"What is uttered from the heart alone, will win the hearts of others to your own."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Last week, I came clean about having a bulimia relapse after the breakup of my 3-year relationship, the breakup with my business partner/friend, moving to a new home, and turning 40. Coming clean was partly in line with my New Year's resolution to "Be Uplifting" and to be consistent in "walking my talk."
By making the confessions, the one thing I really wanted to show people is that making life changes is a process filled with both successes and failures. Even if you are experiencing setbacks, you are probably still coming out a winner in your healing curve. Healing is also a process filled with taking risks and moving out of your comfort zone in order to become the healthy you, you want to be. My personal belief is that the biggest roadblock to people losing all that extra weight and keeping it off, or to healing from an illness or dis-ease, is dealing with the "secrets" we are holding inside that are literally eating us up and making us sick.
One of the hardest things to do in your healing process is being very honest with the people in your life about where you are at in your healing process. Why is that?
One of the main reasons people don't come clean or avoid telling the truth is because fear of judgment and loss of love and respect. You become afraid that if you do tell people your "dirty little secret" that they will judge you, abandon you, think you are weak, reject you, or lose respect or love for you.
You just may be fearing your own fears
What I have learned in confessing my relapse is that really what I
feared most was my own fears because what I got from people was nothing but love, support, compassion, and more respect (which I was not expecting at all.) Yes, I may have lost some readers who chose to leave
and not to comment, and yes, some readers may never look at me the same
way because of feeling betrayed or thinking that I'm hypocritical, and
I can accept that. I can't please everyone and I can't be perfect. This
coming from a recovering "perfect girl" is a big deal in my own
personal growth and growth as a business person. All I can do is be
myself, and make better choices in the future. The person I want to be is someone who is
healthy, not perfect.
..."Who are you living your life for, yourself or other people?" ...
The piece of advice I can give to those of you wanting to come clean yourselves with your own loved ones, your readers, or your customers is that if you truly speak from your heart, not your ego or your need to be perfect, but from a place of love and your desire for taking responsibility for your actions, then whatever you have to say will ultimately come out okay in the long run. Initially, the outcome could be much better than you expected, or it could be utter disaster, pain, conflict, and ugliness. But once the storm settles, and it will eventually, the result will be freedom, relief, and growth. Because you don't know what the outcome will be, but you do it anyway, is called bravery. Coming clean is an act of bravery and courage, and you are fully capable and worthy of that distinction. Your intention though truly has to come from a place of wanting the higher good of all involved.
"But my situation is different than yours."
Now some of you are shaking your heads and going, "Oh no Steph! I
don't think so. You don't know my loved ones. You don't know my secret.
My confession is really bad, and it will devastate and destroy all
involved. I can't take that chance. It may have worked for you, but it won't work for me."
My first question to you would be, with all do respect, "Who are you living your life for, yourself or other people?" The fact that you have some ache in you to come clean is your soul talking to you trying to tell you that you can't live like this anymore. You can't live with this pain bottled inside you which is growing and festering and affecting how you live, love, and grow. You can't live anymore harboring this un-truth.
This is why you are overeating, drinking too much, purging, spending money you don't have, or whatever un-loving thing you can think of because you're trying to silence that gnawing ache. You want that ache to go away, but really the cold hard reality is, the only way that inner turbulence will go away is if you get real and take the steps to be responsible. Look at every great tragic novel, movie, or play ever written. If the main character had just come clean the soonest they could, they could have avoided a lifetime of tragedy, pain, and heartache. Romeo and Juliet would probably still be alive had they come clean with each other and their families. They still may be banished from their homeland and inheritance, but they would be alive and together.
Other people will be hurt and devastated
"But my confession will devastate other people, and I can't do that
to them." In reality, your real concern is what kind of devastation they will inflict upon you. We're being real now. You really won't know how the other person(s) will react
until you step up to the plate. Yes, you
will be the recipient of a response for better or worse, but this is part of you being
accountable and responsible for your own life choices. In the future,
coming clean will help you make better choices because you will have a
better understanding of the ramifications, and you will have a better
understanding of why you did what you did in the first place.
Coming clean is not easy at all, and it is not even a quick fix. So yeah, it's all out in the open now, and you feel relieved about that, but now there is the next steps. How you handle the next steps will be a part of learning more about your own character and showing others what you are made of. In my whole life, I have never known or seen anyone (in my circle granted I don't know everyone in the world) who did not respect someone who told or lived their truth. Now,that doesn't mean the person gets to avoid persecution or judgment, but how can you not have respect for someone who despite all the pressure around them to "fit in" still chooses to be who they really are, and chooses to live a life in integrity within themselves?
Start with small confessions
For those of you wanting to come clean to start off the new year,
but are too afraid to confess the "big" stuff, try coming clean with
something relatively small? For example, tell your boyfriend that you
really want to exchange that gliterry sweater with the teddy bears on
it he got you for Christmas for something more your style like that hot
dress at Bebe's you've been eyeing.You avoided coming clean about not
liking his gift because you didn't want to hurt his feelings. First
tell him that you love and appreciated that he was so thoughtful to get
you a Christmas gift in the first place, and then let him know that the
hot dress from Bebe's would be something that both of you could equally
enjoy. The point is to start coming clean with small things, and then
work you courage up to the bigger issues. In the end, you will progress
much farther along your healing process, and feel more like you are
truly living the life you want.
