Sometimes it means saying something that totally ignores or steamrolls another's reality. Some of those times it might just seem to be a good thing for the person doing this all important sharing.
I wonder how often those moments of "truth telling" come with a good/intended result.
When you are in the midst of something, how often does what another person says or believes help you? If you are honest, my guess is the deeper you are in something, the harder it will be for another to impact you positively in someway with their version of the "truth."
Odds are they have no clue what the truth is in the context of your reality. And perhaps they even wind up pissing you off, or you piss them off because you are too much the "victim" or too "selfish," or any other number of wonderfully negative adjectives, to see/appreciate their wisdom.
It is even a personal affront if you do not act on what they indicate is best - which of course it is - not. But don't tell them that.
And you might even agree that the times that someone comes to you so sweetly and kindly with this informational hammer that it is the worst kind of approach. They act like it is for your own good that they are sliding that painful dagger in.
It is one thing to have painful things delivered in a painful way by someone who just doesn't seem very nice, but it is all too bitter when it wears the guise of kindness.
UCK.
Why am I raising this topic now, you may be wondering? Did something happen? Did someone say something?
Nope. At least nope in a personal way.
I just happened to see someone post something about how some people run from the truth, and it had me wondering the context.
There are two different kinds of truth: yours and the unsolicited.
It is one thing if you hear a person's truth but choose not to interact with it, and it is another to have another give you an unsolicited version of their truth in regard to your situation.
One version of the truth is organic - internally motivated and based and the other is like unwanted foreign matter in the petri-dish.
This is not to say that what another says and believes isn't valid in some way. But the only person who gets to decide what a valid "truth" is is the person in the context, dealing with the situation. All too many times those outside of it will judge another, having no clue about the internal dynamic which can often be very different than external perception allows.
Does this mean people shouldn't try to help? I am not sure. What I think, though, is that perhaps the best help might come from a different place. Rather than coming from a place of all-mighty knowing, perhaps it is best "served" from a place of trying to understand where a person is, and what they're going through. And, if you are to share your golden nuggets, you wait to be invited to do so.
I share this in part because so many times I do not think people have a clue where I am. But they know where they are in relation to where they think I am.
They proceed to try to help me in a situation that I am all too familiar with, one that really won't change, and one that I have turned right side and inside out many times. It bothers me when countless people think I have not considered what seems in some ways to be the "obvious," and quite frankly, by the time I get where I do, it took so much to get there that I do not want to talk about it any more. I had to choose. So I did.
Some situations are more emotional and less logical than that, and yet, there is a similar composition that occurs. There is likely nothing new anyone could say or do that will change a damn thing about where I am, and what I am doing. Odds are good that most of the feedback I get are people who are uncomfortable about my situation themselves. They can't handle the emotion, so they try to fix it.
How often does someone do something in regard to you that has nothing to do with you? Probably a good percentage of the time they're interacting with their own pain as they try to "help" you. They are really just trying to alleviate their own pain and discomfort.
The more I learn to listen to my inner gut and knowing, the harder it in some ways becomes to interact with others, as the two are quite frequently at odds. It makes me want to retreat in a major way at times.
It is no wonder we do not often listen to our inner voice. There is a good chance it will create some outer conflict, especially if it is at odds with what many believe is best. If we forfeit ourselves, then we get to have something that only vaguely resembles peace.
The problem is that the forfeiture ultimately causes other disruptions, as at the core, we all want to be loved and respected and appreciated for who we are. We all want to be the person we can sometimes come to hate because of the countless number of times who we are and what we do and what we say are rejected by someone else's version of what our "truth" should be.
Maybe in some ways we are our version of the truth. And, given how many of us struggle in regard to who that is, maybe who we are is exactly who we are meant to be. It may not always look purdy to another, but the feeling of peace you will have within yourself when you are being who you are is absolutely, incredibly gorgeous.
And tonight, having made the choice I feel is best for me in regard to a scan - vs the one others think I should have made - has me feeling peaceful. It may not be another's truth for me, but it doesn't have to be.
Kermit used to say, "It isn't easy being green." He might as well have said, "It isn't easy being me."
I truly suspect it is something we all struggle with on some level, and yet we continue to have dynamics in place that contribute to the challenge. Maybe it is intentional in some way, as if we are truly going to be who we are meant to be, we need ways to know who we are.
That sounds good. But when can it stop? It can be exhausting at times to have to go over the same stuff time and time again - especially stuff that I would have preferred to leave alone after the first time, which is, at times even too much.
Such a great adventure we signed up for, isn't it? I just hope I leave here with what I came for. At the very least, I will leave with an appreciation of all of who I am. Had I left before my diagnosis almost two years ago, that certainly would not have been the case.
It may be interesting to note that other people's version of the truth in regard to me kept me from myself for quite some time, and it is MY version of the truth that got me to where I am now. For the record, I "blame" no one for the first part of the statement. After all, who I have been in my life experience allowed for that to happen.
I am going to go with the idea that it was an important experience to have for the perspective and growth it offered me. I am also going to have the intention to continue to move forward without the weight of the conflict. I have no idea how that is gonna happen, but I had no idea how I was going to get here, either.
And yet, I still arrived.
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