Page 327 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

Authentic individual happiness is attained by facing up to the truths about yourself, accepting yourself for who you are now. You are not the thing you did, or
words you said in a past life. You are you now. By accepting yourself and forgiving yourself you can move forward, better equipped for the growth you will
inevitably experience.

Authentic relationship happiness is attained by both parties facing up to their individual truths together, accepting and forgiving if appropriate and moving
forward with a clean slate.

Invariably, the depth, value and strength of your relationships will be directly related to the degree of open honest self disclosure you have shared with each
person. The longer a relationship goes on with denial, deception and dishonesty, the more it will hurt the other person when the disclosure is finally made. But
only from that point forward, can the relationship blossom into its full potential.

Clearly, you must decide the appropriateness of the disclosure. It wouldn’t serve any useful purpose disclosing a personal matter to a business colleague who
you have no personal relationship with. In other words, the most important person to whom a disclosure should be made is the person to whom it concerns.

Better the pain and growth of facing disclosures together, trusting that the other person will understand, accept and forgive (if appropriate) than perpetuate a
pretence of a relationship. The alternative is to let the situation snowball, where one white lie mounts up on top of another, and the other party thinks he knows
the real you, and behaves in accordance with what you have led him to believe. He is only following the map you have given him, you can hardly be surprised
if he keeps getting lost along the way.

In practice and reality, we are entitled to our personal privacy. We may not wish to disclose everything about ourselves to another, even to our significant other.
You have a right to that privacy, even within your closest relationships. A certain amount of mystery and intrigue is attractive in any relationship, but only you
can determine the acceptable differences between mystery and dishonesty.

Let me pose a few questions about your relationships:

1.Think of any relationship in your life. Pick the response that is most true for you about the quality of communication that exists or existed. Is it:

a) Completely honest, free flowing communication, open with no deceptions, masks or dark secrets or
b) Contains elements of poor communication, some degree of deception, somewhat or significantly obstructed by mask wearing and an element
of dishonesty

2. Describe the needy-ness that exists in your relationship, is it:

a) Free or almost free of neediness, we are both independent people in our own right, who do not express a great deal of needy-ness. Page327
b) Contains some or a lot of needy behaviour, either from myself or the other person