The Unpolished Self

It is said that we — when we are born — are perfectly whole. Yes, each of us has our own package of life lessons that we are taking along into this experience and some of those life lessons are health related. Therefore, our perfect wholeness is seen from our potential to grow as much as we can during this journey that we have embarked upon — rather than from a heath perspective…

Symbolically, one could say that as we enter this life, each of us is a perfect circle — an innate perfection that has everything within itself that is needed for us to achieve our goals, whatever they may turn out to be.

In a sense we are uniquely beautiful in a similar way unpolished crystals are mesmerizingly beautiful…

Then, as we grow up, the sharp edges are polished off, and bit by bit the unique expression of our innate perfection gets hidden. We are taught how to behave, how to act and react — we are told to be ‘nice’ and acceptable. And step by step, we adapt to what is expected of us.

Until one day we may find that this beautiful, unpolished core of ourselves no longer wants to be hidden. It demands to come forward, to show itself — and with that we may start looking for that part of ourselves that is truly authentic. We begin to rediscover the Unpolished Self…

The unpolished self is authentic, yet more often than not it also has a “wildness” to it. An intuitive knowing of where we stand, and where we are headed. And if we don’t like the direction our path has taken, or where it is leading us, there can be a deep seated drive to change. To move forward on our own terms.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that we let go of everything we own, quit our job, and walk off into the sunset. Yet it does mean that we re-evaluate our priorities, that we again decide where we want to spend our time and energy in life. It most definitely means that we look at what things in life are worth pursuing, and what is not. And perhaps most importantly, it can bring us to a point where we bring our authentic, unpolished self closer to what we do in life and how we are doing it.

In other words, as we get to know the authentic, unpolished core of ourselves better, we will find ways to use this understanding in the way we go about reaching our goals — whether those goals are job related, or are more personal in nature.

I would like to invite you to join me on a journey to the deepest core of your Unpolished Self…

Pondering truth… What is truly true?

In 2013 I posted a blog on “Truth”. Browsing through old posts, I just came across it once again and started reading it… ( Read it here. )

How our perspective on “truth” has changed in those eight years!

To start with, we now have the “fake news”. This has absolutely nothing to do with factual truth, but rather with whether we agree with the factual truth or not. If we agree it is true, yet if we don’t agree it is “fake news”.

And this seems to have been taken one step further… If we wish something to be true — yet it may not be factually true — we can still say it is true. And anyone countering this “un-truth” with facts, is accused of spreading “fake news”.

So which side do we believe to be true? 

And do we believe this strongly enough for us to make it our personal truth? In other words, who do we believe?

As far as factual truth goes, it is still fairly easy to do some research online. Or so one might think. Because what we are presented with online, is often driven by the loudest voices — not that different from the loud voices in protests in the sixties and seventies. Except now we don’t have to leave our computer to make ourselves heard. And therefore, we can stay pretty much anonymous, and therefore safe, no matter what (un)truths we spread into the world…

So, especially when doing our online research, it is important to verify the information we find on any one topic through multiple different sources.

Some may say that if it sounds hard to believe, chances are it isn’t (the whole) truth. And in many cases this is, well, true.

However, if anyone would have spread the word forty or fifty years ago that we would now make our phone calls on tiny supercomputers called “smart phones”, chances are they would have been met with the opinion that this couldn’t be true. And yet, here we are…

It is a reason to keep dreaming of what can become true — and for that matter, to dream big dreams!

So looking at truth at this point in time, factual truth is still factually true. However, lots of discernment and verification are needed in order to check the facts we are presented with.

The one perspective on truth that doesn’t seem to be different is that as we grow older — or more specifically, as the years go by — truth changes. It moves with our understanding, our discernment, our age — and it moves according to how we interact with one another…

There doesn’t seem to be an exact truth. As it turns out, pondering the question, it is hard enough to find that which is truly true…

Truth

Watching the news, forums, and social media it seems that truth is becoming more important. As the saying goes in my native tongue: “Truth takes longest” which means something like ‘it may take a while, but given time the truth will come out’. And this seems to be the case pretty much wherever you look, nowadays.

No longer is it possible to hide the truth; at least not for any length of time. And when it comes out, it comes out with a vengeance ~ or, in the vernacular of the social media, it goes viral.

And where ‘truth’ is looked at as being the polarity of ‘deceit’, this is a good thing.

On the other hand it makes me think: what is truth?

Surprisingly enough, there are many truths.

• There is the factual truth.
• There is what is believed to be true.
• There is cultural truth.
• And it appears that as we grow older, what we consider to be ‘truth’ changes. 

The factual truth seems easiest to distinguish. We quite literally look at the facts and see if everything truly adds up. Whether all the information is there, with nothing left out. It is a logical process through which we conclude if what we are presented with is true or false.

What we believe to be true is much more intricate. It comes from the subconscious, as the subconscious holds not only our dreams and intuition, but also our belief-system. And suddenly we can find ourselves in a situation where we believe something to be true (for instance because we were told as we grew up that this was so), whereas when we look at the facts from a logical perspective, this is clearly not the case...

Cultures can have their own set of rules and mores that say something is true or false ~ and so what is truth in one culture doesn’t necessarily have to be true in another. Clear examples can be found in the separate legal systems, for instance when looked at the acceptability of the death penalty.

And then there is the phenomena that truth appears to be changing as we grow older... When we were 5 years old, truth was that we were not allowed to have a cookie right before dinner. At 20, for most of us this is no longer true; it is our choice whether we want to eat a cookie, and when we would want to eat it. And at 30 truth may be that cookies make you gain weight and should be steered clear from at all cost.

So, pondering truth... What exactly is truth?

First published in 2013