The Importance of Knowing and Speaking Our Truth
The first and most important person to start telling the truth to is yourself. As you do this, you’ll build this muscle. You can then decide whether (and how) to tell the truth to another.
One of the most important steps toward becoming more authentic and living true to ourselves is to uncover and honor our own truth.
I say uncover because our truth is there. It’s often just hidden underneath all of the “truths” imposed upon us by our parents, society, media, religion, etc.
And I say honor because so often, we know our truth, but we don’t honor it, and we keep it concealed.
The journey to uncover, honor, and then reveal our truth requires time, introspection, healing, and courage, but our health, relationships, and happiness depend on it.
There’s a connection between expressing our true selves and emotional well-being, and self-expression has been said to be an antidote to depression.
What Is “Speaking Our Truth?”
To comprehend what speaking our truth entails, it's essential first to recognize what it isn’t.
Here are some examples:
Sharing a story about someone else
Gossiping about others
Parroting articles we've read
Complimenting someone in a bid to be liked
Saying yes or going along to fit in
Repeating a trending viewpoint without reflecting on whether it’s aligned with you
Giving all the “good” updates about your life, leaving out your struggles
Saying the “right” thing to avoid upsetting others
Instead, it's a deeper, more intimate endeavor—one where we tease out our own true thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and feelings amidst the noise of societal expectations, conditioning, imposed belief systems, things we learned as kids, and ideologies.
How Do We Discover Our Truth?
We start by watching for moments when we aren't being true to ourselves.
For me, there’s a quiet voice or feeling inside that I became increasingly aware of as I began to practice this—a discomfort or feeling of angst when I was saying what I thought I should say to avoid conflict, to seek validation/approval, to fit in, to stay safe, or to avoid vulnerability.
Inner Barometer
We all possess this inner barometer, an intuitive sense that alerts us when we're veering away from our truth.
When we say something out of obligation or fear, we might feel a slight uneasiness—a tension in our chest or a churning in our stomach.
Recognizing this sensory feedback can help guide us back to authenticity, encouraging us to speak from a place of genuine feeling and thought rather than out of an automatic response, fear, or societal pressure.
The first and most important person to start telling the truth to is yourself. As you do this, you’ll build this muscle. You can then decide whether (and how) to tell the truth to another.
Small Lies vs. Big Lies
We know if we’re telling a “real” lie—where we knowingly fabricate the truth.
But we often feel quite justified in our “little” lies and may not even be aware when we do it.
Consider how often we tell white lies to please others or avoid discomfort. We justify them because we don’t want to “hurt” the other or “push their buttons.” We think it’s kinder to smooth things over.
We may even think saying no is “mean” or selfish, so we say yes.
But, these seemingly innocuous small actions compound over time, creating a gap between our authentic selves and the roles and masks we present to the world.
This separation is more painful than we know, as it is stealing our life force and eroding self-trust.
A while back, when I was in the early stages of finding my truth, I would have said that I was a very honest person.
And then, I read a book called Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton.
I discovered I wasn’t as honest as I thought. And it was a bit of a wake-up call.
“We all lie like hell,” says Dr. Brad Blanton. "It wears us out...it is the major source of all human stress. It kills us."
While I’m not suggesting you adopt every tenet in this book (I found it a bit…well, radical), and it was a little hard to read, it illuminates how frequently we lie to ourselves and others in small, almost imperceptible ways.
And how bad it is for us—individually and relationally.
I took away three key messages:
we all lie way more than we think we do,
authenticity begins with truthfulness to ourselves and
the truth will set us free.
Walking the Path of Impeccable Words
One of my favorite and most recommended books is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
One of the four agreements is:
“Be impeccable with your word”—a commitment to speak with integrity and truth.
It’s about using the power of our words to promote truth and love instead of gossip, deceit (internal or external), or self-deprecation.
Living according to this guiding principle has been life-changing for me. It aligns seamlessly with the teachings from The Whole Soul Way, which emphasize that our words are not only a reflection of our inner world but, when impeccable, can help us become more authentic and tap into our emotional depth.
Two of the most painful things we experience are:
Separation from ourselves (from our truth) and
Not feeling heard and known in our depth.
And yet, so many of us don’t even know ourselves deeply and, therefore, can’t reveal ourselves to others.
We conceal, pretend, protect, and guard our tender hearts.
Which causes inner turbulence, stress, and disconnection—and is exhausting.
But we mend the inner separation and increase our chances of feeling heard, seen, and known when we uncover, honor, and reveal our true feelings and thoughts (perhaps initially unskillfully but ultimately with skill and care).
When we bring our truth and authenticity into our relationships, we have the power to create the intimacy and deep connections we long for.
And through consistent practice, knowing what’s true for us becomes second nature.
Courageous Self-Expression
However, speaking our whole truth may initially feel impossible. It did for me. It can feel terrifying to upset people and risk being rejected, humiliated, or abandoned.
This is why, to speak our truth courageously, we must first cultivate a deep sense of inner safety and self-confidence.
This journey begins with developing a strong relationship with ourselves—building an unshakeable foundation of self-worth that isn't dependent on external approval or validation.
This process often requires us to confront and heal old wounds, challenge limiting beliefs, and practice self-acceptance.
As we uncover and honor our truth to ourselves, we come to trust ourselves more. And this self-trust becomes a foundation for our courage and confidence.
As we grow more comfortable in our own skin, we become less afraid of others' judgments or potential rejection. We learn to source our validation internally, recognizing that our worth isn't determined by others' opinions of us.
This inner strength becomes the wellspring from which we can draw the courage to share our authentic selves with the world.
It's important to remember that this is a gradual process—we don't suddenly wake up one day baring our hearts, telling everyone every thought in our mind (actually, let’s not ever do that, haha), and revealing our deepest truths.
Instead, it's about taking small, brave steps—consistently choosing authenticity over people-pleasing or hiding—and learning to sit with the discomfort that sometimes comes with honoring and expressing our truth.
As we practice this, we not only liberate and empower ourselves but also give permission to and create space for others to do the same, developing relationships based on authenticity, emotional connection, and mutual respect.
Where are you on this journey? Please share in the comments!
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Deb, I loved this essay and you know that I agree with every word of it! This especially: "Self-trust becomes a foundation for our courage and confidence." Why do we find it so much easier to criticize and doubt ourselves than to trust? So much societal and family conditioning as well as the overweaning role of the ego--but I am getting SO much better at speaking my truth and far from it being a negative development, sharing my truth has had positive reverberations throughout all my relationships.