Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Hide

Why do I say, “Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Hide?” I have found that the reason people lie, sugar-coat, pretend, and withhold is they are afraid of something happening that they won’t be able to handle –something they don’t feel confident enough to handle—things like conflict or getting themselves in trouble or being misunderstood or being disliked. Fears like this run people—so they aren’t free. They fear these things because as children they did get in trouble when they displeased the big people. So they became conditioned (conditioned like Pavlov’s dog) to avoid any situation that might get them into trouble or have someone be unhappy with them. Over a lifetime of catering to your fears, your world becomes smaller and smaller. The size of the world you feel confident to deal with shrinks in proportion to how much you “baby” yourself by hiding, withholding, and pretending. Your freedom to live your full human potential gets more and more compromised.

To re-build your confidence, start by noticing when you hide, sugar-coat, pretend, and withhold. Feel the fear that is underneath these “damage-control” behaviors. Usually you’ll find things like fear of rejection, fear of not looking good, fear of being misunderstood, fear of getting someone upset, hurt, or angry. If you can honestly look at your fears, you have taken a big step toward healing them. In future blogs I’ll describe how to go deeper into healing your fears. But the biggest, most important step is admitting you have these conditioned fears and noticing examples, on a daily basis, of how powerful your past conditioning is.