This post is part three of a series.

In the last article, I introduced stage two of “truthing,” the process of learning to speak your truth out loud. In this stage, your mind often “knows” that you’ll be okay if you’re honest and express an unwanted truth, but your body doesn’t actually believe it.

No matter what your mind (or anyone else) tells you, in stage two, there is still deep fear, dread, and even grief at the prospect of being honest, a dread that doesn’t budge no matter how much information it receives. There’s also a characteristic pattern of self-recrimination—an ongoing narrative of self-criticism for abandoning oneself and not being empowered or brave enough to push through and be fully “authentic.”

So, what creates this fear and the gap between the actual threat that speaking up for yourself poses and the experience that your body is living? From where does this deep distrust of sharing an unlikable truth stem? Essentially, how did disapproval become synonymous with death?

The core belief/chain of thought is this: If I tell the truth, I won’t be liked. If I’m not liked, people will go away. If people go away, my needs won’t be met. If my needs aren’t met, I won’t survive.

To understand this better, we can start at........

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