On the Nature of Truth: Complexity, Humility, and Ending Suffering Together
Several years ago, I posted something a bit provocative on social media…
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about truth. Our society is quite in love with either/or thinking, so when it comes to truth we tend to believe that in order for one person to be right another person must be wrong. It’s really hard for us to conceive of the idea that two people with very different perspectives could both be “right.”
This kind of thinking was (and is) inherent in colonialism, imperialism, wars, genocide, feuds, and so many other us-versus-them situations.
Of course, the reality is that the world is so much more diverse and beautiful than this limited scope of thinking allows us to see. And yet we persist in using this lens when we talk to and interact with our communities. No wonder our world is in turmoil and pain.
I don’t have any magic solutions (I really don’t think there are any). But I do invite folks to ponder this idea of rightness and wrongness. Maybe start to make room for other kinds of truth that we may or may not yet understand.
Needing to be right doesn’t bring inner peace or life satisfaction.
Winning arguments doesn’t equate with winning at life.
Maybe we could all do with a little more humility. A little more of recognizing people’s humanity. A bit more of reaching across the aisle and being less afraid of how others view the world.
Being a change-maker starts within ourselves and the small ways we interact with the people around us. Starting small, beginning right where we are is the only thing that will (consistently and enduringly) change the world.”
And today I want to dig a bit deeper into this philosophy, as it is the core of how I approach my work, my ever-evolving beliefs, and the ways in which I entangle myself with life.
Without understanding this aspect of how I see the world, much of the rest of what I write and publish won’t be in context and could be misconstrued.
You see, I love provocative topics – the more daring and “hot button,” the more curious I get about what’s underneath it all…all the way down to the roots of a thing. (It’s a dangerous way to live when you’re also a sensitive soul who would rather live off-grid in some remote woods somewhere...)
But I am, at my core, a very compassionate person who refrains from critiquing individuals, as I believe it’s the systems that are problematic (and yes, I’m aware that individuals build and run systems – it’s complicated, I know).
(That said, I’m also your girl if you really want tough talks that reflect your readiness for radical life changes and commitment to self-bravery – entirely led by you and your needs.)
My critiques of social issues are wholly about systematized thinking and acting that don’t reflect the deepest nature of something. Or the bravest inquiry about something.
I will always stand for radical bravery, especially when automated systems that preferentially favor the powerful tend to undermine and harm people (especially women/children) the world over.
Humble Truth-Seeking
I believe it is important to spend some time considering the nature of truth itself. Especially in our Western world where we tend to think of the world in black and white, absolute truths. And where we tend to think that we have the corner on the market when it comes to “rational” truths.
If you’ve spent any time traveling internationally (physically and philosophically) or even locally in cultures different from your own, you’ll realize that people have very diverse ways of seeing the world. And, mostly, we all tend to think that we are living in the “right” way.
We tend to think that our way of eating is the most delicious and healthy.
We tend to think that our creation stories are the one right and true story.
We tend to think that our forms of logic are the best forms that exist.
We tend to think that our stories of what happens after we die are universally-applicable to all humans.
When we take a stand on an issue (global or local), we tend to have a ride-or-die attitude about our personal truths (which can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on how we apply it to other humans).
We also tend to think that the ways in which we perceive those perspectives apply to all humans everywhere.
We tend to think that our relationships with God, the Divine, or the lack thereof is absolute truth that everyone everywhere should also believe in.
We think that the things that light us up, make us cry, and make us feel warm and fuzzy are also similar to the things that make other people feel this way.
We tend to think that the demands of life we experience on a daily basis are also those that others experience.
We tend to think that the ways in which we’ve formed our social groups, who we call family (and don’t call family), the ways in which we form intimate relationships/partnerships, the ways that we parent children, and the ways we operate our communities’ rules are the same as others’ (or are at least superior to others' ways).
We tend to think that our ways of constructing gender and gender roles (which are both based in culture and very little in biology) are the ways that gender should be experienced everywhere.
We think that when we look up at the stars and contemplate the nature of the universe, others are also seeing, feeling, and thinking similar things.
We think that the actions/behaviors that have worked for our bodies, minds, and lives are also going to work for other people (which is why we encounter nosey people who are always offering unsolicited advice to others…).
We tend to think in universals… that the things we like, think, agree with, and put into action are also the things that others will want, like, and benefit from.
But the reality is that none of these things are remotely true. Nearly every human experience is far from universal and is instead highly subjective. There is a short list of things that are truly biological, uninfluenced by environment and culture (even childbirth doesn’t make this list, as it is heavily influenced by environment). The rest can be customized and influenced, depending on socialization and what is believed in one’s own community and culture.
Environment almost (almost) always trumps biology (and when it doesn’t, it has a heavy influence on it).
These create our (adaptive and maladaptive) core beliefs about the world around us, as well as form our own perceptions of our places within the world.
These create our biases. They create our physical experiences of our bodies (including our perceptions of pain and trauma) and our emotional experiences of our lives. They help us to anchor in our own personal wisdoms and truths as we age.
Even the languages we speak create a specific worldview simply by the words that exist in our languages, the environmental context in which those words/phrases are applied, and how those words/phrases are woven into our story of the world.
We also have very different perceptions of historical events and context, and we lack SO MANY personal historical stories that have died with each individual that didn’t get to share their story of something (which is both a loss, and would be physically impossible to take in this volume of stories with our earth-bound mammalian brain).
We tend to oversimplify history in ways that support our own worldview and discount the true complexity of situations and people’s choices. We often judge past peoples more harshly because of this lack of nuance in our view of them (and our lack of direct experience in their culture and world).
We also tend to think of things from the context of Today instead of seeing them in the many, many chains of historical events that have led to and have profoundly influenced the creation of this moment.
By understanding these realities, we can start to approach Truth with a deeper sense of humility and grace.
Entangling Ourselves with Complexity
We are all allowed to find a truth that resonates with our core beings and souls, and then lean in to embrace it. To walk that path with authenticity and to allow those truths to inform our ways of being in the world.
But we also have a responsibility to allow others the right and opportunity to do the same. Without judgment. Without trying to force our Truth onto them. Without trying to convince them that they’re somehow wrong (we can hold torches of light without enacting dominating behaviors).
It’s hard to override our mammalian brain that is built for bias (and therefore evolutionary safety). But in our globalized world, it’s very important to humbly try.
We learn how to hold our truths in one hand, and hold space for others to be in love with other truths in our other hand.
We can hold boundaries that honor our own personal truths, honoring our own beautiful worldviews. And also be flexible with others who hold different personal truths.
We can be friends with people who share some of our values and also believe things we don’t believe in. These friendships (when conducted with respect and love) keep us humble and keep us always learning (and help us to avoid toxic echo chambers).
It helps to look at the nature of Truth from multiple perspectives in order to get comfortable with this process:
Falling in love with other cultures’ creation stories and ways of approaching wellbeing.
Getting curious about our strong, automatic reactions to someone explaining something we find “wrong.”
Learning about logical fallacies and applying them to our own truths and arguments, to keep ourselves honest about the nature of our own beliefs (and also understanding when a logical fallacy explanation isn’t an appropriate approach to a particular worldview).
Exploring our own biases without personal judgment and holding space for grace and humility toward ourselves (and others!).
Seeing the world through spiritual eyes, honoring the diversity of spiritual beliefs, and falling in love with how many beautiful stories exist in our world – honoring the God-shaped hole that exists in humans and respecting the varied ways that individuals choose to fill that void for themselves.
Holding systems of oppression and harm accountable, while also being gentle and kind to the individuals entangled in those systems.
Being open to many different cultural belief systems while also not getting caught too deeply in the cultural relativism trap (suffering and domination are still that, even when cloaked in another culture’s clothes).
Demanding the end of suffering without punishing those who suffer or by taking away their personal choice and autonomy.
Why a Nuanced View of Truth is Important
For the tens of thousands of years that we’ve had enough human beings on this planet to cause territorial conflict, humans have tried to impose their flavor of truth onto each other.
This is the very core of wars, imperialism, colonialism, cultural domination, and genocide… those who think very highly of their culture’s truths and stories, and undermine the value of another’s truths.
Pair the nature of believing in Absolute Truth with the addictive nature of power seeking, and you get some very ugly forms of domination and suffering.
In our modern world, we are highly globalized and this leads us to a place where we can know better and do better.
We can stop engaging in cultural domination.
We can stop forcing our personal truths onto other people.
We can engage in conversations with others who hold different stories with an open mind/heart, and a willingness to learn from and feel compassion for them.
We can be committed to end unnecessary suffering and hold that value over being right.
We can begin to see that this world currently needs many stories and many holders for those stories – and become tolerant of the complexity inherent in that need.
We can stop overly romanticizing others’ cultures, as well as our own culture – and start to see them for the functional ways in which they help us to calm and stabilize our nervous systems in an uncertain universe (and the ways in which these cultures also do the opposite and instead create fear).
We can engage with science and other western notions without discounting the equally truth-filled systems of knowledge in other cultures (saying that we hold better truth than another culture is practicing ethnocentrism/racism and dangerous/fallacious universality).
We can encourage each other to stand in our truths bravely and be lighthouses for others who relate to us, without forcing others to agree with our own personal truths.
We can be cautious about the nature of labels and the powerful, inflexible cliques they force us to be allegiant to (and the ways in which they keep us from evolving).
We can stop either/or-ing other people… “if you agree with this idea, then you must just be a [stereotypical label]”.
We can hold space for growth, evolving beliefs, and flexibility in our own lives, and graciously allow others the same possibilities (and also not judge others when they remain rigid in their beliefs, as they are on their own journeys of honoring their unique needs).
We can kindly allow ourselves and others to engage in so-called hypocritical acts, understanding that philosophy, knowledge, and applied action all use different parts of our brains and it can take a whole lifetime to create true alignment in our lives.
We can promote the notion of informed choice, while also allowing others to make choices that aren’t based in education or information (and quit feeling responsible and paternalistic toward these adult individuals – knowledge is power, but only if it feels useful to an individual and is culturally relevant to them).
Walking Away from Absolute Truth + Healing Ourselves
I challenge each of you to spend some time slowly sitting with your notions of truth. To be willing to hold a more complex relationship with the nature of truth. To get curious about others’ truths without becoming fearful or possessive (and if you do experience these feelings, approach them with gentle curiosity).
This isn’t a race, but a lifetime practice. It’s a slow meditation that quietly seeps into every cell, opening up our souls, day after day with practice.
It is something that can stir up anxiety and create a sense of uncertainty, so do this in small increments and when you feel settled and safe. (But also don’t avoid it, because radical bravery is part of creating more safety in our nervous systems too.)
Make friends with people who share some values with you and also disagree with you on other points. And make a commitment in your friendship to not judge or feel a need to change each other, but instead lovingly get curious about and support each others’ differing truths.
Heal the sisterhood wound actively and with profound commitment. Stop tearing down other women who don’t agree with your view of the world. Allow women to engage with life in different ways, to help others in ways that you wouldn’t/don’t want to, and to be in love with philosophies that you don’t find useful in your own life.
Resist toxic domination behaviors of fearful competition and instead embrace radical abundance – there is room here for all of us (and we are NOT a good fit to help everyone…we should always be working toward operating in our own zones of genius).
STOP GOSSIPING AND SPREADING RUMORS. PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
Gossip is a deeply harmful behavior that promotes a narrow story of someone you likely don’t know very well (or you judge harshly and are resistant to truly understanding). It’s harmful and doesn’t consider the fullness of that person’s inherent value.
It might have served a function in our past societies, but it doesn’t serve much of a good function now with our vast and easily-destructive social networks. It also creates deep fear in us that prevents us from speaking our very-needed truths. It keeps us operating from a place of smallness, instead of our destiny of taking up space with joy.
It’s just in bad taste and makes the gossiper look like an unethical person. It also deepens the sister wound. Seriously, quit it (and this is one thing I will be pushy about).
If you need to warn someone about another person’s practices that are truly dangerous, do so with caution and with the best intent you can muster up. No embellishment or dramatic storytelling. (And make sure you’re really right before tarnishing another’s name.)
Enough with call-out and cancel culture, especially when it comes to women (please stop harming other women, even those you fiercely disagree with). Enough with throwing others under the bus simply to make ourselves look better (generally it just makes us look like assholes and creates toxic cliques).
Enough with mother judgment and fighting over “better” parenting practices. Yes, there are evolutionary and scientific bases for certain mother-baby practices (and I will promote them as they are based on my personal passions of biology and polyvagal theory, and I believe that every woman deserves to understand the evolutionary basis with which she is working through as a mammal).
BUT we must also acknowledge that every mother is facing systems of oppression, the dismantling of our villages of nourishing care and support, a world that is violently anti-woman and anti-child, and deep isolation and loneliness. She is encountering a culture that is NOT pro-mother/baby. And therefore each mother has to make adjustments and compromises to how she cares for her babies and children to create more stability and less exhaustion in her life. She has to grieve for the things she gives up because she lives in a society that forces her hand and is inherently unfair. And she deserves the deepest of compassion.
Please stop throwing other women and mothers under the bus and instead start asking how you can ease their burdens with kindness and care.
And if you are a woman who has had to make compromises in your life and parenting, or who has been harmed by an anti-woman obstetrical and medical model… also don’t turn judgment and fear/anger toward those who choose to birth or parent from a biological/evolutionary perspective. Heal your anger and wounds, and please stop trying to prevent others from learning about or participating in biological and mammalian birth and mothering (being “triggered” isn’t another's responsibility, but is a call to heal your own wounds with love and grace). You deserve compassion and non-judgment, while also taking radical responsibility for your healing process.
We need to work together to build bridges between reality AND compassion.
Enough with using social media’s very narrow view of someone as a barometer for their whole soul. We are beautiful, dynamic beings that digital pixels could never, ever capture.
The world is roughly 50% women, but because we are fragmented and operating from our unhealed wounds, we are unable to rise up and make significant changes together. This is a pattern and system of power developed by the most powerful to turn those who are disadvantaged against each other in order to keep them powerless and unable to overturn those corrupt powers.
We CAN be sisters, lovingly support each other, AND hold different versions of truth. By banding together in respect, we can work to end suffering, and create a world where women and young children are finally safe.
I really and truly do believe in us. And I believe that the time is now.
Bravely heal your wounds, sister, and rise up with us. Let’s love on each other in ways that respect diverse worldviews, and finally create a path to end suffering, together. ❤️
Need to explore your evolving beliefs, faith crisis, or change in truth orientation with someone who’s nonjudgmental and supportive of you embracing your authentic truth? Book a 1:1 session with me, and we’ll untangle your unique complexity together with curiosity and compassion.
