The Truth about the Truth; How Do We Speak our Truth without Offending Others?

Recently I ask Joshua what was troubling him. I could tell he was distressed by the look on his face. His response to me was authentic but brutally honest which hurt my feelings thus making me very defensive. Long story short, we had a huge blow out that last about 24 hours. Joshua, felt invalidated by my reaction and I felt extremely guilty having been made aware of my faults and flaws. I felt so much turmoil, blame and guilt. Joshua was hurting and so was I. I wanted to make it better and just didn’t know how. I realized that I first had to validate his feelings, and after my own pain subsided I had to validate my own feelings.

In the aftermath of our fight Joshua and I agreed to let it go, to forgive but not forget.
As I sit here analyzing why I got so defensive I have come to this realization. It was my defensiveness that prevented me from accepting Joshua’s truth. After all there is no absolute truth. Joshua’s experience is his own; just as my own experience is my own. We all see the world differently depending on what life circumstances we have endured. Therefore when someone speaks their truth it is still true. No matter how we feel about it. Once I was able to accept his truth despite my own pain, I could then allow my guilt to be replaced with remorse. Guilt is what keeps us trapped in our defensiveness, in our woundedness; victimology. When we can feel our remorse we free ourselves from the victimhood and step into the greater awareness that we are ever human in need of much compassion. My remorse allowed me to validate his feelings, apologize and accept my flaws with a willingness to change.

We must be ale to feel compassion for ourselves and validate the experience for ourselves and others while admitting our faults and shaking it off and moving forward. The beautiful thing about realizing that “everyone has their own truth” is that we can adjust the truth to foster a greater sense of forgiveness. For example, Joshua may have felt that I was causing him to feel guilty about me supporting him this past year and this is true for him but my truth is that this past year was extremely difficult, financially and emotionally, in dealing with the stress of supporting the two of us on one income. Perhaps my stress manifested itself, from Joshua’s perspective, as me guilting him for not being able to find a job or establish a good career in California. Granted, our expectation was that Joshua would be able to make a career move in less than a year, we did not anticipate the stress and guilt it would put on us having to endure this difficult time but we did! We successfully made it through and as of yesterday, Joshua has a new career in the world of sales. He just landed the title of Regional Manager of Sales for a great new company call Incredibles®. His terriorty consist of the entire state of California. This is a dream job for him! I am so happy he has finally found something he can feel proud of and hopeful for our future.

In essence, the truth is that Joshua was unemolyed for a year while I supported us. Is that bad? No, it is not. It is also true that I was stressed out to the max having to carry the entire financial burden and at times caused Joshua to feel guilty about not contributing to the household. Is that bad? No, it is not. It just merely was what it was. Joshua has forgiven me for the guilt I imposed on him and I have forgiven Joshua for the stress he has caused me. More importantly, we have forgiven ourselves and as a result we have grown both as individuals and as a couple. So, what is the flip side to all of this guilt, blame and resentment? The answer is love. LOVE always cancels out the negative and shines light into the darkness. Love is the force that glues us together despite our hardships. The love we feel for each other helped us stick it out and provided us with hope that things would change. Realizing that the love I feel for Joshua is a gift from God has always given me the grace to stay faithful. Forgiveness is right there for us to receive just beyond the acceptance that everyone has his or her own truth to own. The ultimate truth, of this entire situation, that both Joshua and I can own together, is that we love each other tremendously. Love one another everyday through the thick and through the thin. I plan on keeping this habit up.

LOVE NOW!