The Greatest Unburdening

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” - David Foster Wallace

That heaviness you feel in your body…those sleepless nights that you endure…that little Devil that sits on your shoulder, cat-calling you…that is your Conscience.

It is the constant reminder to do the one thing that a Soul agrees to do when it incarnates.

To tell the truth.

Our therapeutic culture, however, has warped this basic and fundamental axiom. This culture has said, Everyone must accept your truth.

And if they don’t, there will be hell to pay.

But our truth has nothing to do with how anyone else hold’s it. And if we wait on that principle for freedom, we’ll wait an eternity.

Your truth is about setting YOU free, not another.

Nor does your truth have anything to do with anyone else. This point is particularly important. I’ll give you some examples.

Let’s say your mother didn’t mother you the way that you wanted or expected. Let’s say she was neglectful and mean.

Your deepest truth around this is not that she was neglectful and mean. Although that may be the backstory.

The deepest truth around this is that, as a result of your mother’s behaviour, you feel unlovable; vulnerable; unseen.

When that truth is met, accepted and better yet, expressed, that is the doorway to freedom.

Every relationship that we’re in offers up a pathway to liberation through telling the truth. Telling the truth to your spouse is another of those spaces that can make or break the relationship.

You say to him or her: You don’t hear me!

But the deepest truth underneath this is that you simply don’t feel heard. Our spouses and all of the other people that come into our lives show up as mirrors to show us WHAT IS ALREADY THERE.

To say to your partner, You don’t hear me, creates all kinds of schisms in the relationship. And the reason it does is because it is not the deepest truth.

The deepest truth is that you’ve entered into the relationship already feeling unheard. That was already present.

And what a relief that is.

To know that your liberation does not lie in the hands of someone else. Because that, of course, would render you powerless.

Until they hear me, I will simply not be heard.

No. Until I get brave enough to first admit that showing up to be heard is my own issue that long predates where I am now AND that being heard is MY responsibility, not another’s.

Phew.

That truth immediately unburdens.

In my own life, I’ve been incredibly blessed to be married to someone who shows up in his truth, unabashedly and continuously. And he holds me to account. He is my best teacher on telling the truth.

For someone like me who has such distaste for rocking the boat, for discomfort, for conflict…I’ve learned that telling the truth is so liberating and unburdening. It is the backbone of every intimacy that we’ll ever have with anyone.

The really good news here is that this can begin now. You don’t have to wait on anything or anyone to tell the truth.

As adults, our lives are never because of someone else. We don’t have that luxury as children, but we do as adults. Holding contempt or blame for another is simply not acknowledging what is true.

Blaming someone else for how you feel is what a 6 year old does.

Cue the temper tantrum.

Life is much simpler and the truth is much closer.

We were built for peace. We were built for freedom. And the way through that doorway is telling the truth.