Living in Lightness

darling,

you feel heavy

because you are

too full of truth.

open your mouth more.

let the truth exist

somewhere other than

inside your body.

Della Hicks-Wilson

The idea of speaking our truth fascinates me. While it would seem like such an easy task, for many of us it is a monumental feat. What allows some people to speak freely and with conviction about their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs while others stand quietly, seemingly voiceless? Personality aside, because you don’t have to shout from the mountain top in order to speak your truth, why are some people so in touch with what their hearts say and yet others feel lost and uncertain? Is it that the “voiceless ones” have felt quieted at some point in their lives; quieted by an angry parent, unkind peers, or perhaps the insensitive demands of the larger culture? In their podcast Bewildered, Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan believe that “human culture teaches us to come to consensus,” while “nature, our own true nature, helps us come to our senses.” The problem, say Beck and Mangan in their first episode, is that not only are there contradictory messages coming from culture, but there are also multiple types of culture that pressure us to behave a certain way — family culture, different friend cultures, religious culture, as well as the larger culture in which we live. Perhaps, then, what happens to some of us is that we are so busy being bombarded by the multiple messages of our different cultures that we are torn from our own true essence and therefore find ourselves voiceless.

In my own life, I know one of the reasons I silence my truth is to keep the peace. As a child, as a wife, and as a member of society, I have not and do not enjoy rocking the proverbial boat. I am a conflict avoider, and sometimes that means I silence myself. What I have found is that, most of the time, suppressing the truth does more harm than good. We need to express ourselves in some way. We need to be heard, seen, felt; for our own sakes as well as for other’s. We share a common experience, but until we speak our truth or hear someone else speak theirs, we don’t know how common it is. There is a humanness within us that is so very similar, but we don’t recognize it until we open ourselves to others. Sometimes it just takes one person putting it into words for us to think that’s exactly how I feel or I’m so glad I’m not alone or she could have read that right out of my journal. Some things are universal; feelings that we all experience, and yet we don’t realize it because we silence ourselves out of fear or insecurity or doubt, and then we live in our heads with these ideas swirling like chaotic catastrophes ready to wreak havoc, thinking we are the only ones who feel this way. We are not. But until we share our story or until we talk to others or until we find some way to express our voice, we suffer silently and needlessly. As Nancy Slonim Aronie says in her book Writing from the Heart, “All of us want the same thing. We all want to be validated for who we are — not for who people want us to be. We all share the emotions of fear and pain and worry and sadness. Why, then, do we spend so much time pretending we’re fine” (72)?

So, how do we do this? How do we pry ourselves away from the grip of the outside voices, away from the expectations and demands they are making on us, away from the mixed messages we are receiving from them, in order to connect with our own thoughts, our own beliefs, our own essence? Perhaps creating some distance between us and culture is one way to begin. Turning down the chaos of the frenetic news and the wearisome words of social media is a start. Finding a peaceful place to retreat to helps, even if only for a few minutes a day. In the golden space of silence we can truly connect with ourselves, with God, and with our hearts. Maybe this is why Martha Beck recommends “withdrawing from civilization into a wilder self” — so that we can find our truth, our pure nature, our voice. In her book The Creative Habit, the great choreographer Twyla Tharp talks about living in upstate New York on a dilapidated farm that she and her husband worked: “I was unassailed by distractions: no artificially imposed schedules, no meetings, no inconvenient commuting. The phone did not ring for days . . . I felt linked to ancient physical chores . . . I made more dance that summer than I ever have” (198). Finding peace and connection with our own nature, away from the bigger culture, brings us to a place of knowing ourselves more completely.

Yes, our truth left to exist only within us makes us heavy. But if we can create the space in our lives to anchor to our hearts and silence others’ voices in order to hear our own, perhaps then we will find ways to express ourselves and live in lightness.

Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash

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