Speaking from the heart

Invariably something arises every day that gives me pause to reflect on a certain situation, about myself and others. Sometimes I practice what I call speaking from the heart. Sometimes it's with friends, other times with family. I get into trouble by doing this at times, unless the party I am talking to understands what I am trying to say. With family you have to be careful it seems, that things aren't taken the wrong way. I guess with anybody for that matter. I won't go into personal details, but when you speak from the heart you have a tendency not to hold things back. Sometimes people take what you say to their heart and everything is ok. If what you say hurts someone, or strikes a chord they don't like, it can cause separation for a period of time. In certain cases what you are saying may be to purge what is perceived by one's self as trauma or feelings that need to be vented in the spirit of healing. I always try to preface comments with a thought that indicates that I am speaking for the good of everyone involved. If done correctly a healing can take place on certain levels. Its a touchy thing, because often what you mean to say can be diluted or distorted by the fact that words don't always convey the meaning you intended. Its like that saying "words are but crumbs from the feast of the mind". I have had situations where when talking with family, things are perceived as coming from a place of ego or manipulation, when in fact that wasn't the case at all. Its hard to tell how people will take things because we are all so different, and we all have that ego that has its own agenda. At times I have had my own immediate family disown or should I say distance themselves from me and or the things I intended to convey. With my siblings it could be a perception formed from childhood, that one person was favored over another by the parents that raised us, when in fact that might not be true. Social conditioning and parenting plays a big part in our lives. Ego's feel threatened, particularly regarding matters of shall I say spirit or spirituality. I think the key to understanding one another is to take it in the spirit it was meant. I always leave the door open for discussion after a conversation with friends and family. Because no matter how good our intention, we might not have conveyed it in a fashion that doesn't "tread on the tail of the tiger" (I-Ching). I would like to think that dialog will some how overcome any misunderstandings. Also I have found that everything will be fine until a third party gets involved that has no idea of the relationship that you have established between the person you intended to communicate certain things to, and yourself. Its all a growth process. One of the greatest and wisest men of all time, Jesus or Yeshua was misunderstood by many to the point of his death. Sometimes he said or did things that felt needed to be conveyed for a healing to take place. I like the spirit of the saying, never let the sun set until that feeling of anger or misunderstanding can be dispersed. We are all here for a certain period of time. We don't know from one day to the next how long that will be. But certainly we wouldn't want a division or hard feelings to exist for to long because of this very simple fact. Impermanence is part of live so lets try to be at peace with all of our brothers and sisters on the planet. This includes everyone and not just immediate family. And when I use the term immediate, I mean related by Blood. However even that term can cause division, because we are all family. We are all one, connected by great spirit or the tao. Maybe the reason misunderstandings occur is that this fact isn't realized. People are a mirror of ourselves. So when someone speaks to us and it strikes a chord, maybe we shouldn't make it good or bad. Its just a learning process. Like I said earlier we can bypass the duality and look at the big picture. Acceptance, understanding, love, and at the same time detachment. Great spirit often uses us in ways that can't always be comprehended at the time. So reflect or contemplate on what others may be conveying, because its like we are talking to ourselves. Its the spirit of the law not the law. Nobody is more holy then the other, but we can give credit where credit is due. And that's to the higher power for guiding us in whatever way it, or the tao, happens to manifest the lessons we or others learn in life. Don't just see what you want to see through the eyes of your conditioning, look beyond that and find the pearls of wisdom being conveyed through that source.