Honesty

Hey, Janika here.

I was recently asked the question,

what do you value the most in your friendships?

It's a really good conversation starter.

And my answer popped into my head immediately, you know, before I had the chance to think about if that was a good enough response or not.

The answer that I came to was I value honesty the most in my friendships.

Because when I think of my bestest friends, they're the ones I know will tell me the truth when I specifically ask for it.

I trust their integrity and I trust their ability to be honest with me.

And if you've clicked on honesty today, you probably really value it too.

And sure, there are appropriate times for white lies,

Maybe we tell a white lie every now and again to lessen the load of hurt feelings or to even avoid unsafe circumstances.

There's a list, you know, white lies, I'm sure.

But in today's Story Power, I'm going to be reminding you of two really important things when it comes to honesty in our narratives.

Let's just take a breath.

Let's sink into our bodies here and get comfortable in the space that we're in right here, right now.

I'm going to get you to roll your shoulders back and drop them down.

And now loosen your jaw.

Let out a big releasing exhale when you're ready.

The first thing I'm going to boost you with today is the reminder that you and only you know in your heart when the right time to be totally honest is.

And what I mean by that is that it's not always the right time or the right moment or the right situation to give 100% honesty all of the time when it comes to others.

but the caveat there is you must always, always, always be absolutely truthful when you're addressing yourself.

When you're engaging with yourself in self-reflection, in mindfulness, in your day-to-day interactions, you owe it to yourself to give yourself an honest answer.

To act in an honest way for self, to honor yourself truthfully.

Don't lose sight of that honest connection within self and if you do, because we do, we're human, come back to it.

Get your journal out and write down your honest thoughts through your honest self.

Don't lie to yourself.

And the second most important thing to remember with this boost is when it comes to honesty in our narratives, the reason it's so important to always honor yourself with your own integrity and your own honesty is because you can't always expect the truth from others, but you can always expect it from yourself.

You can count on yourself to deliver the truth 100% of the time.

So yes, we value honesty.

We expect honesty from those that we love and that are close to us.

We want those honest relationships and friendships in our narratives.

But we're not guaranteed that.

And you know that.

You've experienced that.

I've experienced that.

We can't always control the level of honesty that we receive from others, but we can always give ourselves the respect of an honest response and representation.