What Is My Truth?

What is my truth? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Did you ever come to a conclusion? I may have asked it, but then again, I am not sure if it has really occurred to me that I needed to know. I think that I have gone through most of my life reacting to the times, circumstances, what I wished would happen or worse yet, what I was afraid would happen. And I don't know if it is only a natural event, the asking of this sort of question, coming at the usual time of the life of a person, when the children are settled in their adult lives, and we parents settle in to wait through the coming years til our own end. Maybe all 52 year olds begin thinking like this. What is my truth? Or maybe since so much of my life has gone by where I have not felt a need to know, maybe now is the time to chose the kind of person that I will be, rather than just reacting to life and having life "chose the kind of person that I will be" and in so doing, will discover what is my truth.

So here goes," my truth is/the person that I am is" ......I am, patient, kind, compassionate, truth(ful), sincere. The phrase "I am" is the most powerful and creative beginning place for an understanding of who I am. Someone else used this phrase long before I ever did, and it was proven to be exactly what was needed. And I've heard of counsellors advising their clients to act out this phrase, i.e. I am not a smoker, I am not a drinker, I am in love with my husband/wife....and that reality will follow. I know when I quit smoking decades ago, I tried to think that way when I was in the throes of a super-craving, I am a non-smoker, I am a non-smoker.... When I first quit eating meat, I practised in my mind that I was a vegetarian. You know, "I am a vegetarian, I am a vegetarian, ....." And now 15 years later, I still am a vegetarian, and I don't smoke either! So it must work.

I am finding it very simple this time to move to being a vegan and I think that this is part of my truth too, now. I haven't had to use the "I am" mantra to turn away from cravings, it has been a very natural progression. Because I chose to be kind and compassionate (see above), it is natural to extend my truth to include all animals, including the dairy cows, and the chickens that live (wrong word to use here, should be survive for a very short and hideous time) in the factory farms. I think that I am learning to see the world through different eyes, through someone else's eyes. And isn't that the beginning of the kind of sensitivity that would save the world from itself? If we could learn to feel the next person's pain, and if this awareness could spread like a virus, there would be no more war, no more children being bullied to the point of suicide/murder, no more need to be one-up on the next guy (i.e. better looking, better dressed, skinnier, etc.) and then a natural progression would be to extending those feelings of love to the natural world. The rainforests would be in better shape, wild animals wouldn't be poached like they are, factory farming would change, the fashion industry would see the horror of fur, pets would be loved enough to spay and neuter, and our highest goal would be to live in a way that causes no hurt, no harm. Hmm, I think that is my truth, to cause no hurt, to cause no harm.