4 Myths About Speaking Your Truth That Aren't True

Speaking the truth—your truth—for many women can feel like an unwise and even dangerous choice. If you’ve grown up in this culture, you’ve likely been conditioned by strong narratives, storylines that have taught you how to think about authenticity in your relationships and saying what you actually feel, want, and need—not just the watered-down, sweetened version of your experience. From the time you’re born, you’ve been marinating in powerful beliefs about what will happen to you if you’re honest, what telling the truth will lead to in your life, and also, what it will imply about the kind of person you are.

Often without realizing it, you’ve bought into these cultural narratives and as a result, have learned to deny and abandon your truth, stay silent, and focus on making your truth work for the greatest peace in your relationships. The myths you’ve learned about the truth-telling process have kept you inauthentic and, often, feeling unknown, unheard, and unfulfilled in even your most intimate relationships.

When it comes to the specific myths you may have accepted as truth, the four that follow are prime perpetrators in keeping people quiet, inauthentic, and ultimately less than who they are. And therefore, they are the four that most need to be illuminated, challenged, and changed.

The first myth about speaking your truth out loud (to other people) is this: if you dare to tell your truth, it will mean that you’re a "my way or the highway"........

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