“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.” --Muriel Rukeyser “Käthe Kollwitz”
As I mentioned in my post about the poet Muriel Rukeyser last week, these lines are her most well-known. In fact, when I did a search in Substack for them, I noticed that the writer
quoted them in a great post about writing your truth recently. I thought we could explore that a bit more together.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have at times found it difficult to write down the hard truths, even just for myself. I didn’t keep a journal for years because I was wary of actually putting on paper what was going on inside me. That would make it real. But writing down what is true in our own hearts, without worrying who might be looking, is probably the most important thing we can do—as writers or simply as humans. What if we allowed ourselves to put that thing in words that has been wanting to come to the surface?
Do you find it easy or difficult to write what feels true? How important do you think it is? Do we have the power to split the world open with our truths? Is that a goal we should have as writers? What stands in the way of our telling our truths? Why can it be so hard?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Below is an exercise that you can do, if you wish.
BONUS EXERCISE
A helpful practice I learned from the fabulous coach Jessie Harrold, is to begin your day with a check-in.
What is true for me today?
Simply think of five things that are true for you now. Turn down the static in your life, turn inward, and see what is present for you, physically and emotionally. What feels true? This practice can morph into a greater awareness of how you really feel about things as they arise. I have found it incredibly helpful as I’ve figured out what I really want in my new life.
If you do the exercise, you can pause to think about how it feels to write down what feels true and real to you. Does it come naturally? Do you enjoy doing it? What surprised you? Was it hard? If so, what made it hard? Was something standing in your way? Did you hear a voice telling you to hold back? If so, where do you think that voice is coming from? Did you find this a valuable exercise you’d like to repeat?
SEE YOU IN THE COMMENTS
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about truth-telling, in general or in response to the exercise. And remember, this is a supportive space where we can explore together. There are no wrong answers here! And take a minute to read others’ comments and respond to one or two.
Lovely! I’m so glad you’ve found something inspiring here! And I love your thoughts on meditation. It was a huge game changer for me. I started about Jan. 2021. I don’t do it regularly anymore. But you are reminding me that I need to build it back into my life. Thank you! 🙏
I can't say enough how much I am enjoying this space and the people here! To answer your question Anne, what I call "authenticity" has been a central tenant (and practice), I suppose, of my life for as long as I can remember. I have a memory of being 14 or 15 years old and thinking, "I don't want to be anyone else; I want to be me." And I wanted very much to find out who that "me" was. I'm still discovering her and hope to continue. I believe one of the most fundamental ways I can do that, though, is through a practice of authenticity or truth telling as you say here. So many people have mentioned morning pages. I have never managed them particularly well. I don't do any kind of regular journaling. Perhaps, that will change someday. I do have a decade long meditation practice. And I can give you a start date for that! May 2014. I'll say what plenty of other meditators have also said - meditation rewired my brain and has contributed significantly to my mental, emotional, physical, and yes, spiritual well being. It has helped me see myself and my habits of mind/body more clearly, which has helped me to return over and over to my authenticity, to find it. Exercise, particularly swimming, QiGong and Yin yoga have helped me listen to and locate the truth in my body. I so appreciate you asking these questions because then I get to think and write about them! I love the practice of asking yourself what is true. I'm going to use it with my Spiritual Companioning clients.
I have come to Substack to share more of my truth, to be more open and not feel ashamed of being a sensitive person. I felt crushed by social media towards the end of last year and although I now have some balance again, I decided to be here on Substack to share the good and the challenging and the difficult. I wrote an article this week https://www.anartistinherflow.co.uk/p/navigating-difficult-times
It does feel like wearing your heart on your sleeve, but I wrote it anyway.
I do journal most days it helps keep me connected to myself.
I’ve kept up a journaling practice from my twenties onward. It’s morphed in different ways through the years, for different reasons.
These days I keep several journals: one is a pretty, perfect-bound traditional journal for musing, reflecting, dreaming and kvetching; another is more of creative “notebook,” a messy, informal, spiral-bound collection of my ideas for essays and short stories, as well as tracking submission rejections and acceptances; and finally, I have one notebook, also spiral-bound, that is wholly focused on a book I am trying to write.
Altogether I would say for me these practices are less about a need to tell my truths (though this is certainly part of it)—and more about organizing my interior and creative life so that I bring some sense and form to everything that lives my heart and head.
The lines from Muriel Rukeyser became my mantra about a dozen years ago when I began writing about my miscarriages. Those two lines formed a threshold, inviting me to walk through and tell the truth of the keening pain of loss and ultimately, being childless not by choice.
Marjorie's comments about conflating truth-telling with victimhood resonate. Social media has made self-absorption and victimhood a competitive sport and I have profound concerns for the mental health of generations who are raised in this social environment where oversharing and focus on self make them numb to actual suffering. And yet, perversely, we've created an expectation that suffering is to be avoided at all costs, that we all "deserve" to be happy and that we have within ourselves the means to control our own destiny.
What I feel called to as a writer, whether in fiction or in personal essays, is to lean into personal truths in a way that encompasses the universal, that creates community rather than spotlights me as an individual. I find this easier to do in fiction, because I can remove me and pour all of my "truths" into my characters, but I found through years blogging and writing book reviews that when I become personally vulnerable, people respond. So I am thinking into my Substack and how to use that microphone more wisely- how to strike the balance between personal truth and building community. Very much like what you are achieving here, Anne- you are an inspiration!
I was recently telling a friend that I seem to have reached a "truth-telling" period of my life, as several times lately I've found myself telling family secrets of suffering, abuse, and just plain meanness to other family members who have expressed admiration for what looked like a perfect family. I spent my teens and twenties railing against hypocrisy; now, it seems enough to simply tell the plain truth.
This seems to be part of a larger thing that I've been learning lately, is that while yelling is cathartic and satisfying and can be necessary, I seem to have reached a point where I don't want to yell nearly as much. I want to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio, so that the message doesn't get lost in the loudness.
My feelings are very mixed on this topic. I don't believe she/her people are uniquely more prone to suppressing the truths of their lives. All humans do it. I do like that you seem to approach "truth" as an all-encompassing term that can mean both negative and postive experiences. All to often, "truth" seems to be a euphemism for all the trauma and difficulty one experiences. For me, truth also encompasses moments of good fortune, contentment, malaise, boredom, aches, excitement, grief--all of it. When you look at "truth" with that lens, it becomes very apparent that often women are better at expressing their truth than our male counterparts...especially in our written words. I think "speaking our truths" can often be shorthand for expressing our victimhood and I'd like to collectively stop identifying as victims. I know throughout history we have been victims but if we change how we think about our experiences maybe we can change our place in history moving forward. Alice McDermott said in her book "What About the Baby" that she tries not to read books where the women are victims--an example I follow. Additionally, I try to write female characters without victimhood or who overcome adversity. I know many women who carry heavy personal burdens. I wish for them that they can tell their stories because maybe knowing what they've endured will educate younger generations and because telling one's story is cathartic and healing. It is contradictory to want women to tell their stories and to want to stop reinforcing ideas of female victimhood. I'm sorry but that's where I am at. Yes, tell your journal your truths. Know what they are. Work through them. Teach your children well. Over here, I aspire to create women who I would admire. Women who surely have "truths" but who used them for good. I really appreciate the meditation this morning.
I love this post, Anne (and the beautiful photo—I am imagining those are your feet and that I am there with you)!
The tip from the writing coach is especially helpful. I have been writing morning pages for several years now—thanks to Julia Cameron’s Tbe Artist’s Way. Instead of the question, what is your truth today, I have fallen into a pattern of cataloging my previous day—as a way of counting my blessings, or looking at the glass as half full before I start the new day. No one advised me on this exercise—it has emerged as a sort of engrained habit.
Now I am realizing that I have been writing over some truths that are there, deep inside. The catalogue has just burned them more deeply.
I am going to take some more time this morning to rewrite a bit. I can sense some truths that are festering to get out this morning.
Making the shift from academic to creative writing has been challenging in lots of ways for me, but particularly in this area of truth-telling. I think that truth starts in our body, in the signals our body gives us about what feels good or right vs. what feels wrong. In my life, I was overriding my body so much, pushing myself through things that felt wrong (in my professional and personal lives), until my body made me face the truth--it made me sick. I've written in the past about my autoimmune disorder, Meniere's disease, which is thankfully so much more under control now that I am more in tune with my body and what feels true to me. (No diets or medications could do what therapy and writing have in terms of lessening my symptoms.) It all started with writing in my journal--really writing about how I was feeling. That was seed for my entire life transformation over these past 3-4 years. I remember the day I did it. It was in August 2020. I can't remember what I said, but I remember the tremendous feeling of relief--and mild terror. What would it mean if I acknowledged how unhappy I was? I knew that my life would crack open. And so it did. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this topic, which has been noodling around in my brain for a long time now. :)
Lovely! I’m so glad you’ve found something inspiring here! And I love your thoughts on meditation. It was a huge game changer for me. I started about Jan. 2021. I don’t do it regularly anymore. But you are reminding me that I need to build it back into my life. Thank you! 🙏
I can't say enough how much I am enjoying this space and the people here! To answer your question Anne, what I call "authenticity" has been a central tenant (and practice), I suppose, of my life for as long as I can remember. I have a memory of being 14 or 15 years old and thinking, "I don't want to be anyone else; I want to be me." And I wanted very much to find out who that "me" was. I'm still discovering her and hope to continue. I believe one of the most fundamental ways I can do that, though, is through a practice of authenticity or truth telling as you say here. So many people have mentioned morning pages. I have never managed them particularly well. I don't do any kind of regular journaling. Perhaps, that will change someday. I do have a decade long meditation practice. And I can give you a start date for that! May 2014. I'll say what plenty of other meditators have also said - meditation rewired my brain and has contributed significantly to my mental, emotional, physical, and yes, spiritual well being. It has helped me see myself and my habits of mind/body more clearly, which has helped me to return over and over to my authenticity, to find it. Exercise, particularly swimming, QiGong and Yin yoga have helped me listen to and locate the truth in my body. I so appreciate you asking these questions because then I get to think and write about them! I love the practice of asking yourself what is true. I'm going to use it with my Spiritual Companioning clients.
I have come to Substack to share more of my truth, to be more open and not feel ashamed of being a sensitive person. I felt crushed by social media towards the end of last year and although I now have some balance again, I decided to be here on Substack to share the good and the challenging and the difficult. I wrote an article this week https://www.anartistinherflow.co.uk/p/navigating-difficult-times
It does feel like wearing your heart on your sleeve, but I wrote it anyway.
I do journal most days it helps keep me connected to myself.
Thank you for writing this.
I’ve kept up a journaling practice from my twenties onward. It’s morphed in different ways through the years, for different reasons.
These days I keep several journals: one is a pretty, perfect-bound traditional journal for musing, reflecting, dreaming and kvetching; another is more of creative “notebook,” a messy, informal, spiral-bound collection of my ideas for essays and short stories, as well as tracking submission rejections and acceptances; and finally, I have one notebook, also spiral-bound, that is wholly focused on a book I am trying to write.
Altogether I would say for me these practices are less about a need to tell my truths (though this is certainly part of it)—and more about organizing my interior and creative life so that I bring some sense and form to everything that lives my heart and head.
The lines from Muriel Rukeyser became my mantra about a dozen years ago when I began writing about my miscarriages. Those two lines formed a threshold, inviting me to walk through and tell the truth of the keening pain of loss and ultimately, being childless not by choice.
Marjorie's comments about conflating truth-telling with victimhood resonate. Social media has made self-absorption and victimhood a competitive sport and I have profound concerns for the mental health of generations who are raised in this social environment where oversharing and focus on self make them numb to actual suffering. And yet, perversely, we've created an expectation that suffering is to be avoided at all costs, that we all "deserve" to be happy and that we have within ourselves the means to control our own destiny.
What I feel called to as a writer, whether in fiction or in personal essays, is to lean into personal truths in a way that encompasses the universal, that creates community rather than spotlights me as an individual. I find this easier to do in fiction, because I can remove me and pour all of my "truths" into my characters, but I found through years blogging and writing book reviews that when I become personally vulnerable, people respond. So I am thinking into my Substack and how to use that microphone more wisely- how to strike the balance between personal truth and building community. Very much like what you are achieving here, Anne- you are an inspiration!
The problem with the truth is it sometimes interferes with happiness. One has to go, and not many keep the truth.
I was recently telling a friend that I seem to have reached a "truth-telling" period of my life, as several times lately I've found myself telling family secrets of suffering, abuse, and just plain meanness to other family members who have expressed admiration for what looked like a perfect family. I spent my teens and twenties railing against hypocrisy; now, it seems enough to simply tell the plain truth.
This seems to be part of a larger thing that I've been learning lately, is that while yelling is cathartic and satisfying and can be necessary, I seem to have reached a point where I don't want to yell nearly as much. I want to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio, so that the message doesn't get lost in the loudness.
(I wrote about this here, what I learned from the singer Phranc's turning her punk song into a folk song: https://open.substack.com/pub/monicacmiller/p/punk-rock-and-grace?r=1ekgn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)
My feelings are very mixed on this topic. I don't believe she/her people are uniquely more prone to suppressing the truths of their lives. All humans do it. I do like that you seem to approach "truth" as an all-encompassing term that can mean both negative and postive experiences. All to often, "truth" seems to be a euphemism for all the trauma and difficulty one experiences. For me, truth also encompasses moments of good fortune, contentment, malaise, boredom, aches, excitement, grief--all of it. When you look at "truth" with that lens, it becomes very apparent that often women are better at expressing their truth than our male counterparts...especially in our written words. I think "speaking our truths" can often be shorthand for expressing our victimhood and I'd like to collectively stop identifying as victims. I know throughout history we have been victims but if we change how we think about our experiences maybe we can change our place in history moving forward. Alice McDermott said in her book "What About the Baby" that she tries not to read books where the women are victims--an example I follow. Additionally, I try to write female characters without victimhood or who overcome adversity. I know many women who carry heavy personal burdens. I wish for them that they can tell their stories because maybe knowing what they've endured will educate younger generations and because telling one's story is cathartic and healing. It is contradictory to want women to tell their stories and to want to stop reinforcing ideas of female victimhood. I'm sorry but that's where I am at. Yes, tell your journal your truths. Know what they are. Work through them. Teach your children well. Over here, I aspire to create women who I would admire. Women who surely have "truths" but who used them for good. I really appreciate the meditation this morning.
I love this post, Anne (and the beautiful photo—I am imagining those are your feet and that I am there with you)!
The tip from the writing coach is especially helpful. I have been writing morning pages for several years now—thanks to Julia Cameron’s Tbe Artist’s Way. Instead of the question, what is your truth today, I have fallen into a pattern of cataloging my previous day—as a way of counting my blessings, or looking at the glass as half full before I start the new day. No one advised me on this exercise—it has emerged as a sort of engrained habit.
Now I am realizing that I have been writing over some truths that are there, deep inside. The catalogue has just burned them more deeply.
I am going to take some more time this morning to rewrite a bit. I can sense some truths that are festering to get out this morning.
Thank you for helping me to do that!
Making the shift from academic to creative writing has been challenging in lots of ways for me, but particularly in this area of truth-telling. I think that truth starts in our body, in the signals our body gives us about what feels good or right vs. what feels wrong. In my life, I was overriding my body so much, pushing myself through things that felt wrong (in my professional and personal lives), until my body made me face the truth--it made me sick. I've written in the past about my autoimmune disorder, Meniere's disease, which is thankfully so much more under control now that I am more in tune with my body and what feels true to me. (No diets or medications could do what therapy and writing have in terms of lessening my symptoms.) It all started with writing in my journal--really writing about how I was feeling. That was seed for my entire life transformation over these past 3-4 years. I remember the day I did it. It was in August 2020. I can't remember what I said, but I remember the tremendous feeling of relief--and mild terror. What would it mean if I acknowledged how unhappy I was? I knew that my life would crack open. And so it did. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this topic, which has been noodling around in my brain for a long time now. :)