I’ve been thinking a lot about truth lately. Knowing it. Owning it. Accepting it.
I shared a thought about truth from Glennon Doyle Melton on Facebook back in January that really spoke to me. She said,
Learn your truth, sit with it, own it, express it. Then: You’re done! No defending or babysitting your truth once you release it. What other people say, think or do with it is none of your business! Because the second your truth hits someone else it gets mixed up with all her stuff and it’s not yours anymore, anyway. So Let it be.
She went on to say that “whatever that problem you have is, it belongs to millions of others, too. Nothing new. No shame. Only freedom.”
Maybe it’s no coincidence that I purchased this shirt from Human Unlimited not long afterwards.
The idea of living my truth allows me to set it free, no matter how difficult or confusing or uncomfortable it is.
I’ve learned how to be uncomfortable with discomfort in my 41 years of life. I think I’ve always embraced this idea, but I’ve only recently understood my capacity for it. I’ve had some amazing experiences because of it – in personal development, love, professionally – and I sometimes have a hard time understanding and/or accepting that others do not possess this capability.
I’ve grown from jumping into things that I may not know if or how I can handle them. And you know what? I’ve survived it all. The discomfort subsides. And I’ve probably had more life-changing experiences than most because of it.
Our truth – the very fabric of our being, what makes us who we are – can only set us free if we accept who we are. That means accepting the good, the bad and the ugly. The deep parts of us that make us want to shrink in a corner and cry. The parts that only we truly know exist.
The truth is that we can’t go back and change the past. We can re-write the story in our heads all we want, but if we reshape it in a way that betrays our truth, then we can never truly be at peace with ourselves. That makes for a very difficult and even more uncomfortable way to live.
If we can’t live with a little discomfort, we may end up creating a whole lot of pain.
It’s funny to me that our own truth can be misconstrued and rewritten by others. I’ve observed this particularly in my experience of getting a divorce. Suddenly your truth becomes uncomfortable to others and their own complicated views on and experiences with relationships muddles their ability to be supportive. It’s a common experience for anyone who has gone through a divorce.
Sometimes the ones that you expect to be the most supportive become the ones that harm you the most. They often don’t realize that they are hurting more than they are helping. While this can be shocking and downright confusing, it simply means that they’ve got their own truths to accept. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to get mixed up in that truth.
It’s a process, the truth.
But like Glennon said in her post, what others say, think or do with your truth is none of your business. If you’ve already owned your truth and released it – a very healing process, I might add – then you no longer have to worry about it. Your truth is free and you can continue on living your life, handling all the beautiful uncomfortable bumps along the way.
After all, I’m pretty sure you aren’t the only one to have gone through what you are going through.
And that, my friend, is the truth.
This post can also be found on The Huffington Post
