Positive Energy Guide

A trusting nature is considered fetching; attractive. What makes trust so appealing? How do we increase trust without becoming too vulnerable?

Trust has several different faces. Healthy Trust: When we trust ourselves to effectively evaluate and respond to other people, being trusting reflects emotional health. We are able to allow others to take actions that displease or frustrate us without taking this personally. Genuine trust is attractive to people who are ready for healthy relationships. We telegraph confidence because we trust ourselves to resolve issues.

Unhealthy Trust: The face of wound-based trust is different. If we cannot trust ourselves to represent our needs and keep ourselves safe we tend to go into the either/or experience (see Part 1). We may seek to achieve or maintain relationship by extending blanket “trust.” When the alternative is distrust we may want to hold onto the “trust” and overlook indications that trust is warranted. Along with the need to be liked, approved of, wanted, or kept safe by another person, we might give away “trust” to try and make someone feel a particular way about us, or about his or her self.

Such efforts almost always backfire by causing us to distrust ourselves. Unhealthy trust is attractive to people who are not emotionally healthy. Excessive vulnerability advertises that it is safe to take advantage, care-take, or do both, according to the person’s nature.

This post series began with a comment by a friend about “placing love and trust in persons who have not earned it.” Her thinking is a good starting place. She is taking responsibility for learning, and recognizes that a process needs to occur for trust to develop. She has noticed that we need to carefully observe the way others treat us. Let’s take some involved concepts a step farther:

Words can be powerful. The word “earning” can introduce complications. Expecting someone to earn trust smacks of making them work for it while you hold trust ransom, like a prize for performance. Trustworthy sorts shouldn’t have to work hard to prove themselves to us. They can simply be themselves and allow us to observe who they are and what they do. We see them demonstrate behaviors that build trust. That is less about earning than about living through a variety of situations and seeing whether they respond with natural and consistent integrity.

My friend may not have fallen into this word trap, but I hear a lot of emotional-wound-talk to the effect that so-and-so had to EARN IT! This was past the point of no return for the relationships concerned.

Almost everyone wants to be trusted. Immediate, unqualified trust is tempting. We want to give it freely like love. We want to give it over completely and get the establishing-it-part beyond us so we can enjoy absolute trust and feel safe and all that good stuff. But life and people change from circumstance to circumstance. Even for highly intuitive people, real trust is built brick by brick.

Unconsidered trust is like living on credit–inflated. We can extend trust like a line of credit, and increase it as trust develops. If we extend trust way out ahead of actual, direct experience we make ourselves vulnerable. Yes, vulnerability IS essential to intimacy. Healthy vulnerability; openness. There is a difference between healthy vulnerability and leaving ourselves open to being used by ignoring signs and signals, substituting wishful thinking for clear observation. Hurt and disillusionment that follow inflated hopes are like penalties and fines for missing payments. What we need to pay is: Attention.

Sustainable, flexible, trust is full of possibility. It is a learned skill.

In Part 3 we’ll begin to look into specifics about Developing Trust.

What do YOU trust in yourself?
Can you trust yourself to negotiate honestly for your needs in your relationships?

Trust carries a positive energy that allows relationships to thrive and promotes growth in special ways that cannot occur without it. In this post series we will explore trust. Learning to discern the genuine energy and experience of trust from fear-based hopefulness makes a great foundation.

As ever, grafting a positive image or energy on top of a root twisted with issues is fast and easy. Real and lasting mastery come from learning to establish the genuine thing—in this case trust–starting at the root. Let’s take a look at real trust and the dynamics that compromise it.

This post series builds on the previous “Inner Work” and “Betrayal” series. If you have trust issues or are serious about working on yourself, find these series by scrolling to bottom of the Home page and clicking on “3” and “2.”

Trust is a reliable, solid, clear feeling, not flighty, flimsy, or ungrounded. When we trust we feel supported. We experience trusted relationships as adequately defined. We know where we stand. When we trust we may also feel respectable or respected.

Distrust may be simply factual—an observation without emotional weight. You know you do not trust the person, accept the situation, and base your actions on the way things are without distress.

Let’s begin with basics for understanding issues with trust:

Distrust complicated by emotional issues and frustrated desires is a different beast. Factual distrust now carries the freight of negative emotion. Unresolved distrust can linger around as suspicion, or escalate to paranoia. It can feel slithery, dirty, painful, unfair, vulnerable, and so forth. Emotional distrust usually involves wanting someone to be different than they actually are. Events from your past add intensity.

HOW we think enters in. Thinking of trust in all-or-nothing terms probably implies influence from inner wounds. Young children think in either/or. Either/or thinking is therefore a really good clue that an issue has been triggered. (See Inner Work series for details.)

Blanket (total or absolute) distrust offers an escape from the endless and exhausting mental and emotional processing characteristic of suspicion. If blanket trust is the only alternative, distrust appears to be the only safe stance. Thinking in opposites can also give trust the allure of a peaceful island in a sea of seething distrust and uncertainty. The more uncomfortable your distrust the more inviting it seems to push it all away and just trust.

In either/or thinking we may unconsciously prefer total distrust to uncertainty. Uncertainty is scarier than slamming the door to possibility by being sure something or someone is no good. Either/or thinking is a hedge against uncertainty and insecurity. It occludes options that bring up potential uncertainty. The false certainty of black and white substitutes for the clarity developed by learning to recognize subtlety and to manage uncertainty.

In Part 2 we delve into Healthy and Unhealthy Trust and we start to explore avenues to healthy trust.

Where do YOU go inside when you wonder whether someone can be trusted? How do you manage your uncertainty?

“Let despair and disillusionment ravish the garden of your heart. You will replenish it once again with the seedlings of self-sufficiency and contentment. Life never is, never was, and never will be anybody’s Beloved.” ~Meher Baba

If you feel disillusioned, seek and discover advantage in losing illusion. (See previous posts on Disillusionment.) Sharpen your sense of what is real for you right now.

Release resistance. This reduces pain. Accepting losses makes them more bearable.

Remember that simply having a body and a life is an opportunity. If you were plopped down in different country with nothing but the clothes on your back the days you have left would still be a gift.

Allow yourself plenty of time alone. If you need to, allow yourself to retreat from social life for a period of healing. Give yourself time to reorient, slowly and gently. Make loose plans down the line to do something you can look forward to when you think you will be ready.

Avoid making anything up–about yourself, about others, about your state. Stay with your process without labeling it as a negative state such as “depression.”

(I love this suggestion.) Let people know, “I’m a little IN right now,” rather than defining yourself as depressed, not wanting to connect, etc. This gives you room to feel, express, and grow.

Release your goals like an out-breath. You can pick them up in another season.

When you’re ready, set up short periods of simple interaction that doesn’t ask much of you, such as sitting with someone while they do a household task.

Keep to basics as much as possible: Sleep, walk, eat. Nourish, nurture, get light, get massage.

Focus on details in nature, like flowers, clouds, waves, the leaves of a tree responding to wind. Spend time in your garden or pick flowers if you like.

Release self-blame about being betrayed. You may have had cues or clues. You may have had inklings or premonitions. You may have ignored your guidance or felt shamed for doubting someone. You may have been clueless and feel stupid. Feeding these feelings distracts you from doing effective Inner Work and moving forward.

Ask not What caused this but What can I use it for.

Take breaks from thinking. If you cannot stop your brain, listen to audio books.

Find the sweet spot between avoiding feeling and indulging feeling. Allow feeling to surface into your awareness and run through your body. Giving sensation to feeling allows it to express through the body, completing its process. Do not dramatize it or keep it active by repeatedly reliving the past. Feel it fully and let it flow out as you feel it.

Acknowledge pain with compassion and use it to craft your inner world. Pain is a keen tool.

Use music or art to keep your expressive flow open.

Be compassionate to yourself in choosing with whom you discuss personal issues. Gently decline unsolicited advice.

Rearrange anything in your home or office that has become stagnant. Clean things out, throw things out, wear different colors, change your bedspread, cut your hair.

Practice forgiveness—but first accept your grief. Forgiveness is glorious. Premature forgiveness can be a spiritual bypass. Any spiritual practice used to avoid feeling is an agent of denial. Forgiving does not mean that you condone what someone has done. It means that you release claims and resentment to obtain peace.

Positive focuses for the mind:

• In what ways does this betrayal serve my best interests?
• What illusions am I releasing?
• How does my orientation change without them?
• What needs am I able to satisfy gracefully if I consider my resources?
• What positive qualities and values are important to me in relationships going forward?
• What new possibilities are opening for me?
• What am I newly free and able to do?

Be loyal to yourself. This will bring more happiness than trying to maintain relationships with people who have issues with loyalty.

Last time I was betrayed I actually had some positive feelings about the experience. I sensed that the betrayal was a real opportunity to support myself fully, and even to accept support from others, who noticed the betrayal and stepped forward on their own. I felt a breath of relief as I released a burden I had been carrying. The burden consisted of false hope that a close friend would allow himself to trust our connection.

Inside You
They say, We cannot go barefooted in that courtyard.
There is nothing but thorns through there.
Love answers, The thorns are inside you.
Be silent, and pull what hurts out of your loving’s foot.

Then you will see gardens and secluded rose bowers,
and they will all be inside you.

~Mevlana Rumi (Translation by Coleman Barks)

What are YOUR best tips for emotional renewal and recovery?

Please share this post with those who need support.

Inner strength, peace and clarity of mind result from knowing and accepting who we are. Self knowledge gives us the ability to chose actions with which we are wholeheartedly aligned. Moving beyond betrayal depends on knowing what drives us. Whether or not we have inner conflict, we can make loving choices when we are in touch with ourselves.

Even principled, powerful men or women with upper-level business and social skills sometimes experience themselves as being unable to say “no” in more personal relationships. Intimacy can set off submerged issues. Those who fear intimacy feel conflicted about it. Part of them longs to be close while another powerful part works to undermine that intimacy, to reject the vulnerability. Control issues can make the fearful part of them resent or even hate those who love them or come too close for “making” them feel vulnerable.

A person of fairly good character, in conflict about vulnerability, may resist expressing uncomfortable feelings until fantasies of acting out blossom into actions that betray others. Efforts to act honorable can contribute to denying negative feelings and they override candid expression until their discomfort busts their seams. Then the built-up energy is expressed in inappropriate behavior.

People do not betray because we are doing something wrong. They are just as likely to betray if we do something right! And if they do, you can bet they are in conflict. Here are two examples:

• When we are able to be more vulnerable and open than another person, they may feel threatened if we get close.
• If you are virtuous it can bring up conflict in others. Those who want the feeling of virtue may judge themselves because they cannot live up to what they see in you, like alcoholics who caustically criticize people who do not drink.

To understand betrayal, accept and pay special attention to your own tendency to betray. If you are honest with yourself–and even if you never actually act it out because you recognize the consequences–you may be able to find a whiff of temptation to betray. Sniff out your conflicts and you can act intentionally instead of acting out.

• What forces, fears, feelings, drives, and conflicts operate within you when betrayal crosses your mind?
• What part of you feels weak?
• What do you actually need in those moments?
• What would you have had to admit, to yourself or to another person, to be open about your needs?
• Do you need the other person’s approval?
• What, exactly, are you afraid of?
• What did you tell yourself that blocked up your compassion?
• What is the most loving way you can meet your needs?
• Are you willing to feel compassion for your weaknesses?
• How can you use the challenge of sorting out betrayal as an exercise to develop your personal values and clarity?

Which of the above questions do YOU find most useful? Why?

What can YOU do to make your holidays more peaceful and joyful?
Let’s look at ways to deepen positive feeling.

Shared rituals build anticipation and allow us to focus together in meaningful ways. They develop intimacy.

What IS a ritual? Anything we repeat with the intention of developing special, meaningful energy is a ritual.

Living rituals differ significantly from rituals that have turned into automatic habits or empty actions. What is the difference? Living ritual is meaningful experience. Empty ritual may carry sentimentality or memory, but lacks the freshness, vivid clarity, and sense of immediacy that characterize living ritual.

How does living ritual occur? Focused intention and quality attention bring life to ritual, generating special energy ritual can contain. The ritual holds and carries this energy. Living ritual gathers meaning as energy builds up through repetition. If it feels automatic or meaningless, or empty, bring yourself to it fully, or set it aside.

What is it about the ritual that makes it important? Being in touch with our feelings and with this special energy built from intention evokes our sense of meaning. Whether we do something one time or repeat it countless times we can breathe life into our actions. How? By bringing ourselves fully into the moment, focusing on the meaning of our experience, and staying open to feel.

Even when we are not able to feel at the moment, willingness to experience meaning allows a ritual to serve as a doorway for possibility. A regularly repeated ritual can hold open a place and time for meaningful experience. Another time, when we are open to feeling and meaning, the ritual provides a time and place to turn our attention inward and feel it.

Re-Creating Family Rituals:
Some families sustain ritualized activities they once enjoyed long after they have ceased to take joy in them. Discuss with your family what activities feel meaningful or create ease and joy. Make it a point to discover what is meaningful and important to each person.

Plan time to gracefully allow for meaningful activity. When needs differ, allowing some time apart for important rituals can contribute to harmonious togetherness for the rest of the day. For example, if one person loves to watch football and hates religion and another loves to go to Mass and hates football, tape the game do these things during the same time frame, with those who enjoy it. Come together before and after this break and enjoy events that bond you through mutual meaning or pleasure.

When you agree on things you enjoy or find meaningful, pick times for them and designate these activities as holiday rituals. It’s okay to try new things and alter them over time. For example, I used to make bouillabaisse (fancy seafood soup) on Christmas Eve. Hey, it’s red. And I served it with a green salad. I got disappointed that there’s not much fresh seafood in the winter, and decided to leave that pleasure for summer. Gingerbread for breakfast is a favorite food ritual on Christmas morning. I’ve altered it to make it gluten free.

Single?:
If you are single, you can create rituals on your own. As a single person I have learned swap rituals according to my energy level and the availability of loved ones. Every year I ask myself which rituals feel most meaningful to me. I make it a point to allow for some quiet, reflective time. On Christmas I intentionally notice that it IS Christmas. Whether or not one believes is merely mental. Sacred energy is present owing to the focus of those who care. I sense into the quality of the day, and seek to sense the sacred.

I might go to midnight Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral, or read spiritual texts. I may take a candle lit bath with fragrant oils, go for a long walk somewhere I usually don’t take time to go, or simply enjoy a break from my work ethic. I like to take my friend’s kids to see the best Christmas lights. One year I cooked a turkey dinner on my own, with wild rice, mushroom and ginger stuffing. It seemed odd but felt like the thing to do. The next few days were full of unplanned company, and we loved the leftovers!

Sharing what we appreciate in one another can make fine ritual, given a time and place.

Give yourself and your family peace and joy by focusing on what you find most meaningful.

What ARE YOUR best or favorite ways to make holidays special? Please share.

While one of my brightest and most loyal-hearted clients wrestled with an inner conflict about his marriage, I had an interesting window into our humanness. As we explored feelings, actions, and possibilities it stuck me that we were skimming the water line between the airy realm of the mind and the deeper waters of the heart.

I noticed in a new and immediate way that these two realms have quite different physics, laws, subtle structures, and sensations. I sensed almost physically the way these different “realities” touch–like the great expanse of sky kissing the sea, stirring together surface-to-surface during storms but never merging or become like one another.

I was tracking my client’s buffers—the residues of trauma; invisible walls that keep threatening feelings and memories apart from awareness like a sheet of one-way glass in a fish tank. His buffers were thin. Like pointing from a boat into the depth; at certain angles of light we could see in. From the realm of mind we watched the movement of emotion like fish beneath the surface. He had enough awareness to stay with his feelings while using his skills to go up to bat for his needs. He remained loyal.

On the heels of these observations I saw the way unprocessed trauma–with thicker and more numerous buffers—can make balancing thought and feeling nearly impossible. Buffers cause thought and feeling to alternate without awareness, so they cannot modify one another--different realms a mirror surface away. Our motivations can be invisible to us even while they take shape in action.

Conflicts build up inner pressure when parts of us do not have a voice. The actions that spring from these hidden parts are not consistent with our stated values. Frightening feelings and unthinkable motivations activate the buffers that make us unaware, turning these hidden parts into exiles. So unresolved trauma can make us emotionally and spiritually deaf to the effects of our own actions. Survival mechanisms have no principles.

Reclaiming the brighter legacy of our humanity by becoming self-aware results from courageous Inner Work. As we explored in my post series on this important topic, we can develop an unshakable habit of deep yet detached self-observation.

Yet even Inner Work does not guarantee that we integrate buffered material. I am thinking of someone who excels in self-observation yet fails to apply it when triggered. He has an allergy to psychology, denouncing it frequently in favor of spirituality as a superior practice.

The role of psychology is to assist us to approach and manage the trauma hidden beneath our buffers. Once we are able to feel, identify, and interact with the issues that trigger us, drive us to dissociate, or make us act against our values, Inner Work on its own may be enough. If we cannot approach buffered issues we need frank, experienced assistance to reflect us to ourselves and free our inner exiles.

We all know people who do what they think or fear is expected of them to hold on to relationships. They resent their weakness while blaming the other person and feeling controlled. When we lack the inner strength to remain loyal to our own needs, feelings, ethics, boundaries or beliefs, attempting to be loyal to others brings up traumatic inner conflicts. These conflicts usually originate in childhood and reside behind buffers.

We may experience the other person as interfering with our ability to take care of ourselves or get our needs met. What is usually going on here is a lack of self-honesty and awareness about real needs, and about who is responsible for our care. We can ask others to participate in meeting our needs, but not to read our minds or to step in without a direct request.

Even in actual situations that force us to choose between our own needs and those of another, we can be forthright, sincere, and loving.

What do YOU do when you feel like someone is stopping you from doing what you want to do? Can you take responsibility for your feelings and remain loving even as you free yourself?

When we are loyal to ourselves, we are able to be loyal to others. At a very basic level, betraying others occurs after first betraying one’s self. When we are out of touch with our real needs–especially if we sell ourselves out and do what we think others want us to do–we are much more likely to betray. Betrayal can be a skewed attempt at self-care, with a hostile twist.

Betrayal can be blatant, or diabolically subtle. Cheap and obvious betrayal like cheating on one’s spouse or misrepresentation in business may reflect low standards and values. More shocking are betrayals from those who believe themselves to be upholding positive values. Some go to great lengths to convince themselves they are taking care of themselves or doing something emotionally healthy while creating real life dramas in which they betray.

I recently watched an intelligent professional, able to manage and guide businesses, who appeared powerful and spiritually motivated, betray a dear friend when an honest conversation would have achieved her aims without causing pain.

When betrayal seems out of character, what else is going on?

When someone betrays you it reflects on their ethics, maturity, level of spiritual development, and ability to sustain compassion. It is not a reflection on your worth, or even a matter of whether or not they love you. It is more a matter of whether they love themselves enough to face their own issues honestly.

There are psychological reasons why we betray. Issues mask feelings and motivations that the primary (conscious) personality feels a need to deny. “Triggers”—experiences that re-ignite these buried traumas—make us behave in irrational and unconscious ways. We are so much more complicated than our conscious experience.

Betrayal involves control. The betrayer keeps the betrayed person in the dark while s/he devises and starts to execute a plan, letting consequences shock or shatter as these acts set up a drama on the stage of life. This ploy is sought to ensure that the betrayed has no power. At some level of experience the person who betrays feels powerless, and may imagine that betrayal is a powerful act.

The false power of betrayal emotionally bankrupts those who rely on it. An emotionally healthy person with inner strength can and will discuss with close associates any decisions that could hurt or shock them, in advance of acting on these decisions. Out of respect they give the other person time and information, allowing them to prepare for changes.

Rational as I am, I ask myself why we do not import the skills polished in business into more intimate relations, to negotiate respectfully for what long to receive. Before risking damage to our connections with others and our self-respect, why do we not till the richest type of soil for what we’d love to grow, or woo those we love as we did initially to win intimacy? The careful, fruitful efforts we extended before we felt entitled to receive were so much more effective than acting out. But we may not be as intentional as that, or as aware of what drives us.

Betraying someone we love IS self-betrayal. We are connected. Hurting a loved one hurts our own heart.

Can you sense inside YOU the part of yourself that would betray under any possible set of circumstances? What does that part feel like in your body? How do you talk to yourself when that part rears its head?

Besides inviting joy to roost nearby, one of the most positive things we can do is to learn use difficult experiences to develop compassion and to transform ourselves. This challenging and advanced topic can deepen all-purpose insight and also support those who struggle with betrayal. Please stay with me.

Betrayal is one of the most difficult–and rewarding–emotional experiences to process positively. This makes it important to effectively resolve. My heart goes out to those who are going through betrayal. Inner experience can get so intense that even dear friends feel out of their depths and pull away, isolating those who need support. I offer this series from love.

What makes betrayal so hard to sort out?

Betrayal can be complex and confusing. Betrayal may involve spoken and unspoken issues of conduct, boundaries, belief, expectation, and entitlement.

Betrayal can be crushing and confusing. Disillusionment is usually part of the mix. (See Disillusionment as a Positive Process, Part 1 and 2) So is abandonment, literal or emotional.

Betrayal is a real opportunity to clean out our emotional closets and discover who we really are and how we really want to live.

Being betrayed increases your need for support while the doubts it breeds make you unbearably fragile. You may need help but fear advice and be too vulnerable to take it in. Advice may make you feel worse. You may have no idea who to trust, how to trust, and whether to trust. If you also wonder whether you are somehow to blame or feel shame you will be even more sensitive. Too much is triggered to sort it out alone, yet other people’s opinions can make you feel worse.

Betrayal can shake down deeply held beliefs, challenge our sense of self, and make us question our actions, principles, perception, values, relationships, and self-esteem. If we do the trench work of sorting ourselves out we can shed an old skin and come out renewed.

Sorting out betrayal requires that we distinguish between several different experiences. Betrayal can be:

• an incidental or accidental act someone takes due to lack of understanding or ethics
• a spiteful or vindictive act, intentionally unkind
• an unfortunate consequence of changing life paths when unexpressed needs have been handled without frankness and consideration

When you FEEL betrayed, what is happening? Allow your feelings to wash through you, feeling them in your body. Then aim to view the acts that occurred objectively, without allowing your emotions to color your interpretation. Alternate objective observation with pure feeling if you can.

These questions may be useful. (The answers can be “both”):

• Have you interpreted someone’s acts as betrayal, or are their acts betrayal by their origin, energy, and nature?
• Did you perceive the dark, shifty energy associated with betrayal, or do you feel betrayed due to unresolved issues?
• Was there any point in your circumstances when you might have known and stopped the betrayal before it happened? Without blame, ask yourself what was happening inside you when you did not or could not act.

The question, “Did I cause this,” can arise. Soul searching–stimulated by betrayal–can develop truthful self-observation and personal clarity. Self-blame is useless. Taking responsibility is not the same as blame.

Processing the complexities of betrayal can require a lot of thinking. Thinking too much can interfere with feeling and expressing the grief, shock, loss, sadness, anger and other feelings that betrayal evokes. Recovery takes time and compassion. Make room for both thought and feeling.

If you get stuck on “Did I cause this,” try substituting these more-useful questions:
“What role have I played that may have contributed to this situation?”
“Have I been loyal to myself in this relationship?”
“Is there something in my life that this experience can motivate me to change for the better?”

The last post will contain rubber-hits-the-road ways to get through serious and shattering betrayal. The next few explore what is going on inside that leads us to betray or be betrayed.

What have YOU discovered about betrayal? Have you been able to find any benefit in going through it?

Please share this text series with those who will find it useful.

The homegrown sweetness of sincerity draws less attention than enthusiasm–but its frank simplicity may outshine enthusiasm in the long run.

Sincerity makes our energy smooth, open to feeling and meaning. Energy goes out from us into the world and returns to us with situations, people, and events. Sincerity powerfully crafts what comes back to fit with who we are and what we are ready to take on. Sincere energy moves us into life simply and directly.

The pure mirror of sincerity allows us to see one other’s heart and intentions. Lack of artifice creates a clean, direct, wholesome interface. Sincerity is like an open flow or a portal that invites connection. Sincerity is a gateway through which the universe can interface with us.

In my early twenties I met a martial artist with astonishing talent. He positioned me exactly, moving my body parts a fraction of an inch this way or that, straightening or expanding me into the stance he had asked me to maintain. Suddenly I was shot through with energy like liquid lightening.

I had no funds then to pay for instruction. The friend who introduced me to this master told me I did not need money if I had what it took to work with this teacher. He set up an interview.

I was amazed by the energy and beauty in the room where we met. The master declined taking me on. With respect, intention, and presence he told me that I was not sincere enough. I lacked the dedication to practice intensively and stick with it. I asked for his contact information should I wish to return, but the opportunity was gone. Yet his words about sincerity cut through my disappointment. They entered my heart and took up residence.

I still understand that sincerity is a key that opens special situations.

I do not share this story as a regret. My journey at that juncture drew me to live in a spiritual center. I was sincere in my involvement, correctly placed, and still draw upon what I learned.

The beauty of sincerity is that it cannot be manufactured, or bidden by will. Sincerity is natural response. We can uncover it in ourselves, make room for it, and permit ourselves to express it, but we cannot create sincerity. Sincerity can be an attribute (part of you) or an expression (showing the feeling of the moment). Either way it is springs from authenticity.

Sincerity has a special grace. That grace is powerful, opening hearts and opportunities as our own heart is sincerely open to making a full response to the possibilities life presents.

Some substitute enthusiasm for sincerity. Enthusiasm comes across as highly positive. It may or may not be totally sincere. Sincerity implies heartfelt willingness to commit. A sincere response can lead to life changes or change who we take ourselves to be. Enthusiasm can be practiced for social approval. Enthusiasm may fasten on each shiny new possibility without the ballast of a sincere heart.

There is a difference between the heightened interest of enthusiasm and the committed willingness of sincerity. Enthusiasm may enter situations or relationships full steam ahead only to turn the same, warm attention elsewhere when challenges emerge. If less flashy, sincerity proves to be a more grounded and sustained state over time.

Pay attention to any opportunity to express completely sincerity. Sincere moments are usually lucid moments, when we are present to life in authentic feeling. Sincerity is inherently meaningful. You can make your life more meaningful by expressing your sincerity.

What have YOU noticed about your energy and your experience when you are totally sincere?

The purpose of this post series is to learn how to become loyal to yourself—the cornerstone of a positive life. Like the mythic journeys of heros, the prize of genuine loyalty is won by journeying into your inner underworld and returning with the self-awareness to carry real virtue into daily life.

Genuine Loyalty is the first post of a detailed exploration of betrayal. Betrayal is one of the most intense of common human experiences. This makes it useful as a vehicle for transformation. Whether or not you encounter betrayal, the observations, principles, and exercises in this series will stimulate insight and Inner Work. We will approach betrayal from a number of different angles. The last post is a series of practical tips for managing life when you feel shattered.

Let’s begin with loyalty—the end of a successful journey for those who use betrayal to transform rather than wasting suffering or going numb:

Loyalty can bring peace and joy to life by sustaining close relationships and expressing personal honor.

What is loyalty? Let’s make a distinction between loyalty as a rigid practice, based on an external sense of honor, and loyalty based on authentic feeling.

Basing loyalty on externals means you behave in ways that fit with the requirements of your contracts. You do what you think is right– based on how others will interpret your actions. Following rigid codes of behavior based on external approval feels binding. It can lead you to suppress the thoughts and feelings that conflict with these codes. You may feel bound by this sort of loyalty even as you choose to maintain it. When internal feelings and external rules collide you may feel tense and restricted.

Authentic loyalty is less about doing what it takes to protect or maintain your investment in a relationship and more about honoring the loving connection you feel inside–to yourself as well as toward someone you respect. This expression of loyalty is not about the letter of a law or contract but about extending heartfelt consideration, respecting the feelings, reputation, and integrity of someone you choose to honor. Honoring them makes you feel good, not stuck.

Loyalty based on real feeling is rooted in Sincerity. (See previous post.) It is not about attempting to be blameless in the eyes of others. Rather, it seeks to protect the hearts and peace of mind of those we are loyal to, as an act of solidarity or love. This is an expression of inner beauty, not an obligation.

Like commitment that springs from choosing and valuing solidarity with a close friend or loved one, true loyalty depends on clarity about our own needs and values. When we are able to be loyal to ourselves, we can be loyal to others.

Have you explored YOUR inner experience of loyalty? What does it feel like inside when you are committed or loyal? Can you find the part of yourself which experiences loyalty as a powerful and free choice?