It takes a lot of energy to protect an image.
It takes far less energy to simply be who you are.
When people can read you, trust you, and know where you stand, life begins to get lighter.
You are going to gain in ways not always familiar to you when you become more readable.
By readable, I mean transparent.
Not exposed.
Not careless.
Not telling everybody everything.
Transparent means there is less contradiction between what is going on inside you and what you present to the world.
That kind of living can enhance both your personal and professional life.
You also begin shedding some of the baggage you have been carrying around.
The explanations.
The pretending.
The unnecessary defenses.
The trying to remember what version of yourself you presented to whom.
That is exhausting.
When more of the real you begins showing up, life has more room to work with you.
And then?
Expect changes.
Some relationships may deepen.
Some may disappear.
New opportunities may find you.
Certain doors may close because they were never really your doors anyway.
That is not necessarily loss.
Sometimes that is life getting organized.
BEING WHO YOU ARE
How is all this possible?
Well, we are sending out signals all day long.
Some are visible.
Some are invisible.
Our words say something.
Our faces say something.
Our body language says something.
Our timing says something.
Our silence says something.
Then we act surprised when certain responses come back to us.
People often sense more than we realize.
When you seek to BE yourself, something interesting happens:
Less effort is required.
There is less acting.
Less managing.
Less covering.
Less keeping up appearances.
And more real begins to come and go.
That is freedom.
You do not have to continuously manufacture the person standing in front of everybody.
You simply arrive.
OTHER BENEFITS
Along with becoming more readable, you can also become less threatening, more approachable, and even inviting.
Why?
Because people know where you stand.
And perhaps more importantly, they begin to know what you stand FOR.
There is comfort in knowing what is in front of you.
A transparent person does not necessarily agree with everybody.
They simply make it easier for others to know who they are dealing with.
There is less guessing.
Less game playing.
Less wondering:
“What did he really mean?”
“What is she really after?”
“What are they hiding?”
Transparency removes a lot of unnecessary fog.
And when the fog lifts, relationships have a better opportunity to become genuine.
Quality of life may then begin taking priority over quantity.
You may discover that you do not need everybody.
You need the right people.
You do not need everything.
You need what belongs with your life.
Less really can become more.
THE FIRST TRUTH
When learning to navigate life with less to hide, the first truth you are probably going to have to face is not somebody else’s truth.
It is yours.
The truth about yourself.
That one can sting.
We all have things about ourselves that are easier to notice in other people.
Funny how that works.
We can see somebody else’s stubbornness from three blocks away while ours is sitting in the front seat with us.
LOL.
Looking honestly at yourself may feel unpleasant going in.
There may be some embarrassment.
Some regret.
Some uncomfortable memories.
Some things you wish you had handled differently.
Let them come.
Look.
Learn.
Correct what can be corrected.
Apologize where appropriate.
Then stop beating yourself over the head with yesterday.
The purpose of discovering truth is not to imprison yourself with it.
The purpose is to become freer because of it.
Handled properly, the truth about yourself leaves you better for the experience.
WHAT TRANSPARENCY IS NOT
Transparency does NOT mean you owe everyone access to everything about you.
Let us be clear about that.
Privacy and secrecy are not necessarily the same thing.
You are allowed to have private thoughts.
Private conversations.
Private relationships.
Private business.
Being transparent simply means that what you DO present is genuine.
You do not have to open every drawer in your house to prove the house is yours.
There are healthy boundaries.
Transparency without wisdom can become oversharing.
Wisdom knows the difference.
YES…NO…I DON’T KNOW
Then what remains?
Who and what you are.
Knowing this will first help you and then help others.
I have learned to like saying three very simple things:
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
There is tremendous freedom inside those three answers.
YES means yes.
NO means no.
I DON’T KNOW means I do not have enough truth available to me yet to give you an honest answer.
How refreshing is that?
We sometimes turn simple situations into complicated ones because we are afraid of how the simple truth will be received.
But simplicity works.
At least it does for me.
Sometimes the most transparent answer is the shortest one.
NO NEED TO SELL YOURSELF ALL DAY
Another advantage of transparency is that you stop needing to constantly convince people of who you are.
Your life starts doing some of the talking.
Your patterns speak.
Your behavior speaks.
Your word speaks.
People eventually figure out whether you are dependable, honest, kind, selfish, generous, manipulative, peaceful, or carrying three circus tents around inside you.
Time reveals people.
Transparency simply cooperates with that process.
The goal is not:
“Everybody must like me.”
Forget that.
The goal is:
“What you see is reasonably close to what is really here.”
That is much more valuable.
KNOW AND BE KNOWN
I want to know and be known.
There is something wonderfully freeing about that.
That way, whatever is mine can find its way to me.
And whatever is not mine can go its way.
Think about how much energy we waste trying to hold on to things, people, appearances, positions, relationships, and opportunities that do not really fit us.
Transparency becomes a sorting mechanism.
The real fits.
The false struggles.
The appropriate stays.
The inappropriate eventually has difficulty finding a place to sit.
So far, so good.
LET WHAT BELONGS FIND YOU
The more accurately you present yourself to life, the better opportunity life has to bring you what actually belongs with you.
If you pretend to be someone else, you may attract things designed for the person you are pretending to be.
Then what?
Now you have to keep pretending just to keep them.
That sounds like work to me.
Better to show up as yourself.
Improving yourself?
Absolutely.
Growing?
Certainly.
Learning?
Always.
But becoming somebody artificial just to qualify for something?
No thank you.
There is tremendous peace in knowing:
If it belongs with who I genuinely am, let it come.
If it does not, let it pass.
That is not giving up.
That is getting clear.
Transparency makes life lighter because there are fewer disguises to carry.
Eventually, you discover something beautiful:
Being known for who you really are feels much better than being admired for somebody you are not.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
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