Truth Isn’t What You Think

A Sacred Weaving for a Fractured World

There is a quiet violence in the way we use the word truth today.

Not because truth itself is violent—

but because we’ve forgotten what it truly is.

We’ve turned it into something we can wield,

claim,

protect,

perform.

We say “my truth”

when we mean my pain or my story.

We say “the truth”

when we mean what aligns with my values, my beliefs, my reality.

But real truth—

truth with breath,

truth that heals,

truth that remembers—

is not a possession.

It is a presence.

A practice.

A way of being in right relationship with ourselves, one another, and the world.

And if we are to survive this moment in human history,

we must return to that kind of truth.

The kind that humbles us.

That slows us.

That invites us into something greater than the need to be right.

We Don’t Know What Truth Means Anymore

In this moment, truth is fractured.

Not just politically or socially—

but energetically.

We don’t just disagree on facts.

We no longer agree on how we come to know what is true.

Our news, our feeds, our timelines, our conversations—

all curated to reflect what we already believe.

Confirmation bias runs the show.

Algorithms stoke certainty.

Doubt is dangerous.

And nuance is disappearing.

We perform righteousness instead of practising inquiry.

We react faster than we breathe.

We weaponise vulnerability.

We politicise compassion.

We shout into the void,

and call the echo truth.

And in all of this, we forget something essential:

Truth is not the same as perception.

Truth is not the same as emotion.

Truth is not the same as trauma.

What feels true is not always what is true.

And what is true is not always comfortable to feel.

A Truth I Believed for Too Long

For most of my life, I lived inside a truth I did not choose,

but clung to as though it was the only thing keeping me safe.

I am broken.

I am not enough.

I don’t deserve help.

If I ask, I will be rejected.

If I lean, I will be shamed.

This truth shaped my entire world.

It wasn’t something I said out loud.

It was something I carried in my bones.

It showed up in every “I’m fine.”

Every refusal to rest.

Every time I stayed strong instead of soft.

Every time I over-functioned to protect my image of capability.

I thought I was being responsible.

I thought I was being strong.

But I was armouring myself against abandonment.

I was turning survival into a personality.

And this false truth—this wound masquerading as wisdom—

became the water I swam in.

And my children learned to swim in it too.

Not because I told them they had to be strong.

But because I didn’t show them how to be soft.

Not because I told them asking was bad.

But because I never modelled what it looked like to be helped without shame.

This is how generational wounds continue:

not through intention,

but through embodiment.

The Beginning of Unravelling

It began with a breath.

One moment.

One breakdown.

One tender miracle of asking for help—through tears,

through shame,

through the burning in my chest that said I shouldn’t need anyone.

It came quietly.

Not as a revelation,

but as a surrender.

And what followed was not ease—

but grief.

Grief for all the times I carried things alone.

Grief for the love I didn’t let myself receive.

Grief for the years spent believing strength meant silence.

It took years—

and still, the healing continues.

Some days I still hesitate.

Still tighten at the thought of needing too much.

But now I can see that hesitation for what it is:

A residue.

Not a truth.

A scar.

Not a standard.

A doorway.

Not a verdict.

Truth Begins in the Body

Long before we speak, we feel.

The body knows.

The truth lives there.

In the tightness of the jaw.

In the flutter in the gut.

In the warmth in the chest.

In the urge to close, defend, collapse, or disappear.

Before truth becomes language, it is sensation.

Dr Gabor Maté teaches us that our reactions are not caused by what others do,

but by the unprocessed pain we already carry.

Triggers are not explosions—they are signals.

The body saying, “Something is here. Will you meet it with kindness this time?”

So before we “speak our truth,”

before we unleash it on another,

before we defend our position or identity or narrative—

pause.

Return to the body.

Place your hand on your chest.

Or your belly.

Or wherever the ache lives.

Breathe.

Ask:

Is this truth?

Or is this fear?

Is this clarity?

Or is this a defence mechanism looking for evidence?

Truth spoken from a regulated body feels different.

It lands.

It doesn’t slice.

It doesn’t demand.

It invites.

What Our Ancestors Understood

In many ancestral and Indigenous traditions,

truth was not singular.

It was not rigid.

It was not owned.

It was relational.

It lived in the land,

in the sky,

in the spaces between the words.

It belonged to the community.

It was stewarded with care.

You didn’t speak truth unless it was time.

Unless the space was ready.

Unless the words had been prayed into alignment with your spirit.

Among the Lakota, truth is one of the Seven Sacred Laws:

Wóohitike – Bravery.

To speak truth is an act of courage,

but not the kind of courage that conquers.

The kind that humbles.

The Akan people say:

“Truth is like a baobab tree. One person’s arms cannot embrace it.”

Truth required community.

Context.

Connection.

It was woven.

Listening Is a Form of Truth

Truth doesn’t only exist in what is said.

It lives in the listening.

It lives in the way we soften our breath when someone else is sharing.

It lives in the pauses.

In the willingness to not interrupt,

to not know,

to not need to be right.

In a world obsessed with declarations,

listening is a radical act.

To listen is to say:

You matter.

I don’t need to reduce you to a headline to understand you.

I will sit with what makes me uncomfortable because our relationship is worth it.

Sometimes, the most truthful thing we can do is stay silent.

Not out of fear.

But out of reverence.

Not All Truth Heals

Let us be honest:

Not all truth is healing.

Not all truth is helpful.

Not all truth is kind.

Truth spoken at the wrong time, in the wrong tone, without care,

can do more harm than silence ever could.

Truth without love is cruelty.

Truth without context is colonisation.

Truth without listening is domination.

So we ask:

• Is my truth creating connection or separation?

• Am I offering something into the collective that can be held with grace?

• Or am I asking others to carry the weight of my pain without consent?

We are not always ready to speak.

And others are not always ready to receive.

Discernment is part of truth-telling.

So is timing.

So is tone.

So is humility.

The Loom of Humanity

Imagine this:

An ancestral loom, stretching across the cosmos.

And every human—past, present, future—is holding a thread.

Some threads are tangled.

Some are bright.

Some are heavy with grief.

Some shimmer with joy.

Each thread matters.

Each contributes to the pattern.

Truth is the act of weaving—

together.

Not to create uniformity,

but to reveal the deeper pattern that only emerges when difference is honoured.

Your truth is a thread.

So is mine.

So is the land’s.

So is the child’s.

So is the ancestor’s.

And the question is not “Whose truth is right?”

but:

“How do we weave what is true in a way that makes the whole stronger?”

A Blessing for the Truth-Tenders

To those who are learning to speak again—

softly, honestly, slowly—

you are holy.

To those who are unlearning righteousness,

and choosing relationship over performance,

you are doing sacred work.

To those who are listening with your bodies,

to the earth, to the ancestors, to your own heartbeat—

you are remembering something the world has tried to erase.

And to those who are trembling at the edge of asking for help,

or naming the wound,

or setting the truth down gently for the first time in your life—

you are so very brave.

May you never forget:

You are not broken.

You do not need to perform your healing.

You do not need to be loud to be true.

May you always choose to be

a tender of truth—

not its master.