Reliable Truth

"Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?"

-Charles Bukowski

In my writing group today, we talked about our past selves.  What we believed growing up and what we believe now.  Always an interesting exercise.  We all have a story, a series of truths and beliefs and a narrative that has gotten us to this point.  But we rarely look back and ask what we know for sure about our story, our experiences, our truth.

In other words, “What is a reliable truth?”

When examining our story and who we believe ourselves to be, what should we trust as a reliable description of who we are? And why do we hold on to what we believe to be "true" about ourselves without questioning where that truth came from? Who told us that truth? Why did we adopt that truth and not others? What are we “claiming” as our own and why?

Most of our early “truths” arrive to us in these ways:

1. Authority - People we saw as an authority figure. Those who held the power in our early life.  Parents, teachers, older siblings.  They were there from the beginning shaping our identity.   People we trusted because we needed guidance and security. 
2. Belonging - We did what we needed to do to fit in. Research shows that children will trade authenticity for attachment and adults will trade truth for acceptance.  These may be reliable coping strategies, but they are not what is true.
3. Protection - We adopted the beliefs that kept us safe. I’m too much. I’m not enough. I can’t trust people.  I should stay small.  These begin as survival strategies.  Thinking if we are not noticed or do not cause problems, we will be protected from ridicule or people noticing that we are “different”.  As if different is somehow wrong.
4. Repetition - We gravitate toward what we hear most often. Our brains normalize what is familiar, and we frequently mistake repetition for truth. These so-called “truths” feel real not because they are accurate, but because they have been repeatedly described as our identity. Many of them aren’t even ours. They are echoes of someone else’s dreams, fears, or unfinished stories. A parent pushes a child toward sports or music because it was their unfulfilled dream or steers a child away from something simply because they fear it, long before the child has had a chance to experience anything for themselves.

Why do we claim some truths and not others? Because the nervous system is biased toward coherence, not accuracy.  We cling to the truths that feel familiar and confirm what we already believe, even if we have never asked ourselves WHY we believe something.  We hold tight to truths that we feel maintain our safety and are predictable.  The truths that cause the least conflict with our environment.  Our families, our jobs, our partners, our own children.  We feel comfortable with the truths that allow us to stay in known patterns (even painful ones) because our brains like comfortable.  Comfortable is not threatening.  Change IS seen as a threat, even when it is what we desire most. 

We adopt truths to fit the story we already think is ours.  This explains how we can survive extraordinary things and still cling to the belief that, “I’m weak.  I failed.  Something is wrong with me. I should be further along.”  We hold tight to these beliefs not because they are true, but because they match the narrative we have lived with for so long.  Long before we knew or understood that we have a choice.  We get to CHOOSE who we are and how we show up.  The truths we cling to, the ones we learned and needed to adopt so we could establish our place in the world, are NOT reliable.  We use them to describe ourselves, our beliefs and even our shortcomings, but they are not the totality of who we are.   

One truth that I repeat to myself often (and if you have ever been to one of my meetings, you have heard this many times) - we have all survived 100% of everything that has ever come our way.  This is the one truth that no one can give you AND no one can take away.  This is not interpretation.  This is not opinion.  This is not someone else’s belief.  This is fact.  And inside that fact is a second, deeper truth:  you adapted, you endured, you found a way. You survived.  How?  What did you learn?  How have you thrived despite what happened?

When everything else is stripped away, our identity, roles, expectations, mistakes, triumphs, our survival becomes the most trustworthy evidence of who we truly are.  Survival shows us the truth of our resilience.  It highlights our creativity, strength, ingenuity, intuition, and courage.  It proves our ability to transform and adapt to anything that lands in our path.

These qualities do not come from what the world told you.  They come from what you lived through. To quote Charles Bukowski again, “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

When we examine our story and ask the question, “What is a reliable truth about who I am?”, we need to look at the totality of how we got here.  If we can shift our perspective from, “What did my experience do TO me” and ask instead, “What did my experience REVEAL about me?”, the lens through which we perceive the totality of our story changes.  We notice the way we kept going, the way we restored ourselves, the way we protected the truth inside us, and the way our future self pulled us forward. We begin to hear the way our inner wisdom kept whispering, “Not this.  Keep going. There is more.”

This is how the true self emerges.  Not because life was easy, but because something in us refused to stay buried.

Who were you before the world told you who to be?  You were your original self.  Curious, intuitive, sensitive, creative, bold, trusting, open, unashamed, connected to your own knowing, unfiltered by other people’s expectations.  That self never disappeared.  It simply went underground while you survived what you needed to survive.

And now?

Now you are in the season of excavation.  Of remembering.  Of recovering the truths that were always yours and letting the false ones fall away.

A reliable truth is anything that strengthens your connection to your original self.  The self who existed before the world told you who you were.  The reliable truths worth keeping, worth exploring and trusting, are the ones drawn from your lived experience of survival and growth. 

Everything else, every “truth” someone handed you, belongs to a larger story and the expectations of others, not to you.  The roles you were given shaped you and helped you grow.  We can and should find gratitude for the path we have been on.   But growth also includes learning when and where to let go of the roles you have been handed.  The ones that are no longer serving you.  Growth is stepping off our prescribed path with confidence and finding our way back to the path we came here to carve. 

Your work now is not to become someone new.  It is simply to return to the beautiful soul you have always been.

Much Love,

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group.  However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.