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Saturday, February 8, 2025

Be True

There is one thing above all others that matters today in this time of confusion, doubt, fear, manipulation and deceit. It is a force for change superior to all others and without it we will fail.

It is also something that is accessible to each one of us, it cannot be conferred, it is something that we must embrace personally and intimately, it can literally work no other way. Nor is it mysterious or complex, although it is challenging, but challenging in the most healthy way possible.

It is this: Be True.

What does that mean? It means, in thought, word and deed (action) be sincere. Let all that you are and do speak as one, together. Do not say one thing and mean another. Do not promise something but do another. If you fail to do something that you meant to do, that you changed your mind about, that you promised yet failed to deliver, own it. Make no excuses and if you apologise, be sincere.

Another word for this is being congruent, be in symmetry with yourself. It will shine out from you, it will speak for itself, noticeably. Others will perceive it with clarity. To put it another way, others will know you’re not shitting them. They will not feel that they have to be constantly on their guard around you, or that you are a threat to their sense, reason and being.

It is about being strong and vulnerable at the same time without being conflicted. We are all fallible, we all make mistakes. Infallibility is not for us, as the saying goes, to err is human. That is great strength. In learning to walk a child falls over a lot, but every child who has the potential to walk and is not disabled in some way, will walk, and learn the power of walking. Only a monster mocks a child for falling over, yet how often as we grow has mockery for failure affected us deeply such that we feel we must hide our weaknesses and become risk averse? In so doing, in ceasing to try, we become weaker than we really and truly are.

Being true is taking the risk of living true, it exposes us, it is therefore scary. Being scared is fine even when it really does not feel fine. Being scared needs time, give it time, allow it to be and in so doing it will pass. Out of the struggle comes someone stronger than they were before.

Find all those things that feed you and inspire you, surround yourself with everything that you find wholesome and encouraging. I’ve added a link to an incredible YouTube video of Kate Tempest reciting her poem ‘Hold Your Own’ at Glastonbury. What she’s saying in her own sincerity is ‘be true’. There’s a moment in the video, as the camera pans the crowd, a woman is spontaneously and openly sobbing and cannot hold back. That is true, that’s the power.

We are living in transformative times, a time of change vital to our survival, to meet that challenge it is ourselves that are challenged and it is ourselves that must be transformed.

One of the most transformative things we can learn is to surrender, to lay ourselves open, to sacrifice our egos, to not offer any resistance to the process of transformation, and mean it.

The other part of the expression, to ‘err is human’ is ‘to forgive, divine’. Maybe you’ve never thought about that in all the heaped up stuff of the past and (quite likely) present, of weaknesses and failings, and that great monster, shame and its nasty mean spirited friend, guilt. I came to know myself as a shame based person, cringing and flushing in hot, hot shame, that I really did not want to look at. I learnt that I could not change the past, but I could forgive my self and thereby, live and cease to be a prisoner of shame.

You may not feel you’ve found yourself yet, or even like yourself very much and not know who you really are. Who you really are is inside you, always has been. Maybe it is time to find yourself and become friends, and maybe, given a little time, to learn to love yourself with compassion, gentleness, kindness and tender loving care.

We can truly change the world, but maybe the place to start is a little bit closer to home.

Kate Tempest – Hold Your Own – Glastonbury 2015

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