I recently decided to start a podcast to explore the topic of Truth. In my mind as I currently have it, this will be a six-part series entirely focused on the workings of the inner voice. Below is the transcript for episode 1. You can listen to the episode on Spotify, or by clicking here.
Transcript to the Podcast:
Hello! This is Always Say the Unsaid.
This is episode 1 of what I imagine to be a 6 part series on truth and truth-seeking.
My name is Maria and I… have never made a podcast before, so this will be a new venture into something incredibly unknown to me. Truth: I really only began listening to podcasts about 4 months ago if you can believe it. But now, I can’t imagine why it took me so long. I love podcasts.
There’s nothing specific that qualifies me to make a podcast, and on this subject particularly. I’m just an average woman living a typically average life. Married with kids, a homeowner trying to pay off the dang mortgage, hoping to live a life with meaning while still making sure to pay the bills. I could be any person, on any given day.
But I decided to create this podcast anyway, and for a number of reasons.
For one, I was curious. I wondered, can I? Can someone who is relatively a no one just go ahead and make a podcast? Second, and more importantly, accountability. I am an introvert, and not at all comfortable with the spoken word. I generally dislike talking and avoid it as much as is humanly possible (while still trying to function in society). I needed to choose a medium that was outside of my comfort zone to hold myself accountable to my goal for this new year, and for life in general: Tell the truth. Be honest. Always speak from a place of truth. Never hold in what should be spoken out. Always say the unsaid.
So this will be a podcast that delves into and explores the many facets of truth-telling, and what it means to be truthful: why it’s important, what it means to me and what it could potentially mean to you.
And given that, I think, the only natural place to begin is to ask the question, What is truth?
I don’t know if this story will resonate but, a few years ago my husband and I were looking to purchase a cottage. I wasn’t sure whether we actually should – financially, practically – but my heart wanted and still wants a cabin in the woods. For better or for worse, we decided to aim for the dream. We went full throttle, but the entire time I was asking myself whether or not we were doing the right thing. I kept going, though, choosing to keep my eye on that dream. Long story short, we put an offer on a place that was set to be ours, but at the last possible minute, the deal fell through. I got a phone call from the realtor to let me know, and when I hung up the phone, my entire body experienced a sigh of relief. The entire time I had been operating from my mind, logically telling myself that I should go after my dream. But at the end of the day, my insides kicked in and let me know that this was not the right time, and that there was nothing to regret; that the outcome had been exactly as it should have been. The truth had kicked in.
Whether you believe in God or universe or spirit or source or fill-in-the-blank, you may know the feeling. I call it God, in a non-religious sense. This is the way God talks with me. It happened to me with an old boyfriend, at a tipping point between staying in the relationship or moving on. The truth told me what I needed to do. It happened to me when we purchased our current home. After looking at probably hundreds of houses online, when I pulled up the realtor listing for our home, the truth said, this is the right one for you right now. It happened to me before conceiving our third child, too.
Truth is the deepest part of ourselves. Truth is where our integrity resides. Truth is the thing within us that – although it can be easily ignored, will never go away. Every time we do ignore our truth – something that can go on for years, or even our entire lives – we hurt ourselves on mental, physical, spiritual and emotional levels. Breaking from the truth prevents us from living our best lives.
It’s like in the movies, you know? It’s like Nicolas Cage inThe Family Man or Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness or Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire or the animated film Inside Out. How many times has Hollywood tried to tell us, ironically through the practice of make believe, that the truth will set you free. The truth will set you free. The truth will set you free.
Take a moment and think about truth in your own life, to one of your moments when you felt the truth spring up within you, to how you felt in that moment, to know it was the truth, without a doubt, unequivocally…
And now compare that to another moment where you were ignoring the truth. We all have those, too. Moments where we actually knew within ourselves that we are stepping away from our integrity.
As an introvert, and as someone who was raised to be a people pleaser – to think about what other people will think and say, their judgments and their opinions; to care about outward appearances – and as a wallflower who never understood what to do whenever the attention was on me, I have repeatedly in my life stepped away from my truth.
This is a common example: Often, when I’m presented with a question that requires me to make a choice between at least two possible options, I will freeze. I freeze because I get stuck between making a choice that is better for MOST people, and making a choice that is better for ME. The choices just end up rolling around in my head, over and over and over again. Eventually anxiety over not having made a choice will seep in, which causes the rolling in my mind to pick up speed. So rather than making a decision, I allow the choices to turn my mind into a whirlpool of confusion. I get myself really stressed out over things that, ultimately, are pretty banal.
And often, when I finally do make a choice, I’ll choose the answer that will make the most people happy, at the expense of my own happiness. This can happen with small decisions, like what food I want to eat, and it can happen with big decisions, like taking on a big project at work that I know does not match my skill set.
In hindsight, I always look back at these situations and know that I have ignored my truth. Being unhappy with the decisions I fall on, the stress and anxiety, all happen because I stepped away from truth.
So, all this to answer the question: What is truth?
Truth, then, is that place inside ourselves that is the best of us. The real us. The us that we were born to be and intended to be. Truth is your source. Truth is the God within you. Truth is your integrity – wholeness, before our choices chip away the pieces. Truth is what you can always come back to. Truth is what will always remain. Truth is the basis for all of it – all of this – all of everything.
Truth is what I strive for, as a 40-something woman who is doing away with the bullshit of life and no longer interested in what other people think or say about me. Truth is the light in the distance that I keep my eye on, like in driver’s ed where they tell you to look far ahead in the distance as everything else falls away.
That is truth for me.
But adhering to my truth, that is my challenge.
So tell me, what is truth for you? I’m curious. If you have a personal definition of truth I would love to know.
That’s all for this episode, but for next time: Defining the ins and outs of being true to yourself. Because the inner voice is the first to always say the unsaid.
Maria Giuliani - Writings 