The main reason for this is our fear or rejection. This fear is often greater even than the fear of death.

We identify our self-worth and consequently our feelings of security with how others perceive us and whether they approve of, accept and love us or not.

Because of this we tend to alter our bodies and personalities in order to "protect" our self-worth, security and freedom.

As children we were free to be ourselves and blurt out whatever might be passing through our minds. But eventually our unpleasant experiences with the truth caused us to create what we might call the shadow and the mask. We seek to hide in the shadow whatever we cannot accept about ourselves or fear that might make us vulnerable or not acceptable to others.

We eventually became afraid to share or express our actions, fears, anger, feelings, needs, beliefs and even our love, appreciation and admiration.

Some of us try to become what we believe others want us to be in order to gain their approval and love. This seldom works because others sense the lack of truth in what we are seeking to be for them. As long as we need approval, we are unlikely to get it. Or if we have it, we are unlikely to see or feel it.

Others seek to protect their needs by playing unpleasant roles such as the interrogator, the intimidator, the victim or the aloof. In such a case, even though we do not seek to be what others want us to be, we are equally not truthful because we are unable to express our happiness, satisfaction, love or needs in a mature way. We are playing a role that does not express our true needs and feelings.

Some people are proud of the fact that they can shout and freely express their anger. What they do not realize that they too are not truthful, because behind all anger is fear, hurt or guilt and they are not expressing the truth behind their anger.

When we are not able to express our beliefs, needs, feelings, ideas, love and appreciation freely, we are blocked energy-wise and are much more susceptible to psychosomatic illness.

In addition to that, we do not have true relationships, because our relationships are based on our masks and not on our true feelings, needs and beliefs. We become starved energy-wise because we do not enjoy true energy exchange with others.

Suppressing these aspects of ourselves and seeking to keep up our mask is a very tiring process that depletes our energy and stamina, both on a psychological and physical level - also undermining the ability of our immune system to deal with microbes, cancerous cells and inflammations.

We can gradually become free to be more truthful about our fears, need, desires, feelings, beliefs, actions, love and admiration as we learn to accept and love ourselves as we are and experience our self-worth regardless of external factors, including how we appear to others and what they think.

We need to realize that our self-worth is a function of our being with is divine in nature and not on how we appear, how much money we have, our profession, how we compare to others, what others think or how they behave towards us.

Each of us is a ray of divine consciousness which is temporarily focused in the material world evolving in its ability to express its inner power, beauty, love and divine perfection in the physical realm. We and all others are always worthy of love and respect - simply because of the nature of our being and not because of our appearance or what others think.

If our self-worth were related to what others think and ten people have ten different opinions - depending on their own needs and programming - then according to whose opinion is our value measured? The usual answer is, "the worse opinion". We often fetter and worry about one person that does not approve of us - ignoring that fact that the other nine love and accept us.

In the end we will give importance to only one opinion - that our of our inner conscience. We will respect others and their opinions, but in the end our only prerequisite to happiness and peace will be in alignment with our conscience. That means that we feel secure in the fact that we are behaving towards others in the way we would like them to behave to us. This is all we need in order to feel worthy and secure.

We can be truthful about ourselves only when we are free from fear, guilt, shame and in general identification with our temporary body and personality. Meditation and self-observation will enable us to become more detached from the body and mind and observer their various functionings and programmings as - not us. That detachment will enable our clarity and ability to be more truthful about ourselves - perhaps with a sense of humor about our personal dramas - as we take ourselves less seriously.

As we discover exactly what we fear about being more honest about ourselves with the important people in our lives, we can then employ various methods of energy psychology such as EFT, TAT, BSSF, EMDR and Sedona in order to free ourselves from those fears and emotional blockages.

As we learn to be more truthful, this will become even easier and we will enjoy much greater energy, happiness, creativity and love in our lives.

May you be well on all levels of your being.