Getting In Tune With Your Truth…(And How It’s Key To Your Happiness)
Why Living Your Truth Is Key to Your Happiness
Discovering your truth isn’t a new philosophy. I remember when I first really took note of it from Elizabeth Potts Weinstein. Her tagline has always been live your truth. I dug it.
However I just got hit upside the head the past few weeks about really doing it.
- Oprah Winfrey is saying it to me
- Rich Schefren is saying it to me
- Jay Z is saying it to me
- Eben Pagan is saying it to me
And I’ve been listening…
When you live your truth you stand to gain a sense of self confidence, your life flows and you seem to simply ease into your life’s work. That’s something that comes naturally.
When I’m living my truth I feel like I’m living in a world of possibilities rather than fear and constraints. My life seems to flow because I’m loving what I’m doing. I feel confident because I’m good at it.
Sure I’d still come up against life stuff that’s hard but it’s usually because I’m moving forward in life towards a specific goal. Yes I’ve slammed against obstacles or people in the process who appose my views but it’s because I stood for something and I felt it in my core being.
That’s an example of living your truth.
“There is nothing so strong or as safe as the simple truth.”– Charles Dickens
When I’m not living my truth it’s like I’m standing still and getting battered with life stuff that’s coming at me and sometimes it feels like it happens mercilessly.
- When you don’t live your truth you can expect to live life harder than usual. You just don’t feel fulfilled day in day out with your work therefore you don’t feel like you have the energy or inspiration to deal with it.
- You’ll resent people around you because you feel they just don’t get it.
- You’ll shirk responsibilities and you simply won’t do tasks that are required or do them to the best of your ability.
How can you when your heart just simply isn’t into what you’re applying yourself to?
Yup, I’m talking about myself here just as much as I am anyone else that’s been in these shoes.
What Is Your Truth
What does it mean to be in tune with your truth?
- In my opinion it means your thoughts, actions and words are all in alignment with who you actually are at that time in life and where you see yourself going. You’re living your life purposely using your natural skills & talents.
- It means you’re constantly developing your strengths into skills on a daily basis. This makes you stronger and more confident.
- It means you acknowledge what your weaknesses are and you’re totally Ok with them. You don’t focus on them because your strengths and talents are what keep you in flow. Do more of what you’re good at, less of what you’re not good at.
It doesn’t mean you’re happy go lucky everyday and are never down. It means you accept that there are days you’re not on top of your game and it’s Ok as well. Who said you have to be on 24-7?
Believe me, I know how to slave drive my inner child (work too much) and there are days my inner child says, “DaMnIT! I wAnT tO pLaY!” And of course I listen and proceed to go play.
It means you have acknowledged and you’re totally at ease with who you are and what you’re here to do in this world. You’re able to be at ease with what you’re going through, whatever that may be in the moment and it doesn’t reflect on your self worth if it isn’t going that well.
Guess what:
- Instinctively I bet you already know your truth in the world.
- You already know what you love to do.
- You already know what you’re really good at.
So ask yourself, could there be a reason or reasons you’re not doing it? More on this in a minute.
In my experience, it takes a lot more energy and stress to not live your truth rather than actually live it out. It’s like trying to hold an inflatable beach ball under water. It’s just damn hard to do.
How To Live Your Truth
I can’t really tell you how to live your truth. I can only provide you tools to help point you in the direction of discovering it for yourself. Plus I can share with you experiences around how I’ve used them myself. Believe me, you’ll feel so much more confident and better about yourself when you do it this way.
“Mentors can point the way, but you must make the journey.”-Dan Millman
Sometimes those pointers happen to be pretty universal. If they serve you in living your own truth, awesome.
I know in the past I’ve been guilty of not taking responsibility around living my truth and secretly wanting someone to come along and just tell me what to do and how to do it. The problem with that is they will come along and project their value system onto you and you can’t live your truth if you’re trying to live someone elses values.
I don’t care to project my values onto you and then expect you to live in ways that are only important to me. I feel this happens a lot in our world and it’s one of the biggest causes of suffering there is.
“Oh look at the house, car, spouse, money, lifestyle they have! Whatever they are doing I should do it too and I’ll get what they have and be happy!”
This is always a recipe for suffering.
Are there universal philosophies you can learn from people who are successful in those ways?
Sure.
In my opinion living someone elses truth may get you the stuff but it won’t leave you fulfilled.
When you live your truth I feel it should be fulfilling first. The stuff you get from it is a result of living it purposely.
You’ve got to do what comes naturally to you. There’s no reason you couldn’t make a career out of it if you chose to. Think strategically and purposely about it.
People like Oprah are successful at what they do because they structure their world around their strengths and surround themselves with people & systems to support their weaknesses.
Next Steps: Getting In Tune
So complete the sentences below to help identify what comes naturally to you. Don’t think too much, just write what comes naturally:
- I feel most inspired when I…
- I felt the most fulfilled when I…
- The times I remember having the most fun is….
- Time absolutely flies by when I am…
- The time I felt most alive is when I…
This is just the fist step in discovering your truth.
I know you’ll have all kinds of voices telling you, “Yeah but…” because I still get them. So let’s acknowledge them next because you can’t cope with what you don’t acknowledge. Take your answers from above and finish the sentences below:
- The reason I don’t do more of what inspires me is…
- I don’t do more of what leads to fulfilling outcomes because…
- The reason I don’t do more of what is most fun is…
- I don’t do more of this because…
- I’m not doing more of this because…
This little exercise alone can shed a lot of light on what’s standing in your way of living your truth.
What about you?
If you have questions or comments leave them below in the comments section and would please share this on Twitter or Facebook?
If you feel you are living your truth right now how did you arrive to it, I’m curious how you feel about this subject and I’m betting others would love to hear about it.
