Are YOU Living a Lie?

Just how authentic a life are you living?

Most people do not live their truth. Let me tell you my own story first.

The sun was radiant – it was a glorious summer’s day in 1997.

Insects hovered over voluptuous blooms and fluffy white clouds floated lazily in a bright blue sky. I could hear children joyfully playing in a distant garden.

It was the kind of day to make you feel good to be alive.

And yet I sat in the garden with my head in my hands.

At my feet sat a pile of unopened letters and various scrunched up pieces of paper. I didn’t need to open the letters. I knew exactly what they contained.

Just a few short months before this day, my finances had been akin to a champion triathlete, but now, on this glorious summer day they were clutching a zimmer frame!

I had a growing feeling of doom.

The combination of two companies hitting the skids owing me a lot of money, a growing feeling of doom that seemed to erase my mind of logic and good choices, and the mounting cost of maintaining a lifestyle that I could realistically no longer afford, had drained me dry of money.

So on that beautiful summer’s day, I sat feeling vulnerable and afraid. All the bills on my apartment were overdue and the gas and electricity were on the verge of being disconnected. There was no money even to buy food!

How could money make me feel so low and afraid?

I looked deeply into my mind to find even the most miniscule glimmer of joy and couldn’t find any. How could money make me feel so low and afraid? I mean… plenty of people have no money. Indeed, I had been through life several times with no money.

So what was different about this time?

After thinking it through, the difference was that this time I couldn’t see any possible way out. When I was younger, I had always been able to sweet-talk a bank or credit card company into extending my credit limit. Now they were not playing ball.

I felt I would be exposed!

However, when I really looked deeply, the real truth began to emerge from within the gloom. This time I would have to be SEEN: I would be exposed!

I would have no choice but to admit to people that my business was on a greasy slope, and all my creative ideas and projects were yielding a big zero.

My feeling of worth was based on a story.

I realised my feeling of worth was based on a story. And in the past, I had always had some way to keep this story together.

I realised that I had invested so much energy in being seen as a gifted, creative success that the thought of this façade falling down really sacred me. I had spent a lifetime nurturing and shaping this image!

However, now I totally understood why, when people told me how talented and successful I was, I always had this inner flatness… surely they can see this is not really true? I actually wasn’t the person they were describing!

Supporting an image.

This isn’t for one second saying that my gifts and talents were not real. But rather my natural gifts and talents had somehow become enrolled into supporting an image, instead of simply being expressed and enjoyed for what they were.

It occurred to me that if I was really the person that the story was effectively projecting out into the world, then my inner feeling of joy and power could never be rocked by circumstances such as not having money.

And yet circumstances were finally showing me just how flimsy this image was.

Life taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learnt.

The truth sets us free!

Over the course of that summer, my life was transformed!

Moreover, I discovered that when I shared the truth with complete integrity, when I stood in complete vulnerability and was willing to be ‘seen’ just as I really was, strangely and quite miraculously, I became the powerful, creative success that all the previous stories had desperately tried to create.

Only this time it didn’t feel flat inside.

I discovered just how much energy it took to maintain an image: being who you truly are flows; it doesn’t need to be pushed. I discovered how much of my vitality was draining away in my attempts to cover up the truth and keep up an appearance.

I shared my circumstances fully and openly.

Eventually with no more energy or will to keep up appearances, I shared my circumstances fully and openly with the people I owed money to.

Most of them thanked me for being so straight with them.

One business I owed quite a lot of money to actually offered me some incredibly valuable help and advice. They also gave me time to sort things out without any pressure. This was even though my not being able to pay them caused considerable inconvenience to them.

The whole world seemed to open up.

Of course, losing the roof over my head was a very real possibility (fortunately it didn’t happen). However as I shared in total honesty and committed to doing only what I knew I could deliver, the whole world seemed to open up and become more flexible and accommodating.

I discovered that admitting to being vulnerable in fact made me more powerful.

I discovered that removing my energy from propping up a story about who I was meant more energy became available to be creative, imaginative and inventive.

I discovered that some money problems could actually be solved without money. There was this previously ‘mysterious’ thing call ‘exchange of skills’. I could offer something other than money – something of equal value.

I discovered that in a society that teaches us to always keep ourselves hidden and protected, being open revealed opportunities and possibilities that had previously been hidden.

By opening up and being vulnerable, I also connected to people on a very intimate, human level.

Most people have been taught to be afraid of really being seen. By dropping my defences they were somehow able to relax and deal with me in a far more loving way. Even if I couldn’t pay them straight away, we all felt better as a result of working things out together.

I discovered that without the story about who I was, I was free to become fully expressed.

So how does all this help you in your quest for great abundance and joy in your life?

Allow your true power and creativity to shine through.

See where your need to maintain an image ie a story about who you are, is getting in the way of you living fully and openly. See the need to maintain this story – and understand that behind this story sits something far more amazing.

Make a simple commitment to drop the story whenever you notice it, and begin to allow your true nature – your creative, imaginative nature – to shine through.

Find your inner power and courage by telling it as it is and only promising what you know you can deliver when things are challenging.

And watch how your life unfolds with greater joy and ease.

I wish you the best of luck.

Davide De Angelis – aka The Money Shaman.

Image courtesy of xlordashx

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I look forward to seeing you here again soon. Thank you for reading! – Davide