Jenny and Erin

What is truth? Can it change? If so, how can something that is not constant be true? Are words, emotions or promises lies if they felt true when spoken, yet in hindsight they may not have been? How, when confused and possibly even living a lie, can one recognize the truth and harder yet, tell the truth?

The faster or further you grow the more bumpy, exciting and rewarding the ride - and the quicker truths can change. Perhaps you find that the truth is shifting monthly, weekly or in spurts daily. Remember when you left home for the first time? Maybe it was to summer camp, a coveted vacation with a friend‘s family or for college. Think back to the excitement and edge of fear you felt in anticipation, the first few days or weeks when everything was great - absolutely wonderful - and then remember the moment when you realized that something just wasn’t right. Food wasn’t cooked right at summer camp, your friend’s family had a very different (and not “normal‘) way of communicating that often involved loud, excited voices, your new professors challenge your very foundations with new thoughts and knowledge. What you thought was foundational basic truths about how life was, wasn’t. Your view of the world began to shift often radically and in unexpected ways.

When this is happening what should you do? Do you tell your friend that their family sucks and you want to go home or your own family that you’d rather hear loud opinionated voices than silence when they are upset? Do you stop taking courses that made you feel stupid or challenged the beliefs you were taught since childhood or embrace them? How much truth should you tell and who do you tell it to? It’s easy to start to doubt such a thing as the truth even exists or that you can ever know the truth about anything, particularly about yourself.

Is it possible to follow many of the ideals of self development during a time of rapid personal growth? It is difficult to practice congruency if you are unsure about what the truth is and isn’t. It is even more difficult to be honest in your relationships when you are unsure of what is true or when it is rapidly or regularly changing. It can be particularly problematic to honor your word or commitments or continue on a path you’ve started down because you are concerned that it will appear dishonest to others to change course based on what you’ve previously said or believed.

Can one really hope for more than good intentions and openness in any relationship whether it be with yourself or another? Is expecting absolute and total honesty a trap to either fall into or to catch others with? Perhaps truth during a time of growth does not exist instead truth is something that is fluid and viewing it in any other manner is complete and utter folly. Is self-development at it’s core a struggle to find and maintain the truth of one’s life, beliefs, relationships, words and actions?

Questions like these are and should be fundamental to personal growth. Growth by its very nature entails change - change of boundaries, of scenery, of relationships, of beliefs and much more. As one grows their understanding of the world does as well and this new understanding brings new questions and honestly further uncertainty. That’s okay, uncertainty is good. It means you’re learning and growing…

Related Posts:
Why Isn’t Enough Ever Enough?
Just the Facts
Tell the Truth

I have found myself surrounded by heady discussions on topics such as quantum physics, the debate between subjective and objective reality, the law of attraction, whether people have souls, does God exist and such. There is so much to know that it is easy to get overwhelmed. Do I need to be open to every idea I am exposed to? Should I be willing to challenge every single bit of my life? If so, how do I (or you) go about doing this without just creating a gigantic mess? If not, there are important decisions to be made.

Most problematic for me has been trying to figure out how to prioritize all of the questions I want answers to without getting lost in a fun-house of illusions. Am I best served by trying to embrace and deeply understand one idea at a time or by comparing several collectively? Sometimes this seems self-explanatory, while other times the choice does not seem quite as clear.

Several questions have remained somewhat problematic for me:

• How do I prioritize what I want or need to learn?
• How can I determine ahead of time what knowledge is foundational?
• If I decide not to learn, what will happen, and does it really matter in the grand scheme of life?
• What is beyond my capacity to understand and therefore not worth the effort?
• At what point do I have to accept things on faith?

There are many approaches to learning as I explore different ideas and beliefs, including deciding not wanting to know more or just accepting information deemed sound (and in all practicality, this acceptance is essential to some degree for all kinds of knowledge). There are also many tools to choose from when examining the questions that interest me. Some of these approaches are better than others, particularly depending upon what kind of knowledge I am looking for. The better I understand the implications of each of these tools the more accurate the answers to my questions will be - or at least I hope so!

Some Methods of Learning and Observing:

• Observation of self, others and environment
• Scientific process
• Critical thinking
• Personal experience
• Spiritual revelation
• Intuition
• Books, articles or lectures

Some of these tools are at times at odds with one another. So do people even really try to find the answer or do you just pick the one that fits best? I hate to admit this but there’s been times in my past that I’ve chosen to accept knowledge because it sounded really good, it had much mystery attached to it and, well this is particularly embarrassing to acknowledge, but because no one could really prove it wrong…

Lately I have realized if you want a truly mind-altering experience, it can be found by exploring things for which some answers do exist and where there are methods to verify your learning. These things aren’t any less mystical, such as attempting to understand the science behind meditation, or to examine sacred geography though maps of the earth’s gravitational fields, or even to ponder what is known about the relationship between the body, the brain and the mind. Objective facts about these things do not change the overwhelming nature of such knowledge nor do the current facts take away much of the mystery, plenty still remains.

Related Posts:
Keeping Perspective When You’ve Bitten Off More Than You Can Chew
Understanding Religion and Spirituality
Picking Sides: Science or Spirituality
What is a Myth?

Why isn’t enough ever enough? Why does it seem no matter how hard you try or how much you improve it feels like it just is not enough? All you can see is how much further there is to go, what has not been done and what you still do not know. You are not alone in this thinking.

The beginning of a big personal change is exhilarating. You set out, into the unknown with nothing but promise ahead. The end of a goal is exciting too, getting to look at how far you have come and seeing how close the end is. But, what about the middle? What about that spot where everything seems so far away? The gap between what you wish to be and what you are. It is in this void that it is common to begin to feel hopeless.

Most people know objectively when they are in the middle they have grown or changed, but it is tough to believe at times. Sometimes it does not feel like you are making progress and all you feel is confusion. You may become frustrated by all of the wasted opportunities and lost moments, confused by new norms and people and completely out of place, no longer sure where you fit. Sometimes this can strike at unexpected times, in the middle of a meeting or late at night. The new becomes especially scary; it is not comfortable yet, nor predictable and definitely has not proven its love to you. The new can leave you breathless, uncertain and confused. You may feel alive, but left wondering why alive is so scary.

Unfortunately there is no peace. You can not return to the old you because who you were no longer exists. Your thoughts from then are foreign and misguided. You can no longer relate to those old doubts and your old way of being. You try to remember why things were so hard and the knowledge eludes you.

Perhaps this is a good thing. Maybe this means you are living right. This may be a sign you have begun to slowly embrace the life you have always dreamed and are becoming who you want to be. People and things that do not fit are slowly falling away, while new people and things will slowly begin to appear. But still you are neither here nor there. Instead you are stuck somewhere in the middle, on a journey that does not proceed directly from point A to B. Uncomfortable as it is this is the very core of personal growth. Take heart, this time in the middle will pass and only later will you be able to see that even there you were still traveling.

How much do facts tell? Can you ever really know someone or something exclusively through an examination of the facts? What, if any, are the limitations of cold, hard data? How much weight should the facts about a person or thing be given?

It does not take much work to find out a whole bunch of facts about me. Depending upon the resources available to you, you could find out:

• Where I went to school;
• If I went to college, what courses I took and how I performed
• Where I have lived and for how long;
• Whether I rent or own. And if I own, how much I paid for my home;
• My age;
• My gender;
• My criminal record;
• The make and model of my vehicle;
• My credit history;
• My height, eye color, last known hair color (or at least what I tell the DMV…); and
• My marital status.

If you have even more resources at your disposal you could find out much more, such as:

• My annual income;
• A list of every bump and bruise, in addition to the medications I take;
• Where and on what I spend my money;
• What books I have checked out from the local library;
• What I do, say and buy on the Internet; and
• My current employer, how long I have worked there and even what kind of employee I am.

In many ways all of these facts would give you far more information about my person than most people around me could ever attain through regular day-to-day contact. All of these facts would be literal and accurate. However is that all I, or any person, really is? Just a collection of dates and locations, and even words said? Would you know me better than my closest friend or even better than I know myself?

I do not think so. Facts are powerful, but they have limitations. You could use these facts to make predictions as to my future behavior and you may be right, but you might not. Facts do not tell you if I fight fair or choose words aimed to draw blood. If I bought ice-cream because I love it or because it is nice to serve when I entertain. They do not tell you how life has shaped me. I am not entirely the same person as I was when I read that book two years ago, when I moved every year from city to city or even the employee glowingly described in reviews six months ago. People and things change and I have never met someone who isn‘t more than the sum of the facts attached to them.

So, assume you collected all of the facts you could on me. Let’s believe everything you gathered is literally true and contains no errors. Yes, you would have a whole lot of information. But now what? I’m still not sure what you as an individual would do with the sum total of this information (unless you’re a stalker or identity stealer) as despite all of these facts being true and relevant in shaping who I am, they do not tell the story of me. If you’re trying to win my affections, show I’m no saint or beat me in a business deal would the information really help you? Would you know how to sift through and find what is truly relevant? Would all the facts in the world let you catch the very essence of me? Or of anyone or anything? What do these facts really say about a person?

Why are we so hard on ourselves? While listening to a friend list all of her faults, plus some, I realized that if she could truly hear what she was saying about herself she would be appalled. It occurred to me, in a horrifying way, that she was in an abusive relationship – herself starring as both victim and abuser. I started paying attention, and was shocked to realize just how common angry, hurtful self-talk is.

Do any of these phrases sound familiar? “I’m not witty enough to talk to them.” “I’m too fat to be wearing that.” “I’m so lazy, no wonder I’m are not succeeding.” “No sense even trying, I’m a loser and she’ll never like me.” “Why bother, they’ll never hire someone like me.” Have you said such things to yourself? What else are you saying?

Imagine if a mate spoke to you this way. Really, go back over the list and picture the person you are closest with saying these same phrases to you. You would be appalled to have someone like this in your life. Friends and family would urge you to leave them immediately. If strangers overheard such a conversation they may even feel inclined to intervene. However, we let ourselves quietly get away with it.

I encourage you to truly listen to yourself. It may be horrifying the first time you hear what you are saying. It was for me. If you are brave, write them down, or better yet, try saying them out loud. This is an effective way to get a reality check. If you want to take it to the next level, tell a trusted friend all that you are saying to yourself. Watch their reaction. Shouldn’t you be alarmed too?

Really, try this. Just doing it for a day is enough to see how ridiculous it is. You should be your biggest advocate, not your worst enemy. What I can’t figure out is why we treat ourselves this way. Is it a deep seeded fear of being unworthy? Is it a fear that we do not belong in the world? Or, deeper yet, are we scared of our true power as human beings, and thus are trying to stifle it?

What is truth? Does truth have to be literal to be true? Is there such as thing as non-literal truths? If so, how are they defined and when are they relevant? Can different “truths” be combined to create a deeper understanding?

Literal and non-literal truths are all around us. Literal truths are dependent upon verifiable facts. They are true only if they can be proven and viewed the same by all people. On the other hand, non-literal truths are not tied to verifiable facts and may not be viewed the same by everyone. Rather, they are tied to emotional, spiritual or psychological realizations of an individual or a society. Often both literal and non-literal truths bring us to similar conclusions - they just do it differently - literal truths through rational thought and non-literal truths through emotion.

For example, throughout time people have struggled to explain why people have different skin colors and whether the variance makes us fundamentally different from one another. Mythology has many answers to this question, but typically concludes humans came from one creator and are equal.

The Pueblo Indians have a myth of a creator magician who made humans. The magician’s assistant, a trickster coyote, kept messing with the different “batches” of humans. This caused some to turn out underdone, with white and pale skin, some overdone, with very dark skin and others “just perfect”, with red skin. Although the “just perfect” people happened to be Pueblo Indians, their mythology did not deem them better than others. This non-literal truth offers an explanation of why humans have different skin colors and concludes our similarities far outweigh the differences.

In recent years science has also been able to offer literal answers to these very same questions and coming to remarkably similar conclusions. Science has shown Melatonin is responsible for the differences in people’s skin tone. One’s level of melatonin corresponds to their environment over long periods of time, so people in certain parts of the world ended up with more melatonin as protection from the sun. DNA has further demonstrated how tiny the differences amongst the races are.

Humans are complex beings. We communicate, feel and learn on many levels and much about us remains a mystery even to modern science, but we are learning. Great advances have been made in understanding how the human mind works, the role of genetics, our environment and even space. But this knowledge has become confusing and disorientating for a many, only further alienating them from the very answers they are seeking. Both literal and non-literal truths are most powerful when combined to tell a complete story. How they are used is ultimately dependent upon the people using them.

Related Posts:
What is a Myth?
Understanding the Difference Between Religion and Spirituality
Picking Sides: Science or Spirituality