The truth does not respond to “should.” We often think if we keep repeating to ourselves what should be, and hunkering down with that, then we can convert the truth of what is. But it does not work that way. We also think if we look away from the truth, it goes away, or ignoring it will stop it from being what it is.
To acknowledge the truth is to guarantee something will be converted: Either the truth itself will be permitted to shift, or we will, or both.
By not acknowledging it, it remains exactly as it is; the only thing that changes is we remain steeped in ignorance and that much further from our power. As this happens, a layer of anxious management develops along with the fear that at any moment the truth could come barging in. The more we manage, the more we feel we need to manage. The impulse to control becomes chronic and then constant.
Sometimes “should” is in accord with the way things should be, but very rarely. Until we make this admission and accept this fact, the truth has no incentive to reveal itself to us and becomes the enemy—something we are constantly fighting in order to win an argument we do not even want to win.
If we did win and life adhered to “should,” we would be locked out of ourselves. This is because, when it boils down to it, all we are is the truth that inhabits us. And yet, we cannot approach the truth with a giant spotlight, demanding it come out of hiding. It will merely withdraw further from view. We see the truth illuminated when, from small admissions, we shine 100 tiny lights; from here it emerges. The truth is always both fragile and indestructible.
We wait until we are in enormous pain—after it has refused to go away—and then finally, in desperation, demand that it show up. The invitation is to develop a consistent, stable relationship with the truth, doing our best to engage with it in every moment, and seeking within ourselves for how to create an environment where revealing itself would be desirable.
When the truth does reveal itself, we do not push it away, deny it, run from it, or act out of accord with what it has shown us. We agree to receive it with the delicate reverence we ourselves would want to be received.
We call this wisdom. Our access to wisdom is in direct proportion to the honor and respect we offer. We offer it to truth whenever it arrives, even and especially when it brings information we did not think we wanted. We recognize how difficult the journey through our defenses has been to bring us this information. We do everything in our power to clear the path not only of our defenses but of hope and of attempts to manipulate and contort the truth as it stands before us.
We discover that when we can do this with truth, we can do this with all aspects of life, and it just might be that life responds in kind. At last, we finally get the feeling of safety and belonging we were trying to build in the transient houses we lived in when we ran away from the truth.
To the extent that our access is open and in relationship with ourselves, we can experience connection to this same realm outside of ourselves.
Some will classify this as a kind of telepathy. In reality, it is simply awakened truth, acknowledging itself wherever it encounters itself, and—most importantly—recognizing when and where it is absent. We sometimes feel as if we can’t find our voice and then project that feeling outward as if it is due to some external force stopping us. But in truth, we cannot find our voice because it’s buried underneath resentment and strategy.
There is some way the voice, synonymous with truth, threatens the agenda of the person who cannot find their voice.
It is when we are trying to orchestrate the response of another human being that we have to step out of our power where our voice is located, losing the potency and impact we would have had. We can always speak the truth. All of us. At any point. In any situation. To anyone. There is never a person we cannot speak the truth to, provided we do not have a predetermined outcome.
Speaking the truth may mean we endure undesirable consequences. But this is where we have to ask ourselves if there is any consequence that is greater than living a lie. Any time we withhold the truth, we are subtly communicating disdain for the human being we are withholding it from. The cases where it is a truth that would genuinely harm them are extraordinarily rare.
More often than not, the true intention of withholding truth is not to shield somebody from hurt, but to instead prevent the loss of access to the goods and services this person provides based on the illusion we have created.
Truth is not the reduction of fact, but that which includes speaking the vulnerabilities and revealing what we prefer to keep concealed in an effort to maintain how we want others to perceive us. We will know we have told the truth when a feeling of almost inverted silence enters. That is the feeling of having emptied ourselves of what was there to be said.
While we cannot control what our truth is in the same way we cannot control what the spot is, we can control our delivery of it, the speed, intensity, and direction. We can find the resonance that would have it be something that feels good rather than threatening. We can never control someone’s response, but we can control how skillfully we deliver the stroke of truth.
