“When I tell any truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.”

– William Blake

Do you speak your truth?

I am not talking about being truthful rather than telling a lie.  Telling the truth and speaking one’s truth are related, I suppose, but they are very different concepts.  Most of us strive to give a truthful answer when we are asked a question.  We learn from a very early age that telling the truth to others makes us trustworthy in their eyes; and if we are to interact with other people, we need to have relationships that are built on trust.  This makes truth-telling both admirable and desirable.

What about speaking your truth?  I think that truth-telling is sort of a warm-up for truth-speaking.  Truth-telling has to do with the way we relate to other people.  Truth-speaking is all about the way we relate to ourselves.  With other people, we can rely on feedback when we speak.  This helps us to understand the way our words impact others; but sometimes it is exactly this feedback that limits us from speaking our personal truth.  We don’t want to offend someone with a differing view.  We don’t want to be seen as odd or different from our peers.  We learn from a very early age to temper our own truth in order to assure that we will be accepted by other people.

Blake’s view of speaking truth offers us encouragement to stop back-pedaling from our own truth in order to avoid being seen as different.  When we speak our truth, simply because it is true and not to convince anyone else to agree with us, we free both ourselves and others from the need to compete for the best version of the truth.  We learn to coexist and to listen better when others speak their truths as well.  Most importantly, when our truth touches the truthful spot in another person, we find that each of us is encouraged to embrace what we know to be true.  Let’s all be truthful — to others and to ourselves.  Truly, it will set us free.