The trouble with actively living and speaking your own truth, which is the natural extension of loving yourself, is that not everyone likes what you say or do. Our natural reaction is to try and avoid the uncomfortable feeling we get when we know we are not ‘pleasing’ other people.
This can take various forms but it usually means anything that will make others feel less threatened, more comfortable, and thus more in control. Often we go to amazing lengths to stroke their ego feathers and be nice.
And nice means never upsetting people, never reflecting their shortcomings back to them, never doing anything that causes them discomfort or pain, always pleasing them, always taking the blame and saying you’re sorry. We all learn, for the sake of peace, to suppress our own ideas and truth in order to make others feel better. More than anything we want them to like us, to think we are nice.
That is why self-love is hard. It is constantly making us aware of the difference between *our *feelings, our world view and even our mindset, with those of everyone around us. This can make us feel uneasy, uncomfortable, and even isolated and excluded. So it’s no wonder we learn to abandon our truth and take to being nice. It seems so much easier.
But easier is merely a triumph of the short over the long-term. It is not a true choice. All we are doing is trying to avoid the inevitable. What we must realise is that it is only a matter of time; it is impossible to silence our truth in the long-term.
This was Sigmund Freud’s contribution to the world. The father of psychoanalysis, Freud taught us that whatever remains unarticulated ultimately manifests as sickness and dysfunction in the body because, as the pyschoanalysists say, the body is truth.
Dora’s Case, one of Freud’s most notable cases, illustrates how a young girl’s inability to speak her own truth led her to becoming literally mute. She only recovered her voice once she felt safe enough to speak her true feelings.
I recently attended a weekend retreat at the beach. My friend and I had decided to go skinny dipping one night. Telling the others our intention created an unexpected reaction. Not because of the naked bit, but because of our intention to swim in the ocean at night* - *weren’t we afraid of sharks or some other dangerous creature lurking unseen in the dark waters?
One might wonder why others cared what we did, but we can never underestimate the ability we all have to stir others’ fears. It had never occurred to me to be afraid. I’ve swum literally hundreds of times and never come across anything dangerous in the water. I had no intention of changing my plans.
I felt the atmosphere suddenly change. I became uncomfortable realising that I was under scrutiny and found wanting. Ultimately my lack of desire to soothe their fears, my failure to reassure them of the validity of those fears, caused an uneasy distance between us. But so be it.
This is a mild example of how living and speaking your truth can cause tension and discomfort. But in the long run it is the only route - and this cannot be understated - to health, happiness and peace. We are here to express our version of the Divine, and anything less is not only a lack of appreciation and love for ourselves, it is against the order and purpose of life itself. And that never leads anywhere good.
