...living with intention, satya...

Sooooo much for a monthly post, but here yet again is my living with intention post about Satya.

This is the second in a series that began with Ahimsa, or nonviolence which is the first Yama (as explained in the aforementioned post...)  Satya, the second Yama, means truthfulness, both with others and with yourself.  On the mat, for me, this often comes up when I believe that I just can't stay in a challenging pose for one minute longer.  Then it is time to check in and discover if I really can't hold it for one moment longer or if in fact I don't want to stay in the pose.  If I actually go through this thought process the pose usually ends and low and behold I have in fact held the pose and lived to type about it.

Off the mat this can be practiced in numerous ways, most obviously while not telling lies to ourselves or others.  For me, living in a truthful way also means being myself.  This means that when I enter a room, or meet someone for the first time I am myself; not what I think the other person thinks I should be or what I think I should be.  For me to live in truth I need to keep my own wants and needs in mind and when I feel strongly about something to share that opinion rather than sit back and not "rock the boat."  I am the queen of not rocking the boat and as I have gotten older I have begun to liberate myself from this, I am not all the way there but I am on my way.  

I always see it noted when talking about Satya that truthfulness should never come at the expense of Ahimsa.  In other words regardless of a truth if it has the potential to be harmful to others than it may behoove us to keep it to ourselves.  This seems like a tricky balance because it also seems important to face difficult truths that may even be hurtful in the moment but will result in personal growth (this seems especially true when looking at personal truths but can also come when someone holds a mirror up to us that reflects something less than beautiful).  So how do we balance truth and nonviolence?  Is it OK to speak a truth that may be difficult to hear when we do it from an open place, a place from which we care deeply for the recipient of the truth?

Any thoughts?