“Without a deep feeling of self-respect, you cannot forgive and will always feel anger, resentment, and revenge. The greatest human act is forgiveness.” — Henri Nouwen

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“Jon, I honor your feelings one hundred percent.

I don’t know Jon Katz personally, yet I consider him a friend. I have been following him for many years, and throughout those years, I have found Jon to be honest, compelling, brilliant in many areas of life, not the least of which is being transparent. All of his gifts, talents, and compassion make it seem as if I know him and that he wouldn’t mind if I call him a friend. He is such a divine inspiration in so many ways for so many. And as I’m sure he can relate, as probably many of his followers and I can, as well, gold goes through the fire to be refined. Always be blessed.” – Deborah.

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“Jon, that was a beautiful essay- personal, raw honesty, painful and poignant…all at the same time. Through the many years of reading your blog and your books, I would think to myself, “Jon doesn’t write much about that person anymore; I wonder why.” Your essay’s thoughtful explanation is something many of us struggle with. I get overwhelmed in large social situations, especially when I am mostly in the company of new people I have never met before. I am glad you said in the essay that you have reached a point of acceptance because it provides comforting reassurance to many of us here who feel and experience many of those same things in our lives…Your decision to  share your story and yourself so honestly and openly has brought enormous value and meaning to this community of followers, readers, fans, and “online friends.” – Jeff

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I used to say my blog was a monologue, not a dialogue, but I find as I grow older that many of the things I asserted and convinced myself were true, were not. There is a lot of dialogue going on, some in full view, some behind the scenes.

My conceit – okay, arrogance  – served me well and brought me success the freedom to write books almost all of my life. It also was a bloc to understand the reality of my life and of life itself. It left me weakened, isolated, and incomplete.

I needed to understand that my worth and value did not depend on what others thought but on what I believed. My truth was in disarray, I had to grow it and water it like a plant.

Last week, I wrote about my struggles over friendship, and Jeff and Deborah, and others responded. Deborah, I consider you a friend as well and admire your warm and tender hand, something I don’t always have.

Today, inspired by these messages,  I want to write about Authenticity, Honesty, and Self-Respect, to me the foundations of a good and meaningful life and my own path to fulfillment. If that isn’t a dialogue, I don’t know what is.

Just a few years ago, there was no love in my life, I felt I was drowning in a barren, chilling hole. I was without hope.

Still, I believed I was a person worth being loved and called to give love for no other reason than that I was alive.

It was Henri Nouwen who first introduced me to the idea of growing into my truth. To do that, I had to learn who I was. I went to work.

I came to see if I did not learn to love myself and warm my own respect, I could never expect to find love or gain respect. And true respect is self-attained, it doesn’t come from the outside.

No one, even saints, can live up to all their ideals and visions. And I am not running for sainthood.

By deciding who and what I wished to be and proclaiming those visions with humility and deep conviction, I began to grow into the truth I was speaking, rather than speaking without truth. My life will always speak louder than my words, and life has taught me that my terms and goals must remain humble.

After my breakdown and the end of my marriage and separation from all I knew, I was ready to find my truth—first, openness.

I vowed to be transparent on this blog, even if it wasn’t always obvious in my life or consciousness. I didn’t know it at the beginning, but the blog was a reckless experiment, a leap of faith, the story of a life. If people weren’t interested in life, the blog would fail. Miraculously, I’m still here, I happily gave up books to write in freedom and openness.

The blog gave me a path to be open and transparent, which led me to be okay.  If I wasn’t transparent, I knew the blog would fail, most blogs do.

This transparency led to understanding the importance of authenticity.

More people fear transparency than almost anything when it comes to putting their hearts and souls out there. Transparency means putting oneself out there on the block for chopping, carving, ridicule, and hostility. There are a lot of butchers out there waiting to chop. Moving past and beyond them is critical.

Authencity is not the same thing as honesty. Simply, authenticity is about being true to my personality, values, beliefs, and spirit.

Authenticity means knowing who I am and becoming faithful to who I am, regardless of the many and continuous pressures we are all always under to act otherwise. To some, this defiance seemed cruel and angry. People love to challenge, they hate being challenged. But it saved my soul as a writer.

Authenticity was and is the discovery of my true life.

That is the inevitable and ultimate expression of authenticity, even when others may not like it or understand it. I mean this with all humility, but transparency is vanishing from our culture, just look at the people we elect to public office and trust with our democracy. Most dread transparency more than anything, it would be their ruination.

Authencity is not about being polite, delicate, or politic.

It is being true to myself. I am responsible for my words, and so are the people who write to me or send me messages. In our world, there are always people waiting to tell me (and you) why we are not worthy, honest, or authentic. Rejecting those messages is one of the very first steps towards authenticity.

To be honest, transparency is terrifying at times, it kills more openness and free expression than anything else.

Authenticity means being honest with myself and others and taking responsibility for my mistakes, a dangerous thing to do out in the open in our unforgiving world, and far more complex than I imagined it to be. I know fear all too well.

Honesty is something different. It is the quality of moral value, of being fair and truthful. It means being direct and straightforward, the foundation of moral character. Honesty means being trustworthy, loyal, honest, and sincere.

Each step of the way, I gained Self-respect, without which I would fail.

These three foundations – transparency, honesty, self-respect –  lead to perhaps the most important step towards honesty: self-respect. I did not love or respect myself or the life I was leading. Why should anyone else respect me?

Jeff and Deborah’s messages were kind and affirming to me, and they challenged me to be worthy of their kindness and explain myself. That is a dialogue, for sure.

 A lot of people have stayed with me from the beginning as I undertook this what seemed like an impossible task of rebirth and renewal and healing. Until Maria, it was the loneliest time of my life, the darkest day of the hero journey.

People like Deborah and Jeff are some of the magical helpers who emerged out of the darkness to prop me up and keep me on my path and prevent surrender or flight. So yes, I do have friends.

There were a lot of them, more than I thought I deserved, I give thanks for them every day.

I’ve done a lot of work and I have a lot of work left to do. I look forward to sharing it openly, authentically, and honestly. I can only get better.

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“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us,” writes Nouwen, ” we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”