2021: Truth or Dare

Happy belated 2021

It’s been a while since I wrote, I was contemplating the best words to use and the best time to speak them.  I concluded it would be best to tell you a story from my life.  From 1996.  It speaks to the time we are in now.

It was 12th December 1996.  I had just finished the Christmas exams in my 2nd year at University.  It was lunch time and I was having a few drinks with friends in the Student bar.  We were celebrating finishing for the Winter term and I phoned home to talk with family and share my celebrations.

I remember the exact day as it was the date that my life changed forever.  After that phone call I would never be the same again.  I found out some home truths, about my life, about my upbringing.  One of my siblings was seeing a Counsellor and going through a hard time.  I had enquired as to why.  I had never asked this question before.  It’s a powerful question and my family member had not wanted to share the information with me.  She had kept the secrets for years and protected me from them.

But now I was an adult with a few drinks in me and I insisted I could handle whatever it was.  It took all of about thirty seconds for my family skeletons to be evicted from their hiding place.  Less than a minute for the truth to rip through me, steal away my heart and shatter it into a million pieces.

She asked if I was ok.

“I’m fine” I said.

“I’ll see you in a few days”

I wasn’t.  I had been told the truth about my life and it was in stark contrast to the truth I had lived and experienced.  The details of what I was told are not important here, I will save them for another day.  Suffice to say, I thought that my life was perfect and that everyone around me was a saint, all of my family and friends.  But now I was presented with this new information.  Someone in my life was a villain and had done horrible things to others and up until that point I held them on a pedestal.  They were a hero in my life.

I had been given this information by someone I trust and love dearly.  I never once doubted what they said.  Perhaps that is why Denial was not an option.  I was lovingly presented with painful truths about my life that broke my heart and I could not run from them.

The rest of that fateful day in December twenty four years ago was a messy drunken blur.  I thought my head would explode, I thought my life would explode.  I had lived under a massive lie, everything in my life was now invalid.  As though everything I had filed away neatly in my mind was now out of its filing place and piled on top of me, suffocating me.

I would like to tell you that I coped well as a balanced 19 year old, living away from home for the first time.  That would be a lie.  Even when I was home for the Christmas break I filled the time with seeing friends and working.  I busied myself so as not to give myself time to think about it.  I cut contact with the villain of the family and sought to get on with my life.

I did not have the emotional tools to cope with such life changing revelations.  I reverted to the only coping tool that I had.  I pretended I was fine.  Denial.  I didn’t call it pretence or denial back then, but that’s the secret of denial and that’s why so many people are under its spell.  Denial is easy to use, always available and keeps you comfortable.  I took a big breath and I pushed all the emotions back down inside me.  I returned to Uni.

I didn’t cope, I tried to run and hide and escape and return back to the comfort of my old life.  But that version of my life was now invalid.  Within a month I had turned to alcohol as a means to cope, I had 3rd degree self-inflicted burns on my hand, I’d had plastic surgery without telling anyone and my friend had died from a rare disease.  My world was broken.  I returned home.

I was ready to admit that I needed help coming to terms with the truth.

I took it step by step.  I was nurtured at home for a bit, I saw a Hypnotherapist and when I returned to Uni I started seeing a Counsellor.  I started reading all sorts of self help and psychology books, I became fascinated.  I learned, I understood and I started to heal.

The truth is powerful beyond measure.  She will break your heart but then she will eventually set you free.  The path to your personal freedom after you are presented with undeniable truth, is directly proportional to the time that you put in and the depth of your trust in her.

Truth is patient.  If you are not ready, she will wait.  If you deny her, she will wait.  If you busy yourself or distract yourself, she will wait.  She will never be bored by waiting.  She is not mean or callous, she means you no harm but she also knows that sometimes pain is inevitable and necessary for you to fully embrace her, to understand, to grow and to move on.

It was in my case.  She had to break my heart to get through to me, to put me on track in life.  Truth visited me again several times before I chose to step fully onto my spiritual path and become a Shaman.  There was no other way for me.  I see that now, I was just too entrenched, too lost, too broken and headed in completely the wrong direction.  Truth started as a whisper in my life and progressed into a clarion call.

Since that day in 1996 I have sought the truth in my life.  I have read and researched thousands of alternative viewpoints from all sorts of incredible people and been down many winding roads, some were dead-ends and others were fabulous country roads with amazing views.  On this beautiful journey I have always been unique, open and curious.  I have learnt to work with truth and to be discerning with her impostors.

I wish I could tell you that embracing truth is easy.  But nothing worth doing is easy.

In the weeks ahead, when the light of truth comes knocking on your door, will you answer?  Will you hear her?

Be gentle with yourself, stay in your heart, take time to meditate and exercise, watch comedy, talk to friends, connect with nature, walk in the woods, in a park or on the beach, breath deep, let it go, let it flow.

Photo by Koushik ghosh from FreeImages