Personal Voice and Truth-speech Bust Social Control
Orwell’s novel 1984 portrayed a society in which what the individual said or thought was radically policed. Winston Smith, the protagonist struggled mightily to escape from this matrix. As I’m sure readers know, this pressure to conform is a part of our everyday landscape. Those for example who didn’t want Covid interventions were punished, often severely, for not complying in word and deed. We’re each faced daily with the choice of using our personal voice, our truth-speech - or not.
I believe that the choice to speak up or not - and the consequences around it will increase as the world’s challenges intensify. They’re certainly going in that direction at present. If they keep on there’ll be more serious consequences for independence from compelled speech and behaviour. The earlier and more successfully we can discover our own voice the better.
Practice is needed for this and I recommend one. It’s based on a version of dyad meditation designed for this purpose.
There are already many dyad groups for meditation and spiritual expression. I highly value dyads for meditative clarity and practice them myself frequently. What I’m not getting there is that while our town and countries are going through intense or even extreme social, cultural, political, and cultural transformation, dyad meditation (and most spiritual work) doesn’t mention or address this directly. In many hundreds of hours in meditation groups, how we’re being accountable for our part in the these vast changes is not addressed. Perhaps it’s assumed that the spiritual is above these worldly concerns and that there will be trickle down benefits.
I believe that engaging our imaginative response - our personal voice - to the common changes we’re facing together is a vital part of the way through.
We can uncover the particular expression,
the genius that is ours and no one else’s to make.
WE are the way through. Our individual consciousness and it’s conscious unfoldment are key.
Solitary individual meditation doesn’t get at this dimension fully. Being solitary, individual meditation misses the larger collective WE-dimension that we’re in together. Bringing the WE-dimension in super-charges our personal efforts and, going the other way, our personal efforts help the WE dimension of our lives.
I’ll host a free zoom meeting this Sunday at 7pm Eastern for those who’d like to explore this. Bust social conformity by practicing personal voice and truth-speech. Register here.
Some benefits of this practice:
Many or most of us are highly reticent to risk saying things that others may disagree with. It’s culturally normal for us to be people-pleasers.
We’re often unaware of the extent to which everyday speech has assumptions that are no longer true for us. One primary assumption is that it’s important to find out whom to blame. Another is that a correct analysis is transformative. It takes time and practice to learn to discover and grow past these and others.
What we selcom do in common speech is share about personal accountability. Common speech allows us to talk about other’s accountability but not our own. Truth-speech can mean being willing to disclose about where we show up fully and where we hide.
We commonly find out more about our own deeper truths in a space that has verbal permission to do so. (Intentionality comes in.)
Dyads help clear space between people. They involve equal time for two people to speak and listen. There is no commenting on another’s sharing. It’s your truth-telling that becomes important. It’s not the content of your speech or anyone else’s. That is their business
Dyads use one or more prompts for speakers to consider and speak to. One set of prompts I like is Tell me how you show up fully alternativing with Tell me how you hide showing up. (I’ve used Tell me how you hide in relationship both in person and online.) There will be others.
To the extent that we allow and welcome our personal voice and our truth-speech to find it’s own way, we go beyond the need to be approved of by others.
We’re in the process of a planetary transformation in consciousness. If we want we can uncover the particular expression, the genius that is ours and no one else’s to make.
Come join us on Sunday for something new. And do let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Truth-speech Dojo
Sunday, June 1, 7pm Eastern, 90 minutes
Pre-register here
Resonating Anna and thank you for sharing. You're writing about what I'm writing about. I'm tempted to write another article right here but will hold off.:) The value in dyads is that I can explore my truth when I'm contemplating and listen to yours when you are but there is no need for agreement or even understanding from the other. Expecting that is a form of covert control that keeps me in chains.
Reading your article has helped me pinpoint the issue which seems to be dominating my thoughts; that is wanting the approval of others, yet constantly finding myself at loggerheads. Something in me wants to express my truth, even when it conflicts with what appears to be the accepted meme. Is it possible that this is the experience of the clash of the old and the new, the transformation we have been waiting for? This seems to be what you are suggesting, foretold in '1984'. What I have been seeing as a personal problem of not being able to fully love and accept 'others', and therefore feeling shame and guilt at being 'me', you have framed as each of us having a personal contribution to make. "WE are the way through. Our individual consciousness and it’s conscious unfoldment are key."
As is stated in 'A Course of Love', individuation does not need to be the separation we have seen it as, it can be the precious uniquenesses, which, when gathered together, make up the whole. Thank you for your insight.