Deep Loyalty

I picked up one of my favorite books – Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin and it opened to the following passage:

(Yes, the passage is long –stay with me…)

"Distinguishing authenticity from deception – at any stage of life – requires the ability to access and understand your emotions, desires, and values. But the more advanced practice of choosing authenticity over social acceptance requires something more: you must tell yourself and your intimate others the truth, all of it, as deep as you can, especially when it's difficult. What you express is from the heart and intended to serve both yourself and others. You must adopt the practice of making all of your actions align with what you know to be emotionally and spiritually true.

A key authentic practice is to stop pleasing others at the expense of your own integrity. If the important others in your life – at home, at work, at play, in spiritual community – need you to be someone you are not (e.g., a carefree confidant, a charmer, a rescuer, a victim, a hero, a loser, a mother, a pleaser), you will have to surrender your impulse to keep living your life for them. You will have to relinquish your willingness to make major life decisions just to take care of them emotionally or to win their approval.

You will, in essence, have to learn the difference between shallow and deep loyalty – doing what another wants or asks versus doing what your heart tells you is best for all concerned, yourself and others…" (page 102)

Deep loyalty to myself and to those that I love. This has been on my mind lately in regards to some relationships in my life. I am faced with the question of how to re-engage from this place of authenticity. It amazes me how the deepest patterns emerge for me to see – roles being played out – that required me to step back and reassess: Is that true? How do I know that is true?

My first impulse is to break off, disengage, fall back and cut off. Within my family, strong boundaries have always been necessary to stand on my own two feet. What I don't want to do is suddenly take a diffused boundary and make it rigid. No, I want to stay engaged. I want this relationship in my life. This person matters to me. I want to change an ongoing pattern – a role that I play out time and time again – I want to give that back.

Maybe this realization leads to a difficult conversation with a loved one. Maybe I am asking myself to be the change that I want to see. I'm not exactly sure how to proceed but the one thing that I do know: Having the awareness of this issue in my life is the first step. Deep loyalty begins with the self.