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SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH, WITHOUT RANCOUR

For those of you who have been following this series of blogs, this one is a follow-up to Christmas Gifts.

Since having been upset by one of my family over the holidays I have been wondering on-and-off how I can prevent the same thing happening again, as it does quite regularly. On one hand all my beliefs say that you should always act and speak your truth, on the other, a lifetime of conditioning leads me to believe that this situation won’t change, and further more it will cause upset and ructions. This is a Cooke family thing, and I have talked with my siblings who feel a similar set of emotions and confusion, but no doubt you have your own version of this syndrome.

So, I have found myself lying there, wondering in Hamletesque fashion, “To speak, or not speak, that is the question?” Last night, round midnight, it came to me in a gentle upwelling of clarity, I have to tell my truth without rancour and that is all I need to do. This is much harder said than done because there are many buried emotions beneath this episode, and they all want to be voiced. However, many of them belong to a much younger me and the grown-up version doesn’t need to say these things.

I just need to say how I feel, say what I want and what I hope for and then accept the consequences. I know that my blogging it here and doing it this cleanly are two very different things but even now I can feel myself feeling better for this decision and realisation. And like most realisations, this is nothing I didn’t know already, but I had just lost sight of this knowledge in my hurt.

I suspect that one or two of you may either have lived through similar situations or perhaps be ‘in play’ right now, if so, I wish you courage and luck and a truly wonderful 2008.

“The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavour — property, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.” Albert Einstein

“There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.” Albert North Whitehead

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 09:47 and is filed under Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH, WITHOUT RANCOUR”

  1. Cora Stam says:
    1 January , 2008 at 11:11

    Thanks Richard,

    I enjoyed reading your pondering…
    and I’m taking it personally this time because I had a slightly similar experience last night,
    on New Year’s Eve.
    Indeed, my ‘problem’ concerned nothing special that I didn’t know already, I just had lost sight too.
    Suddenly I knew that the keywords were hidden in what you are mentioning above:

    I just need to say how I feel, say what I want and what I hope for and then accept the consequences.

    And I did.
    And it worked out well.
    Quite often the best attitude is to be straightforward.
    Nothing more, nothing less.

    Cora

  2. richardderwentcooke says:
    1 January , 2008 at 11:37

    Cora,
    Thank you for sharing this experience. How are things now and how do you feel about it?

  3. Anon says:
    4 January , 2008 at 21:34

    I read your blog and yes, you’re right, someone else (me) is going through a similar family situation with the roots deep in childhood.

    The difficulty is that my family have the ability to deceive themselves to the point of actually telling lies (against me, usually) which they actually believe are the truth.

    The emotional side of things (my being undervalued and marginalised) is complicated by a family business issue wherein they want my (relatively small) shareholding for much less than their value…

    Anyway, that’s enough about me. Your problem might be completely different, but you’re absolutely right to think in terms of placing your feelings coolly and calmly in front of them and to let them do with it what they will.

    The problem with my family, when I have done this, is that they just point-blank deny the truth of what I say – they make out that I’m always in the wrong.

    I hope your family can be more logical and more easily see reason.

    Perhaps there is some small comfort to be drawn from the knowledge that your experience, though painful, is not unique

  4. richardderwentcooke says:
    4 January , 2008 at 21:40

    Anon,

    Thank you so much for sharing this story. I appreciate the courage it takes. Will pm you directly.

  5. Personal Stories of Change Blog Carnival: Edition 13 says:
    2 November , 2008 at 06:44

    […] Derwent Cooke presents Speaking Your Truth, Without Rancour posted at Change & […]

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