It's spring again, thank goodness! All is green, all is bright – everything is alive again. Well, almost everything.

Just last weekend I was watching a friend “thinning” her seedlings. She'd been over indulgent, I think was how she put it. Planting way too many seeds to permit all the plants to grow strong and healthy. It hurt to see them go, but I know we'll appreciate her selectiveness when those remaining come to bear fruit.

As I was watching this sorting process I was reminded of another close friend who has been going through much the same exercise, but on a somewhat more personal basis. He's been examining the authenticity of relationships, seeking the essential truth in friendships that seem to have gone astray.

It all seems to start when we over-do things or when we do things we don't intend. Before you know it we end up with a fabricated reality; a set of lies and self deceptions. Our lives become messy and over-crowded.

Often times it starts with the little white lies we tell to accommodate feelings – ours or others. We know that telling out-and-out lies is not productive. Maintaining those lies wastes energy, destroys trust and peace of mind. But what of the information we withhold to protect others – or our own image? What about those “kindnesses” we profess to avoid hurting others? Are they really so bad?

Some would say that in and of themselves they are not. But put them all together and pretty soon we are immersed in a myriad of falsehoods which weaken our energies, drain our resources and destroy our environment – and our true selves.

Perhaps this is the right time for us to be “thinning” our lives. Sorting what is true and what is real from what is simply comfortable and accommodating. Focusing on being our authentic selves, living our truth – being fully everything that we are – both within ourselves and with each other.