Live Weekly Update: Processing Time. It’s All Relational💡

Some of my favorite updates are the ones where I just let it rip. Like this. I know going in I have a lot to share, so I name it, give myself permission to flow through the numerous connections that swirl around, and trust the thread that ties it all together will be and become more apparent. Because it’s always present. There’s probably something important and philosophically significant about the nature of truth embedded even in that last sentiment. Perhaps something to the tune of, “What you mean to share will be clear enough in whatever you manage to say if you just stay honest along the way.” And honestly, wow. Talk about inviting a sense of relief. Have you ever let yourself relax into that, into honesty? There are certainly many situations and circumstances where being honest may fill us with fear, insecurity, anxiety. That, I suppose, is largely linked to anticipations around how others might react when we share what needs to be shared. But I’m realizing there is something else to explore here. Something about how we experience our own capacity to tell the truth. Something perhaps about the space we make that affords us the opportunity, with or even within ourselves, to be honest. And let me be perfectly candid: I’m doing this exploration right now, in real time as I write. These aren’t thoughts I’ve ever even had before. They are just now bubbling up. (Oh goodness, it’s meta again already…) It’s late on Tuesday night, already past 11:00pm. All day long, I’ve been meaning to write something about this particular update and publish it. My deadline has been “before tomorrow” so I can avoid lapping myself when I sit down to share again in just over twelve hours to record another Wednesday live. Way before I can publish, though, I usually have to watch the recording and refresh my memory about what I shared in the first place. Tonight, I jotted down sparse notes: “tensions. always present. - Processing TIME - Be honest. tell the truth.” That’s a pretty poor summary alright. Obviously, for over an hour, I said a lot more than that. (If you’re curious, there was lots of warm and fuzzy stuff about “For the Love of Strangers,” as well as nods toward building business through branding and marketing, and how I’m making sense of my own internal resistance to that.) My skimpy notes are so sparse not because I didn’t want to write, but because I started kind of enjoying listening to what I said. Not in a self-obsessed kind of way, but more with a bit of fascination while watching me say it precisely because it was so much, and it was so fluid, and the way it all came out seemed so damn easy. Because I was being honest. Naturally. So now I’m sitting here noticing how I have created these various spaces for me to share what I want, how and when I want, and that actually encourage me to be more honest. Yes, it’s true that a large theme in this update is how I feel like I’m holding back and not being as honest as I would like, but this was an easy hour and eighteen minutes of straight talking. And the pages in my latest notebook, which I started mere days ago, as so full because I’m leaning into the telling even more of the truth about my thoughts and feelings. And so now, with this post, I guess it’s just more of the same. Moreover, this is what I want to do. I wonder how different things might feel if we just practiced being more honest with ourselves, even before we extend ourselves to being honest with others. There’s an intrapersonal degree of trust, comfort, and intimacy we actually can practice and develop, if we just try. Maybe we must. Sincere question: How often are you honest with yourself? Second question: How easy have you made that feel? So this is where the meta levels break down since, yes, I’m sharing these words and this recording to the vastness of an internet full of people across varying distances of anonymity and relationship. But I’m still sitting with this surprising, mini-meta-observation of myself that makes me think, “Maybe it would be much easier to be more honest if I just fully let myself lean into the spaces I create for myself to do exactly that. And maybe it would be far less scary than some part of me has been led to believe. In fact, most likely, I would really enjoy it.” Why did the truth become so hard to tell? Why does it feel difficult, at times, to be honest? I know we can do better. And we can start by being better able to recognize and share the truth of our own experiences by being more honest with ourselves. Then, and perhaps only then, can we hold that space with each other where telling the truth is a given. It’s what brings us closer and bonds us more securely; it’s what animates the most loving potential in our relationships; it’s what makes us healthier, stronger, and better together. I’m seeing this more clearly now. What it feels like to be honest need not be overwhelmed by fear and withholding. It doesn’t even have to be a space into which we must push, brace, or use force. To get free, we can change our relationship to truth and what it means to be honest so that it’s with the truth where we find the most joyful connection, creativity, pleasure, power, fun, and abundant ease. The start of September marks a new monthly container of Romancing the Revolution. Visit the shop on my buymeacoffee page to register and get the link to join on Zoom every Sunday through the end of the month. Get full access to Want to Know at coriwong.substack.com/subscribe