Speak Your Truth: Find Your Authentic Self

Speaking one’s truth isn’t new. Most people aren’t quite sure when or who coined the phrase. It has been expressed in many forms by Snoop Dogg, Erykah Badu, Oprah, the Quakers, Eat, Pray, Love’s author Elizabeth Gilbert, and Mark Twain. Speaking truth is a theme in the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. You can teach your clients how to speak their truth with good intentions.

What Is Speaking Truth?

People who practice the act of speaking their truth are staying true to their personal beliefs, morals, or emotions. They aren’t afraid to discuss how they feel or why they feel a certain way. The act of remaining true to who they are means they aren’t seeking approval from others. When a person remains true to themselves, they are combining their truth with their emotional intelligence.

Speaking Truth and Emotional Intelligence

When your client engages their emotional intelligence, they are assessing verbal and nonverbal cues signaling emotions. While watching emotional reactions, your clients are also regulating feelings, others’ emotions and using those emotions to solve a problem. 

The core of emotional intelligence is to differentiate emotions, label feelings, integrate them into signals, and understand and use them to guide behavior. Knowing how emotional intelligence influences responses to events can aid your client in recognizing and using their voice to let others know their truth. 

When you teach clients to recognize their emotional intelligence, they will also learn social and emotional cues. These cues will guide them to discovering their truth. As a result, your client will remain true to themselves without worrying about what others think.

The Truth Within

Knowing how to speak out with good intention is essential. Working with your client to identify the event and share their experience with others creates power. The power of telling others an experience can develop self-confidence.

There are countless situations your client experienced where they were hesitant or afraid to speak their truth. While they are in individual or group therapy, discuss times, people, or places where they didn’t feel they could voice their opinion. Ask them how they felt when they followed along with others, but the actions or behaviors didn’t agree with their beliefs, morals, or emotions. 

After they answer, use this information to help them identify how to speak up and out when others jeopardize their feelings, morals, or beliefs, for example, perhaps. When they speak their truth, they are freeing themselves from worrying about what others think of them.

How to Speak the Truth

Society is often unapologetic and guarded. People will say hurtful things, act rashly, or hold beliefs that are harmful to others. Some people are afraid to feel love, friendship, or emotions. Finding the comfortable mix of being true to their values and finding inner peace is a lifelong practice. Speaking the truth means a person is mindful of their reality. 

How can you help your client tell their truth? You can explain how speaking their truth creates positivity for themselves and others. Guide your client through these thoughts:

• Lose the fear of being accepted. When a person speaks their truth, they are maintaining a healthy relationship with themselves. In addition, the act of speaking up shows others self-confidence.

• Anybody who speaks their truth can inspire another to tell their truth. When a person expresses their reality, they don’t know who they enlightened. Your client’s truth can help another break free from fear and become mindful of their beliefs, morals, and opinions.

• Fear and anxiety can obstruct a person’s path to realizing their truth. As they become more comfortable with speaking their truth, they can find strength in their convictions. Becoming focused on their truth and sharing their story with others can decrease their fear or anxiety of talking to others about their truth.

• When a person shares their story, they tend to open their lives to others. Those who speak their truth find others who share their beliefs. Through friendships, they can join groups that positively promote their truth.

• Perhaps their truth will leave a lasting impression or create change. Speaking the truth isn’t about just one person and their story. It is about making their life and others better.
• Your client’s truth is a part of who they are in this world. The confidence to speak the truth is refreshing and lets people interact with an authentic person. Authentic people own their thoughts and aren’t afraid to let others know what they think. 
• Being true to themselves also means they are themselves. What does this mean? A person who doesn’t pretend to be someone else or shares their story lacks integrity. 
• People seek advice from those who are faithful to themselves. People know they can trust someone honest about their opinions.

Being authentic can bolster self-confidence and improve morals. When your client feels confident in sharing their story, they can increase positive feelings about themselves. In addition, their morals strengthen because a person reflects their core values in their words and actions. The essence of who they are lies in their morals.

The confidence found by learning how to speak the truth aids a person in connecting with themselves and with others. A person who isn’t afraid to let others know how they feel or what they think can influence how others behave, personally and socially. Stories or truths that are shared with good intentions can create a ripple effect. One person’s story could cause another to speak out, building social movements or self-confidence. Whether speaking the truth is a personal way to remain to themselves or a cause, the truth is staying in touch with core values is essential. Morals are the essence of a person. It is their true self. Those around a person who is true to themselves often respond in kind. Alta Centers Detox believes every person has a voice that deserves to be heard. Our center provides  detoxification services, inpatient rehab, dual diagnosis  that focus on a person’s unique personality. Call us at (888) 202-2583 for more information.