The Nature of Truth

As seekers, we often tell ourselves that we want the truth. We spend time and money on our efforts to source truth from the illusion that is all around us. We feel attracted to it because of the magnetism around it, yet ironically, it often remains hidden from us on a personal and societal level.  Why is something so necessary for living a fulfilling life, so elusive?

Inconvenience

Truth. Isn’t. Convenient. It doesn’t play by our rules.  It doesn’t allow for our control and manipulation like so many other things do.  Truth isn’t negotiable. It simply is.

If I want to look like a swim suit model yet 10 pounds are separating my stomach and thighs from being on the cover of a Sports Illustrated magazine, the scale will never lie to me (ok, so many things are separating my being on the cover but work with me).  I may lie to me. “I weighed myself in the evening instead of the morning.” “It’s left over winter weight.”  “It was an unflattering dress.”  And on and on.  I can try to control the truth of the scale with Spanx and manipulate my outward appearance but truth is the truth. If I want to look the way I desire in a swim suit, I need a lot more time at the gym.  And that isn’t convenient (or fun).

The inconvenience of truth frequently sneaks up on us not just on the scale but in our relationships and bank accounts. We may find ten years into a marriage that we can’t stand the person we are married to. Maybe we didn’t ‘tend’ to the relationship as we should have and now we are living with an annoying roommate or someone we don’t love. A harsh realization to come to and one that requires some soul searching and courage.

Courage because one of the most common defense mechanisms we engage in is denial.  It is much easier to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn’t our reality than to make all the necessary changes required to extricate ourselves out of the relationship.

Accepting the truth means lifestyle changes, divorce attorney’s, a decrease in financial stability and on and on.  None of which is convenient.  For many it’s simply too much to accept so they deny the truth and live the illusion that all is well.

Truth shows itself in our spending patterns as well.  We buy and buy all month long and inevitably, the credit card bills arrive as they always do.  They contain a long and honest list of our emotional up’s and downs from the previous month.  No amount of lying to ourselves can decrease the number staring back at us.

The profit and loss statement from our business also a beautiful display…how much did I focus on sales this month?  How much marketing did I engage in?  Sometimes we find that we had more going out than coming in and yet again, this is not a convenient truth for our ego.

Inconvenience is a big reason why we don’t embrace truth.  Seeing things as they truly are creates the need for course corrections in certain areas of our lives, connects us to feelings of shame, regret, not being good enough and requires that we take a good hard look at how we are living.  Denial is a much easier path…in the short term.

Necessitates Responsibility

Accepting truth = Accepting responsibility for why things are the way they are.  If our reality is governed by Cause and Effect / Choice and Consequence than everything in our physical circumstances must have been created by our choices.

That’s great when life is humming along and we are being serenaded by blue birds and rainbow unicorns but another thing altogether when everything is falling apart and we can’t figure out why our life sucks.

I often find that people have a strong aversion to responsibility because it’s also not convenient.  But it’s really the only way we can embrace truth and honor the lessons being shown to us through the physical demonstration of our choices appearing as life situations.

If I accept that I am responsible for taking care of myself, how I eat and whether I exercise or not, then the truth becomes much easier for me to accept.  If I’m not where I want to be with my physical fitness than I alone am responsible for making that happen for myself.

If I accept that relationships require time, emotional connection and engagement through daily interaction and my relationship is indicating that distance and separation are occurring, then I am responsible for communicating to my partner and working on bettering the connection.

If I accept that the more I focus on sales and marketing, the more money my business will make each month, then I am responsible for choosing to engage in the activities that produce income.  Period.

Life will always demonstrate Truth to us, even when we choose blindness.  We can continue to put on our rose colored glasses but inevitably our circumstances will demonstrate what is true for us in our health, our relationships and our finances.

As Buddha said “Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth.”