What kind of truth sets you free?
How do you find the words for the atrocities happening around the world? In your nation? In your town? In your house? In your body?
Some things are so painful and stark and true; it feels like it would kill you to speak them out loud - keeping them quiet and hidden somehow protects you from their damage, or at least, more damage.
There are some things too humiliating and uncertain that to speak about them feels like letting wild and hungry lions out of their cages to run rampant through the streets.
There are some things so disappointing and sad and depressing that to speak about them feels like admitting defeat.
There are some things so exhilarating, joyful, and hopeful that to speak of them might destroy the dream, tarnish the shine, burst the bubble.
And then there are those truths; the ones that we hold close, that are sacred and careful and revealing, and we're not sure if we can trust and who we can trust and how we can bring these things out into the wild of our lives and the world without breaking from the sheer vulnerability of it.
All of these things, without words and language, have no pathway out, no expression or shape or form; they have no option but to stay put, to stay the same, to take up space in your life and body, which is what you're trying not to do by not talking about them.
Because those things that you feel you can't speak about? You must, you should, you can.
Jesus once said, "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free."*
It's not that there is a list of truths that will set you free if you choose to believe them and assimilate them into your life. It's not the truth as in one plus one equals two. It's much more powerful and organic than that.
We always hide our truth; hide from ourselves and others and people and communities and anyone and anything we see as a threat. We censor ourselves, tone it down, and tell little half-truths and lies to keep ourselves safe. Please don't take this as a condemnation because it's not. Everyone does this to varying degrees, and the great work of your life has always been, and always will be, to be more and more true, unhidden, here.
When you can face the truth about your one wild and precious life and body and human experience; when you are brave enough (with people you can trust) to show up as you are with the life you have and the truth of who you are, you will finally and at last, taste freedom.
The truth sets you free.
It's about bringing things out into the light. Not to be exposed and found out, but to be seen and known and loved, as you are, for who you are. It's so that instead of turning away from your trauma and your joy alike, you face it; you deal with it, you process it and transform it.
Carl Jung said:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
This is the work. To bring yourself out into the open, into truth, into freedom. To wake up, come to consciousness, again and again and again.
There are some things you just can't speak about. Or at least, that's how it feels; that's how you've lived up until this point. There are social and familial and religious and political narratives keeping you quiet, hidden, in the dark, out of truth. But we must rage and rally and rise up against those systems, and speak our sacred stories and words, and live ourselves into freedom.
Mindful Prompt: The truth will set you free, so maybe it's time to face the truth of who you are - from the trauma to the joy - and how you can live yourself into truth and freedom. It's scary at first; everything revolutionary is. Grace and courage will see you through.
So much love, as always.
See you in the App,
Liz Milani xo
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series titled "The Truth Will Set You Free," with a subscription in the App. Hope to see you there.
