truth

how do you know what the truth is? in my experience, when i'm in touch with what is true, i feel better, stronger, more centered. but the further away i am from the truth, the more imbalanced, insecure and unsettled i feel. truth, being able to know and tell the truth, has brought me strength in my life and helped me to connect with others.

i think that the truth can be relative for each person. each child growing up in a family has a unique perspective and experience of that family. memories can be influenced by time and emotion, so what we remember from our past, might not correspond to someone else's account of that time, but that doesn't mean we are wrong, or that they are. we may never know for sure what actually happened. but i believe that our subjective experience of reality, our emotional reality, even if it conflicts with what other people say is real or true, needs to be taken seriously.

sometimes it's hard to know what the truth is. when you grow up in a family where everyone said that blue is actually red, this confusion can teach you the habit of constantly doubting and questioning yourself and your perceptions. you can become disconnected from yourself, and out of touch with your own instincts, like being in a cave with no light. unsure which way is out or up, or where the next ledge is you might fall from.

i think there are signs we can learn to recognize when someone else's version of reality is not in line with the truth. people can be absorbed and lost in their own defense mechanisms, like denial and repression. so if they get angry at you for telling the truth as you see it, it might not be that you are wrong, it may be that you are more right than they want to admit. sometimes the anger of others is a sign that we are hitting on the real truth, it just might not be something they are ready to face. they may want to challenge you or get to you to deny what you believe is real, just to help them continue to protect themselves and live in the delusion that everything is just fine the way it is.



but the more we can listen to our own internal voice, to still our mind and filter through the layers of external confusion to find what really feels true for us, the stronger we can become. and telling our truth to another can be one of the most meaningful and powerful experiences in life. in my experience, just knowing something in my head was only part of healing, but being brave and strong enough to tell someone else made everything different. times i've told people something deeply true, and until i told, i had no idea how much emotion was tied up in what i had held inside.

this quote really has meant a lot to me over the years. i think it expresses so well the power you can find in telling your truth, but the frustration that the limits to self-expression can bring, and vulnerability that lies in the need to find the right people to tell. for telling the wrong person your deep, most vulnerable truths, can just add new levels of pain on top of what you felt the need to bury in the first place:

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear."
~Stephen King

these days i feel like, after years of trial and error, i finally have a good set of people i know i can trust in my life, if i need to tell someone how i'm "really" doing. people who won't minimize or invalidate my emotions, who can relate to my experience and perspective, who can understand and sometimes even identify, and offer me alternate perspectives to help challenge my viewpoint (but in a non-threatening way). sharing our lives with people who understand us and who we can be our real selves with is part of what i think makes life beautiful. when you share your true heart with someone and they share theirs back, and there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for everything you want to say to each other. that is one of the best things in life, to me.

so nowadays, i'm happy to say that i'm no longer in a position so much of trying to find the "right" people to share with, but moreso, my struggle is more about being able to be honest with myself. if something is wrong, sometimes it can take me awhile to admit it. as i still have a tendency to bury emotions that i'm scared to express. but the more i avoid and bury, the worse i feel.

i think of this process as like a wound that needs proper cleaning and airing. if you get a wound, but just try to immediately cover it up and just hope it will go away, likely it will only fester and get worse, and then when you finally get around to trying to tend to it, it will be far more painful and frankly, more messy, than it would have been had you cleaned it properly to begin with.

so my struggle is not just to tell the truth, but to stay in touch with it. to be connected to my instincts and honest emotions. to be able to discern what is real, from what are my fear-based projections. to move beyond my ego defenses in moments of stress and conflict, to remain my authentic self. and on a daily basis, to be able to be in the moment with those around me.

i continue to strive to get better at discerning when it is important to tell the truth, and when not to. how to maintain good boundaries. how to be as good as possible at recognizing who are the right people to share with. and when is the right time to say what i want.

one of the most important things i believe is the importance of allowing my truth to evolve. my understanding of others to grow and develop. to not be locked into any one version of the "truth" or any one perspective of another person or group. to trust in myself when it feels right and important to do so, but to be flexible and brave and open enough to allow for revision of what i believe is true, when alternate viewpoints show me that my perspective needs expanding. and to be able to see things through the eyes of another, with compassion, even when it conflicts with my own view.

this month's expressive arts carnival, hosted by paul over at mind parts, is the following excercise:

Through drawing, painting, photograph or any other visual means, create an image of "your truth." Some ideas you may want to explore are finding your truth, saying your truth, what your truth feels to you, and more. With your entry, also include a couple of sentences saying what the process was like for you.

i have found through these carnivals that i really like making collages. i have never drawn or painted much, and find that the meaning i can express through various photographic images really suits me. here's what i made to express what "truth" means to me:



the images i chose to make this collage represent truth for me in a number of ways. how scary it can be to speak the truth. the power of writing. connecting with the truth as an ongoing process. my tendency towards black and white thinking and my need to step back and see the bigger picture. the truth in my dreams. the importance of emotional truth and confronting pain. the light that each of us has to share in this world, and the power of each person to survive and even flourish no matter our circumstances.

finally, i thought that it would be most truthful of me to choose an actual photo from my life to incorporate in this piece, so the central photo is one i took of an oklahoma road. as driving along the country roads is something that brings me peace and helps me feel connected.

"Feelings or emotions are the universal language and are to be honored. They are the authentic expression of who you are at your deepest place."
~Judith Wright