The Joy Diet: Truth

Menu Specifics

Menu Item #2 in The Joy Diet is to "Create and absorb at least one moment of Truth each day." The recommended way to do this is to start with our (hopefully already-established habit of) 15 minutes per day of Nothing, then ask ourselves the following questions:

1. What am I feeling?
2. What hurts?
3. What is the painful story I am telling?
4. Can I be sure my painful story is true?
5. Is my painful story working?
6. Can I think of another story that might work better? 

After answering these questions, we offer compassion to ourselves, or as Martha Beck writes, "Offer compassion to your inner lying scumbag." (I love how she can be so light about it.)

My Experience with Truth

I had a mixed experience with this. I did not have any breakthroughs, but neither did I feel any significant pain when getting to question number 2. Since I was not aware of pain, I had nothing to work with for questions 3 through 6.  Can it be that I am that well-adjusted? Or is it that I am so good at suppressing my pain that I am hiding from it? 

Another reason I may not have experienced much Truth is that I am still learning to still my mind. I did better this week, compared to last week, in terms of getting my Nothing time in, but my mind chatter is persistent -- I need more practice before I can really still my mind consistently. Martha suggests, if you can't get still, to ask yourself: "Why am I avoiding stillness?" instead of the six questions above. I tried working with the six questions, because my intention was to not avoid stillness. But in retrospect, I think my Truth is that, intended or not, I avoided stillness by "struggling" with the Nothing exercise. 

My Truth

As I write this, my Truth hits me: admit that my difficulty in stilling my mind, consistently, is because I have conflicting desires. Part of me wants to be still, to be more aware, and the other part of me is protecting something. Maybe I am just afraid to know what I KNOW (cuz then I would need to act on it). Yes I am avoiding stillness, and until now, did not want to admit that to myself. Now all I have to do is figure out what I am trying to protect. Awareness need not be scary.

Vision Board

The most fun part of this week for me was creating my mini vision board for Truth. Here it is!

Comments

[Kathryn - Collage Diva]

Great vision card -- I like how the images you selected encourages exploration. It makes it more accessible than say an examination.

[LaWendula]

Aha Moment, nice to see this word exists in English too, it's exactly the same word in German.
Thanks for your comment, enjoy dancing into desire! ;)

[Ginny]

I love your vision card. It is wonderful when everything comes together and we have that Aha moment. Here's hoping that we have lots and lots of those moments in the next eight weeks!

[Lisa]

What a wonderful post... to read it as your process unfolds...

There's no sense in creating pain that's not there for the sake of the journey. And at the same time, as your words unraveled, the stories that begin to be known will never heal unless we take a good hard look at them...

[Ellecubed]

What a beautiful vision board for this week. Thank you for sharing your experience with truth this week.

[karen]

Thank you for sharing you journey with truth this week. I still struggle with the stillness part myself. I did look at a truth and was able to re-tell the story with compassion for myself and the situation. I love the woman with the binoculars in your vision card like she is looking for the next adventure.

[Joanne Julius Hunold]

It made my day that so many of you liked my vision board! You see, I don't think of myself as very creative or artsy, yet I have this craving to create beauty! (Oooh, some DESIRE here -- thought I had to wait until next week for that). Anyway to have people see some beauty in my vision board; to have an ability to create beauty acknowledged (when I thought I lacked the ability) is absolutely blissful. Many thanks to all of you!

[Yoga To Go]

Great vision card! I love the questions you're asking yourself too...you're really digging deep! <3 keep it up and see you next week! xo

[Lucy]

Great Vision card.