When I say being honest, I mean being honest by your own heart. If a prejudice is a prejudice, then it is learnt and of the mind? These are the things we can change in ourselves.Doe wrote:LG, I agree with you to a point. What I'm talking about more, however, are those "off-the-cuff" thoughts that flash through my mind. Sometimes I'll "hear" myself thinking these horrible, intolerant, prejudiced, etc. thoughts--things that I really don't (or hope I don't) feel or think in "real life". And sometimes--again, because I feel that someone else is paying attention, and I can't just always pass them off as anomalies in my thinking--I now have to make myself stop and examine WHY I would have thought that. Is it something I still have to work on, even though I just love to think of myself as the most tolerant, non-prejudiced human being ever? :smt005 And at times it turns out that I DO have more to work on. It's good to know that.
But I'd prefer to acknowledge these things to myself, and work on them in my own mind, without those who might be hurt by those thoughts and attitudes being aware of them. It certainly wouldn't help them to know that I thought that way, and might even do real damage. In those cases, being "brutally honest" doesn't seem like the best way to go. (My mother prides herself on "telling it like it is", regardless of others' feelings, but she has hurt me and others very badly sometimes by doing that.) Sometimes things are best worked on in private.
Doe
In terms of the thoughts you believe to be not of you, perhaps they are not always of you? It is in these moments we have to step back, notice our surroundings and quiet the mind.
