Speak Your Truth

Posted on August 21, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
old photo of an old watercolor. I did this painting sometime in the 1980's

old photo of an old watercolor. I did this painting sometime in the 1980’s

Words hook me and lately I’ve been paying attention to the difference in the phrases:

  • Speak the truth, and
  • Speak your truth

One word makes a world of difference! Literally, an entire world of differentiation is made in one little word. “The” truth or “your” truth?

Outside of every courthouse in America is Lady Truth wearing a blindfold and holding a tipping scale. The idea is that truth is objective and fact based. Truth, so the symbol implies, is blind to any personal consideration and justice is equal to all who enter the marble courthouse. It’s a concept that was firmly ensconced in the age of reason with roots running back to the Greeks: truth is something neutral, measurable, concrete, fixed, and external. In such a construct, inner truth is suspect because it is subjective and, at best, fluid.

I’ve sat on a few juries and was reinforced in the notion that the lawyer who told the better story always wins. Truth in the courthouse was as malleable as truth outside the courthouse. The point of the whole exercise, a prosecution and a defense telling opposing stories to a captive group of citizens, is an exercise in subjectivity. Whose version of truth do the captive citizens embrace? Truth, in the courthouse, is an agreement.

Also, there are a myriad of forces at play in the epicenter of the symbol and few are fixed, blind, or measurable. For instance, a public defender with a mountain of cases does not stand a good chance against a modestly prepared prosecution. The story is already tipped when the circumstance of the play is “someone stands accused….” If truth were fixed and measurable, millions of Americans would not be glued to their televisions each night watching Law & Order. Truth makes for good drama because it is a matter of perception. Truth is perception.

We live in the age of news as entertainment (I’d make an argument that we’ve digressed into the age of news as marketing ideology – but that is a post for another day). For instance, listen to the news as told by MSNBC and then flip your dial to FOX NEWS and you’ll see what I mean. Then, for grins, listen to the same series of stories as reported by the BBC. We regularly apply two words when debating our news-of-the-day that make me shake my head with despair: slant and spin. Truth is what we want to believe – or, more to the point, what others want us to believe.

And therein lies the hook. Because we hold dear the notion that truth is neutral, external, and objective, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we are willing to abdicate personal truth. We blunt the inner guides for what we are told to think, feel, and believe. We become passive. If truth is fixed and external then the inner voice is all but meaningless. Self-doubt is the blossom. The symbol of blindfolded Truth is accurate but it is a different kind of blindness. Seeing is as much internal as external. Experiences are interpreted; there will always be conflicting points of view. That means there will be multiple truths. Always. Isn’t that the definition of subjective?

The only real measure that matters is inner truth. At the end of the day, in the dark of your private space, there is no one other than yourself to ask (and answer) the question, “Did I speak truth or did I spin things.” Words matter. Words create. Truth is the name we give things.

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Eve, by David Robinson

Eve, by David Robinson

Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Revisit And Revise

Posted on August 9, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Pidgeon Pier (Alan and David on the Sound) by David Robinson

I used this painting as the cover image for The Ground Truth. I call this painting Pigeon Pier.

With the success of my book, The Seer, I’ve been revisiting some previous manuscripts and ebooks. I have a lot of them, mostly unpublished and unseen. One of my favorites, and one that I am considering revising and releasing, is called the Ground Truth. The ground truth is a military term and denotes the difference between the truth as seen by the generals in the war room (an abstraction) and those actually doing the fighting on the ground (actuality). I gave the book the subtitle: Six Dynamic Relationships That Will Change Your Life. Marketing claims are usually brazen. The book is really about how to orient to personal truth.

As I’ve been revisiting the book, I’ve also been revisiting several of the concepts in it. One concept that has been much on my mind lately is the Hero and the Anti Hero. Here’s an excerpt from The Ground Truth defining the concept:

In a small notebook with a red cover I found a drawing. The image is horizontal on the page. On the far left I wrote the word “Hero” and scribbled a circle around it. On the far right I wrote, “Anti-Hero” and also scribbled a circle around it. The circle with the Hero and the other with the Anti-Hero are connected with a line. The drawing looks like a cartoon barbell. I must have been explaining this to someone; I can tell by how emphatically I scribbled the circles.

The Hero and The Anti Hero was a revelation that Harald shared with me a few years ago. Harald’s first language is German so he used the term Anti-Hero instead of villain or devil or “big dog yapping in my brain.” I like Anti-Hero because it is actually more appropriate than any term I might have used.

He told me that he’d spent much of his life trying to rid himself of his inner Anti-Hero. It had consumed much of his life, this powerful inner voice of self-criticism and judgment. It plagued him and the more he resisted the Anti-Hero the stronger it became. One day, exhausted by his inner turmoil he had an epiphany. He realized that the way to rid himself of this Anti-Hero was to stop expecting to be a Hero. In fact, his expectation of being a savior, being perfect, being everything to everybody was the very thing that fueled the Anti-Hero. Letting go of the Hero dissipated the power of the Anti-Hero and what was left was…human. Beautiful, flawed, funny and messy, Harald was a human no longer at war with himself.

Internal warfare causes split intentions, split intentions create internal warfare. It’s a feedback loop. As Harald discovered, trying to be the Hero in the eyes of everyone else split him into two pieces: the unreal expectation (Hero) and an ever-vigilant judge (Anti-Hero). Harald was attempting to control what he could not control: the expectations and responses of other people. His happiness was contingent upon the responses of others so he was constantly measuring his worth against others responses: The actor (Hero) and the measurer (Anti-Hero). The internal warfare was inevitable.

In the next few days I’ll write more on The Hero and the Anti Hero, and what a few years and new eyes have brought.

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Sound Glorious

Posted on January 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

687. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today as I walked north on 5th Avenue from the International District toward downtown, I went through a short tunnel or underpass. A young woman was standing in the center of the underpass, singing without inhibition. The acoustics were magnificent. Rather than singing a lyric, she was vocalizing, celebrating the range and depth of her voice. She saw me smile and stopped long enough to say, “Don’t I sound glorious!” She did.

One of the members of the coaching class I co-teach is a reverend. In class this week she offered us a biblical image for standing full and alive in personal truth: standing naked and unashamed before god. She asked, “What must it feel like to stand naked and unashamed before the world?” I thought of her question the moment I heard the young woman singing unashamed and fully exposed in the underpass.

Question: How do you know you are standing in your truth? Answer: you will find yourself singing your song at the top of your voice in a place that amplifies the sound and say with joy to a total stranger, “Don’t I sound glorious!”

Filed under: Identity, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Join The Symphony

Posted on January 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

685. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The exercise in class was a word cluster, a free association exploration about stepping into personal truth. Afterward, Winifred shared an image that surfaced during her cluster. She told the group that it was as if every living being on earth was a musical note in a song. When she stepped into a global perspective, she heard all the notes combine into a chorus. As she moved further out into a more universal perspective, the planets had songs and everything combined into a symphony of notes, high and low and everything in between.

According to her revelation, no note was insignificant; the symphony, to have full power, needed all the notes – so to diminish or minimize her self was to diminish the voice of the symphony. She said, “The world needs our notes.” And then, after a pause, she added, “…within every individual is a universe and each emotion is like a single musical note. In order for an individual to fulfill their universal note, they must feel the full spectrum of music within themselves.” She said, “Even suffering is a note, a note necessary to complete the symphony.”

Her message: Living your truth means to play without inhibition in the symphony of the universe. We need your note to complete the sound.

Filed under: Metaphor, Transcendence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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