How to Stop Trying to Change Someone’s Mind (And Find Freedom From Anxiety) (Anxiety Series, Pt. 8)

by | TRUTH

Have you heard the verse "the truth will make you free"?

Have you wondered why it hasn't made you feel free from your anxiety and negative thoughts yet?

I'm going to share the secret about truth that the people in charge never wanted us to know.

Why Some Truths Create Anxiety

Our white American society was built on hiding and avoiding the truth of slavery. We enslaved human beings to hoard, build, and generate wealth for ourselves, and we excluded everybody else from it, even the people who actually did the building. We did that for 400 years. How many generations do you think happen in 400 years?

What do you think that many years of hiding and avoiding the visible truth does to a society? What happens when we shrink all of that down into our daily lives? The fact that we don't know how to celebrate truth is chilling, but it also explains a lot about why we suffer so much anxiety and negative thinking.

Love Celebrates Truth

At the beginning of what became The Hart Habits, I came across the phrase "love celebrates truth." I had to sit with the word celebrate. What do we actually do when we celebrate something? We put it on a stage. We shine light on it. We put up billboards. We make a big deal. We highlight the good in it. We take the time to notice it, and pay attention to it.

Objective Truth vs. Subjective Truth

I like to talk about two kinds of truth: objective and subjective.

Objective truths are the ones we'd generally agree on as a group, usually based on facts, data, evidence, and statistics. The speed of light. The sky is blue. The grass is green. In reality, though, there are very few completely objective truths. Most things become subjective the moment we receive and process them for ourselves.

Subjective truths are the ones subject to our personal interpretation. They come through our eyes, ears, and senses, get processed by our brain, and are interpreted by our heart, soul, or spirit as true. I've talked before about the Reticular Activating System, and how the brain can lie to us to keep our reality matching what we expect. If you want fun, concrete examples of this, watch Brain Games on National Geographic.

Here's a subjective truth: I think I'm a tall woman. I'm five foot eight, which is tall compared to a lot of women. I'm often one of the taller women in a room. But if I'm standing next to a girlfriend who's six foot seven, she might look at me and think, you are not tall, you're small. That's true for both of us. It's true for me that I'm tall, because in most rooms I'm looking over people's heads. It's also true for her that I'm small.

How can I be both tall and small at the same time? Subjective truth. The truth has to come through my filter first, and through hers. Both are still true, even though they conflict.

The Plurality of Truth

You could search this as duality of truth, but I like to call it the plurality of truth, because every truth has more than two ways of looking at it. It's not just my way and their way. There are many different perspectives on any given situation.

Think about the four Gospels. Same story, four different people, different times, different perspectives, different messages. They tell the same story in different ways, and all of them are still true (according to believers), just shaped by whoever is telling it.

Here's the Point

Even when someone's truth is the opposite of yours, love celebrates truth. When you let other people hold their truth and choose to celebrate it instead of fighting it, everything works better.

That's their truth. You're not going to change it. Trying to is what's causing you the anxiety and negative thinking. Instead: shine a light on it. Pay attention to it. Highlight it. Understand it. Make your own decisions with it in mind.

You're free now. You get your freedom from letting them have their truth. You don't have to change them. You don't have to change their mind. You don't have to persuade anyone toward a different point of view. You're here to experience your own perspective and enjoy it as fully as possible, in service of your highest purpose. Gratitude helps with that.

What This Opens Up

Their truth being different from yours isn't a problem. When you can look at it honestly and celebrate it, meaning really pay attention to it, there are real benefits. You get to make better, more informed decisions about how you move forward, what you do or don't do, what your boundaries are, what Spirit is telling you, what your shadow or inner child wants, and how your strengths play into all of it.

You might notice that's the four components of the first Hart Habit, Self, the ones I walked through in the last several posts of this series. Truth is number two on the list instead of number one for a reason. You have to know yourself, love yourself, and embrace your own subjective truths before you can really embrace what other people believe is true too.

Soon, you'll get to a place where you can hold someone else's truth as true for them, and worth celebrating, simply because you want to live a life aligned with love. You'll make better decisions about how you move forward with people, and you'll find yourself more open-minded, more able to hold all the different truths, good, bad, and ugly, that exist in the connections and Spirit around you.

Recommended resources:
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
The Reticular Activating System
Brain Games (National Geographic)
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Question of the day: What truths are you avoiding, hiding, or trying to hide from? What would it look like to celebrate them instead?

What to Say Instead of “Everything Happens for a Reason”

by | TRUTH

Sometimes, knowing the truth hurts so bad we try to survive it by blissing out in denial. When the absolute truth of a situation is crushing, we look for something else to hold instead: shopping, social media, destructive behaviors, substances, or a thin layer of "love and light."

But sometimes we just need to feel everything the truth makes us feel. Angry. Betrayed. Scared. Afraid. Sometimes we have to embrace the shitty part before we can actually move through it and heal. And we owe our friends the same thing.

When "Everything Happens for a Reason" Falls Flat

Have you ever told someone you love that something felt wrong, and they answered with "I'm sure it's nothing" or "just keep thinking positive, everything will be okay"?

It's well intended. It also lands completely flat, and worse, it can feel like they're ignoring the actual words that just came out of your mouth. It's isolating. It can feel like nobody has ever felt what you're feeling right now.

Let me assure you: so many of us have been through the devastating thing you're going through, or sensing is coming. Miscarriage. Rape. Losing a big client. Divorce. Death. Bankruptcy. Chronic illness. Cheating. Abuse. We know. We feel you. And here's something more useful than a platitude.

Feel It

Whatever you're feeling, lean into it and name it. Angry? Betrayed? Ignored? Powerless? Afraid? Acknowledge it. Validate it. It's okay that you feel it, and there's a real reason you do. That reason is valid, no matter what it's rooted in, deep childhood stuff, the hard truth of the situation itself, or hormones. It's valid because you feel it. Full stop.

Observe It

While you're feeling it, try to also observe it. Look at what's coming up and think about what it might be trying to show you, teach you, or leave behind once it passes. You don't have to understand it yet. Just pay attention.

Document It

One way to observe it is to document it. Write, paint, type, scribble, color, dress, dance, stretch, swing - any of these can help you get a feeling out of your head and into something tangible. There's nothing wrong with any of them. Letting a feeling take physical form gives you a new angle to actually look at it from. I've written before about using art journaling this same way, and this is the same underlying practice applied to grief and hard truths specifically. It doesn't need to be shared or shown to anyone. It's not for anyone else's eyes, but it can truly help your brain process what you're going through in one more solid way.

Treat It

We go through genuinely difficult things in life, and we deserve the time and grace to move through them at our own pace. Healing isn't overnight.

So if you're angry, feel it first. Then, once you've actually processed it and you're ready, do something that helps release it. A rage room, throwing electronics against concrete. A boxing class. Playing with your kids. A massage. Lighting a candle. Whatever actually works for you.

And remember, therapy isn't for "crazy" people. It's for humans with complicated, layered realities who could use a little informed help navigating them without doing more damage to themselves or anyone else along the way. With the right therapist, therapy is always worth it as you move through the harsh truths life keeps handing you.

Question of the day: What's something well-meaning someone said to you that landed completely wrong, and what would you have wanted to hear instead?