The end of seeking and honest, clear, fearless communication go hand in hand. In fact, I would say it’s impossible to write a book about deep acceptance and the end of seeking without including a large section on honest speaking and listening. Whenever you’re being emotionally dishonest with someone, whenever you’re hiding how you really feel in the moment, whenever you’re trying to hide a part of your experience in order to hold up an image, whenever you’re playing a role with someone rather than being honest about what’s really happening for you right now, the likelihood is that you’re seeking something from them. You want them to see you in a certain way. You are trying to manipulate their image of you (which is actually your image of their image of you). And in their presence you want to see yourself in a certain way. And what else could be the reason for this but fear?
We try to protect ourselves from life and from each other because we are afraid, and what the seeker fears more than anything is being exposed. Exposure of the seeker is like death. To put this in simple language, if you saw me for who I really am, in all my weakness, failure, insecurities, incompleteness, you would reject me. If you saw me in all my rawness, in all my nakedness and humanness, without the masks I wear, stripped of my facade, without defenses, without the games I play-if you saw what’s really here, if you saw beyond the image-you woulld reject me. If you saw my fear, my frustrations, my doubts, my sadness, my feelings of failure, ugliness, incompetence, helplessness, you would not love me. Or, if you loved me before, when the image is gone you would soon lose that love for me. I fear that in the light of truth, in the light of life, all the little games I play would be exposed, and I would be left standing there, naked and ashamed, unloved and abandoned, an outcast, far from home.
—Jeff Foster — the Deepest Acceptance
