I found myself sitting at the dining table with my daughter and a dear friend (who also just happens to be a wedding & event planner;) purportedly brainstorming about the wedding but actually getting a crash course in honesty. Who doesn’t love those early days of planning a big event? It is a time when dreams run wild and all is possible. What was different here is that I had also invited honesty. In myself, in my daughter and in my friend. I didn’t say “Now, let’s be honest with one another!” but that is exactly what happened. I was blown away by how much I didn’t need to do. I didn’t need to lead the discussion. I didn’t need to rush ahead and think ahead to cover all possibilities. My daughter already had great starting materials and our friend sat as the presence of joy and peace and said over and over, in several different ways “You can have whatever you want according to your budget”. I have to admit that even after taking a great course on money management and having the best accountant ever, I am still rather dishonest about budgeting. Which means that I actually don’t. Budget that is.
I budget in as much as everything is automatic; saving & investing is on auto-pay, all bills are paid from a bill paying account, everything is managed well but I just don’t like to decide ahead of time exactly what that looks like with what is left. I still spend what is in my personal spending account (down to the nub if necessary) and rather bristle when told (even by myself) something must be planned ahead for. Then in comes the happiest event ever. And I am spending the month with honesty. Surely this is no coincidence. “We are getting married!!!!”———I extend honesty to that thought.
Honesty is Joyful.
I wanted to just say “oh anything you want is fine dear, we will pay for everything” but honesty would simply not allow it. I knew I had to be honest with myself and realized that we couldn’t actually pay for everything or say “there are no limits” because it isn’t true. And for the first time ever I was thrilled. Thrilled. How weird is that? I was so comfortable allowing the truth of what we could pay for and wanted to pay for merge with what my daughter and her fiance` could pay for and wanted to pay for along with all of the possibilities being discussed and not have to direct traffic in any way. Part of this is that we seem to be setting the intention from the get go that peace and joy is what we want to feel and experience even in the planning stages. The other part was my new found delight in honesty. It was like honesty has been waiting all my life to truly be integrated into my daily life. I am not dishonest by nature, far from it, but I often overthink how everyone (except me) is being affected by what I do/say/think. It is funny that It never really occurred to me that being honest with myself is the first tenet of honesty.
I love knowing that honesty is now a full fledged member of the wedding party and that in doing this no one will be left out of joy. We have given in word, deed and intention permission for honesty to join us in all our preparations. This is going to be a fascinating year.
