How Do We Find Our TRUTH?

In a time of "fake news", secrets being exposed, as with the #metoo movement, and easier access to various news sources (some with questionable validity), it is important to remember that the individual truth is often based on numerous filters which are directly linked to past events or environmental factors. In other words, one person's truth, may be another person's "fake news". With these sources and continuous ideas about the truth surrounding us, it can feel impossible to discern our own truth.

The type of truth I am discussing here is not about knowing what happened specifically on each side of a debate or political scandal. This article is about personal truth. Your personal truth is tied directly to your core values. Your core values are what truly matters to you underneath all you say, think and do. When you align with those deeply held values, your truth is much easier to discern within the overwhelming amount of information available to us.

Dictionary.com has a few definitions for the word truth, but our general societal use appears to be around indisputable facts, or a conformity with facts. Yet, as humans, most of what we experience is emotional (although not always allowed or recognized as such). As soon as our emotions become involved in any circumstance, we create filters. If an acquired filter goes without voice or recognition, it remains, coloring how we view everything we encounter afters its creation.

These filters, created to assist us, often to not allow us to get into the same situation or circumstance again, end up changing how we interact with the world every day. And the more filters you have, the smaller your world becomes. They are almost like "pause" buttons in your brain. It is your own defense mechanism telling you that it can't deal with that situation or circumstance again, because you haven't fully processed it from last time. The "pause" remains, even though we have a tendency to leave them unprocessed. Then they pile up on each other, and before you know it, what you are seeing and experiencing is vastly different from someone without filters, or with different filters.

How can we have indisputable facts in a world filled with filters?

There has been evidence of our inability to truly find truth. One area is with eyewitness accounts at crime scenes. According to an article in Scientific American, Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts, DNA testing in the 1990's shed new light on eye witness testimony.

"Since the 1990s, when DNA testing was first introduced, Innocence Project researchers have reported that 73 percent of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony. One third of these overturned cases rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses. How could so many eyewitnesses be wrong?"*

Were the eyewitnesses fabricating a story? More than likely, they were telling what they thought was the truth. However, it was their version of it and if they have set biases, those are the filters through which they see the world and will create a narrative for them based on preconceived ideas. There are often other factors which can change perceptions as well, such as stress and how each person handles it. What may be a fact to one person, may not be a fact to another.

The point is, much of what we consider to be truth, beyond very specific things, can have a bias inserted. Our US Constitution and law is based on interpretation and that interpretation is based on experience and knowledge gained from school, mentors, friends, family and events and history. Journalists claim to report facts, and often do try, but they may pick and chose which facts to report, based on their own filters. Or may slant articles very subtly. They may not be doing it on purpose, it is just part of the human experience. Our opinions and feelings are often in things we call facts.

Within the muddled waters of truth are pieces that can assist us in finding out more of the truth for ourselves. While the following steps may not help you in a court case (or maybe it will), it may help you understand yourself and your truth. Finding your own truth can assist you in seeing others truth, however.

1. Check yourself

When you notice that you have strong emotional reaction to something, ask yourself if there is personal pain lurking behind the reaction. Dig into the emotion behind it. Where did it come from? What is the emotion? Is it anger? Fear? Are you applying a past experience that has not had resolution to the current situation?

2. Check for a filter

As you look at what is causing this reaction, notice if you are identifying a filter (more than likely you are). Ask others for their point of view and request honesty (as much as possible, anyway). Not just to feed your narrative, but to understand if you were seeing things are they were intended to be, or as a past experience colored them for you.

3. Use what you learn to inform yourself of a bigger truth

What have you realized your reaction to an outside event has triggered? What are the stressors in this situation? How could those have colored your view? There are many variables that can change and color a truth. Being honest with yourself about how you feel and where that feeling may have originated from (past event with filter placed?) can create more space in which you can heal that trigger and release that filter.

As you start to look at your reactions and question them, you may realize that you have numerous filters. Then you must ask yourself a very simple, but complicated question. Do I want to live with these filters?

If we all have filters, then who is seeing what is really happening? And what if there is more than one truth? Finding your own truth goes a long way toward realizing that everyone is allowed their own. When you know your truth, another's truth, different from your own, is not as hard to hear or live with. It always allows you to understand that "good" and "bad" or mostly opinions, not facts.

As a Coach, I would argue that the more filters you carry, the greater distance between yourself and everyone else. This is not how we are designed to be together (yes, that is my opinion). We are here to connect and be together, not "parallel play" as they call it in preschool before children learn to interact in social situations.

If you want to get rid of your filters, get a Coach (I happen to be one) or therapist who will work with your on this specific issue.

My next article will be about being able speaking your truth once you find it. Stay tuned!

Yes, this article is full of my opinions and views on this topic.

* Article written for Scientific American by Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfield on January 10, 2011. Originally printed as "Do the "Eyes" Have It?"