Foundational Considerations
In the Journey to Truth podcast here, hosts Tyler Kiwala and Aaron Kuhn talk with full disclosure advocate and metaphysical minister, Simon Esler. Their discussion includes some of the challenges truth-tellers face as, for example, when friends may genuinely fear for a truth-teller’s mental health! Why? Because a truth-teller discloses information that is contrary to the person’s strongly-held belief systems. When information is beyond a listener’s comfort zone, he may feel so unconsciously threatened that he simply cannot entertain the possibility of truth, instead feeling compelled to question the person delivering the information — even when that person is a friend or family member, and even when the listener has done no research on the subject at hand.
Let’s take a moment and really let that sink in. This is the mind-boggling situation that tellers of difficult truths face on a daily basis. You might take note of how you feel when you look around and see people who refuse to allow new information into their consciousness.
If you have an insatiable thirst for truth or an inherent compassion that you don’t see reflected in those around you, it would be natural to feel as if you’re an outsider looking in on a world where you don’t belong. You’re not alone, but sometimes it can feel that way.
What feelings come up for you? Frustration? Anger? Do you sometimes have a desire to disengage or to “work harder” to get through to people? Taking a moment to notice your reactions can give you more space to mindfully choose your approach.
As a truth-teller, you see folks who illogically maintain a belief system in the face of contrary evidence. You may even see them go so far as to respond to facts that counter their position by saying, “even so, this is what I believe.” They refuse to allow new information to pierce their set beliefs. What can a truth-teller do?
Consider that when you do nothing else but maintain your own inner Light and power, you are making an impact. Don’t forget how far you’ve come on your awakening and healing journey. You have found your way and now have the opportunity to radiate your positive consciousness. You’re naturally an inspiration to others. When you find yourself wondering how you can make a difference in helping those around you to wake up to the truth and their inherent power, remember that first and foremost you do this through your own Beingness.
If you’re also called to actively support others in their awakening, here are some considerations.
Esler reminds truth-tellers of the spiritual principle espoused in the powerful Bhagavad Gita: we are advised to release attachment to the results of our efforts. This is such a critical reminder.
Your work may, for example, plant a seed in a person’s mind that you may never personally see sprout but that serves a role in their later awakening. It behooves us to recognize that our efforts may contribute to such unseen effects or may be part of a bigger orchestration of events that’s beyond our comprehension at this time.
And you might reflect on just why the task of truth-telling is so difficult on this planet. Many people have been the unwitting victims of unimaginably powerful programming of their unconscious mind. This programming was conducted through such effective strategies as social engineering and other enemies of truth. Some people have become trapped in their belief systems and they don’t know how to free themselves. These unconsciously programmed belief systems are a powerful adversary. To be effective against them, we’ll need to be particularly thoughtful and strategic in our approach.
Where might you start? Stay strong by consistently maintaining connection with nature and your divine support, and by prioritizing your own health and joy. As you relate with others in an effort to support them in their awakening process, here are some considerations:
- Mindfully manage your own energy system. Be a model of inner power. Let others feel the beauty of being in the presence of someone who isn’t trying to get something from them.
- Have compassion for the plight of those who were born into a mental slavery that has imprisoned them. Although you’re aware that they have the ability to free themselves, they haven’t yet realized their innate power.
- Honor their soul or higher self, and endeavor to connect with it.
- Embody love and empathy.
- Seek to share information in a way that connects the dots and empowers listeners.
Individual Issues: Overview
Elsewhere you’ll find information on the broad obstacles that truth-tellers face, the Enemies of Truth such as NDAs, compartmentalization, psychopaths, social engineering and so on. Here you’ll find more specific issues that an individual listener may be experiencing. Because these issues are so widespread, we might also think of them as the burdens of the collective.
When you’re sharing information that is potentially disturbing, complex, or previously hidden, there are quite a number of things that can get in the way of a person hearing what you’re saying, and productively processing the information.
It’s particularly difficult when audiences have become misguided due to misinformation and disinformation campaigns. Thus, the challenge becomes not only sharing a particular story but also sharing guidance on how to develop greater skills of discernment. Yet another significant challenge is helping truth-seekers consider “narratives” that “connect the dots” in order to help them be able to process information that calls their belief systems into question. (We call this building bridges of understanding.)
Each listener will have their own perspectives and belief systems, and may be experiencing:
- Unresolved trauma
- Information overload, clutter and overwhelm
- General distrust or skepticism
- Indoctrination, entrenched belief systems
- Confusion due to the complexity of the subject
- Learned helplessness and lack of healthy outlets
Unresolved Trauma
Trauma may seem outside your scope as a researcher or whistleblower. But due to the prevalence of trauma and the likelihood that your message is re-traumatizing to some, it bears consideration.
Trauma isn’t rare. It may be more accurate to think of “the walking wounded” living among us. Thus, it pays to remember that however individuals may or may not respond to you, they could have more going on under the surface than meets the eye. Whether or not a trauma survivor with unresolved trauma is fully conscious of what they’re carrying, it’s likely they experience uncomfortable reactions to particular triggers.
Learn More
- Truth-Teller Obstacles: About Trauma
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma – book by world-renowned expert Bessel van der Kolk MD
- Trauma-Based Victimization: Healing Modalities
Strategies for Consideration
- Consider that awareness and acknowledgement can help to inspire ease and confidence in others and perhaps even inspire or support them in their individual healing.
- Acknowledge trauma, its effects and the signs of unhealed trauma.
- Educate yourself on ways to avoid common triggers.
- Commit to being a better listener.
- Give specific techniques and options to help the listener who may suspect they have unhealed trauma.
- As appropriate, share (or point to) your own success story.
Information Overload, Clutter & Overwhelm
Today’s truth-seeker experiences an onslaught of media and information. The new norm is distraction, information overload and overwhelm.
Your listeners may be unaware that becoming more educated about difficult subjects is NOT the same as passively consuming all the “news.” To be the victim of an avalanche of seemingly random traumatic information naturally causes anger and helplessness. Your listeners may be unaware that there is a different way.
Learn More
- What You Can Do Part 1 (The section on Proactive Empowerment vs. Reactive Victimhood)
- What You Can Do Part 2 (#8: Learned Helplessness)
Strategies for Consideration
- Remember that your message comes within a barrage of clutter. Acknowledge the various types of information as well as misinformation that your audience may have been exposed to.
- Teach the difference between proactive empowerment vs. reactive victimhood and give your followers the permission to turn away from the onslaught of mainstream media.
- Guide the listener through the necessary steps to make sense of the subject at hand. (Build a bridge of understanding.)
General Distrust or Skepticism
Even the most sincere truth-seekers have been exposed to confusing and distorted information, misinformation, and lies. Thus, it’s reasonable for people to be wary and distrustful. As with so many of the hurdles you face, many of the things that block understanding for a listener have less to do with you and your message and more to do with general Enemies of Truth. These are powerful forces that have succeeded in keeping many people from being open to information outside of mainstream topics.
Some of the most obvious examples are people who have a misguided faith in anything with the word “science” or “research” attached to it, no matter the validity. Or people who hold the mistaken belief that only what they see or experience with their five senses can be true.
Strategies for Consideration
- Occasionally remind yourself that the difficulty you face in gaining trust is often unreasonable not because of anything about you, but because of a hostile environment.
- Acknowledge misinformation and lies that are in the public discourse.
- Build bridges of understanding.
- Share information on Evaluating Individual Testimony.
- Share information on Developing Discernment.
Entrenched Belief Systems
Entrenched belief systems are the result of many forces. Societal and cultural indoctrination are extremely powerful. In the link below, you’ll find lots of information, including five notable reasons why beliefs make such a powerful impact:
- Beliefs that may once have served a role remain unquestioned and severely limit our development.
- Some beliefs can become inseparable from the most basic concept of who we are: our self-concept, our identity.
- Thinking and beliefs are enmeshed.
- Beliefs guide actions which then reinforce beliefs.
- Beliefs and thoughts program our brains, and thus our five-senses reality.
Learn More
Strategies for Consideration
- Teach about belief systems to help listeners begin to see what it means to be “imprisoned by your beliefs.”
- Use metaphors, stories and historical events to help show all the times that people’s beliefs about the universe or medicine, for example, were wrong.
Complexity or Absence of Context
Many people will naturally have various levels of difficulty with, or resistance to, the information that you’re sharing. They might also exhibit confusion which can be the result of the complexity of the subject. Or it may be due to a lack of context for your story.
Consider that many people have simply been unable to imagine that what you are saying is true. It does appear, though, that many more people are realizing that “the unthinkable may actually be true.” For these people, who are just stepping onto a path of increasing awareness, consider how you can help them to take the next step in their learning.
Strategies for Consideration
- Build bridges of understanding.
- Help the audience to interpret data points, and news stories.
- Offer a narrative that helps them to become better at taking in new information that is outside their personal experience.
Learned Helplessness & Lack of Healthy Outlets
Learned helplessness is a tool of oppression. While you as a truth-teller have learned to overcome it, many of your potential listeners find that learning about disturbing truths makes them feel powerless. And if you think about it, it’s hard to imagine a more horrible feeling than a sense of helplessness: unable to stop something that should be stopped, to fix something that is broken, to make a difference in the world. That feeling is about as dreadful as it gets.
Said another way, some people will resist learning new information about a subject not because they don’t believe it could be true, but because they have no outlet for the difficult emotional energy that it will cause in them.
Learn More
- What You Can Do and Where to Start Part 2 (#2: Engage in Healthy Emotional Processing)
- What You Can Do and Where to Start Par 2 (#8: Overcome Learned Helplessness)
Strategies for Consideration
- Acknowledge and teach how learned helplessness is developed. Teach that this is a learned pattern that can be unlearned.
- Provide specific ways that listeners can respond in a healthy way.
- Teach how to process difficult emotions.
- Teach that knowledge is power.
- Teach the inherent power of individuals and community.
- Provide information on movements and actions.
A General Strategy
If you have access to an audience that has indicated a willingness to hear something new, this general strategy can provide support to your efforts. Ask your listeners to consider that one of the most powerful ways to combat the enemies of truth is to be curious — to entertain the possibility that difficult stories may be true — and then to test those speculations. Even when NDAs are used for power abuse, even when compartmentalization keeps people ignorant of the whole truth, and when disinformation campaigns subvert the truth, we can circumvent those tactics by doing this:
Open to the idea that something you never imagined to be possible (or that seems you couldn’t bear if it were true) might, in fact, be true or partially true.
How exactly might a truth-seeker do that?
- Set aside what you think you know in order to listen to what you may not know.
- Commit, for now, to entertaining the possibility of something you’re not familiar with, so that you can actually hear what is being said.
- The verification and final decisions about who and what you believe can come later. Remember, information in itself is not threatening. It may be genuinely uncomfortable to hold space for a possibility that calls your worldview into question (or that may turn out to be false). But holding that space does not cause harm and it can be the doorway to expanding perception.
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