When I was first helped by a therapist to recognise that I couldn't identify my emotions, that I had difficulty communicating internally and externally, I was also given a profound piece of advice: "Rules don't come before Relationships". It was the first time I'd heard someone explain how beneficial it was to sort out how I felt about another and to work out how to convey my thoughts about a complex problem which were in alignment with my heart toward them.
I'd already spent much of my life trying to work out what exactly was happening in an exchange, so learning to take a step back from an emotionally charged situation didn't feel like another freedom being taken away - what's one more discipline... eh?
Time to really think through how I felt underneath other layers - sediment even, of unresolved personal emotions or confusion, actually helped me realise a complex number of feelings I have about something (some conflicting with one another) attached to multiple perspectives or mis-conceptions/misunderstandings even. And that element of needing Black and White Rules is best served with real hard Truths like principles and values and the laws of physics or the rules of logic - SO yummy! LOL I can be black and white at my core foundation and then allow everything else to have a sort of fluidity, because there's an order to things. I can have deep settled truths or values and allow this thing the media calls "my truth" to be a simple perspective that might be incorrect.
And this is when I began to see how the phrase "The truth hurts" is loaded with many un-truths. Is a way to diminish, disgrace and dominate another. Humans use it as a source of judge, jury and executioner, a sadistic ego boost. When in fact, the Truth rarely hurts when time is taken to excavate it or someone expresses it with kindness and respect. Even if shocking, it is immediately settling. I grew up with a parent who used this phrase with blood-thirst. When I hear it used now, it is never the truth that is hurtful. Now I am better equipped to respond with "No. It is not the truth that hurts nor an I hurt. It is staggering how outrageously offensive, unjust and cruel you can be." And if it is someone I am in a relationship of some kind with, it is that they have betrayed my trust or our friendship and if they can execute this kind of disregard for another, we do not need to be friends...
These matters can be so emotionally overwhelming they can take years to disseminate. Any one else have these experiences?
"don't tell me truth hurts little girl, cause it hurts like hell"...x Bowie
