any control over what other people say or do.

3. Ready to accept yourself?

Are you ready to be okay when you screw up and when you succeed? We're often our own worst critics, hard on ourselves when we fail and unwilling to savor when we succeed.

Can you be gentle and loving with you – knowing that everyone makes mistakes from time to time?

Taking responsibility for your life will transform it!

Here's why you'll want to:

• Feel Empowered

When you decide to take charge, YOU have the power. You're no longer a victim. You haven’t given it away to anyone or anything. Take charge of your life and create all that you most deeply desire.

• Not Beholden to Anyone or Anything

When you decide that YOU own your life, no one or thing has any power over you.

• Set Yourself Free

Taking 100% responsibility is the path of spiritual growth, of total freedom.

When have you felt like a victim or decided to take responsibility?

Share one of your stories with us below.

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