Seeking Truth
Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Never before have I experienced such a battle around truth(s), such a fog of information and/or misinformation, and such accompanying social and personal division that reaches my most intimate relationships.
Since when have I become such a truth seeker? And where do I actually look for truth?
From the beginning of Covid-19 and the simultaneous political upheavals here in the US, I looked for the truth in data, expertise, and analysis – until I realized that trying to define and settle such evolving and complex matters confused me even more.
Which is when my practice of self-encounter and identity development gained further significance.
Suddenly “truth” appeared, and continues to appear, in a completely different, more personal way. A breakthrough happens for me every time the truth in the form of long-held feelings and unmet core needs becomes apparent and acknowledgeable.
For me it usually comes as a mix of relief, sobering up, and grief to see reality as it truly has been – and not as it was narrated to me by others or by my own survival mechanisms (i.e. habits, beliefs, reactionary patterns).
Self-encounter is all about my truth, as transmitted by my feelings, stored, suppressed, split off somewhere inside of me amidst my life experiences. And each time I’m able to meet and embrace my own truth, I gain more clarity, stability, and connection with myself.
Sometimes my “critical” mind still wants to outsmart me, asking “how is this connection helping me come to a definitive stance on all the life-changing things that are going around me?”
And then I find comfort in what encountering myself is all about: it is less about finding solutions or fixing the outside, and more about experiencing my life as it is and has been.
My personal truth empowers me like nothing else; I become who I truly am in this world, and by that, gain needed nuance to my understanding of who we really are as human beings.