What is My “Truth?”

Laura Basha

What if we were to listen to the inner silence of what we don’t know, the inner wisdom of “not knowing”, with nothing on our minds but a complete curiosity for what we haven’t been hearing? This creative walk is available to each one of us, and can be applied to any project, situation, crisis, or conundrum.

Instead of a beautiful painting or dance or poem or piece of music, perhaps the creative Source emerges as a brilliant concept to expand a business vision, or as the insight of a missing equation for a new scientific breakthrough. Perhaps It emerges as exactly the right words that capture and articulate an individual’s personal purpose. Or for a parent at wit’s end with the situation they find themselves in with their teenager, in the quietness of listening to Source from not-knowing, the humility intrinsic in deep listening arises. From this reflective humility a thought occurs to them: Maybe they could listen for how their teen’s thinking makes sense to the teen? As parents they could then see a whole new world which is their teen’s view, and then compassion born of understanding might enter into the conversation, and a lack of judgment and dialogue could ensue, transforming separateness into communion.

When I finally began to do this with my own teenagers, it was an act of letting go within my own thinking, in which I finally granted greatness to my children instead of insisting they absorb my perceptions like sponges, as if I had the only realistic perspective.

I remember one day about 20 years ago, I took my daughter to lunch when she was a junior in high school. She became very frustrated with me before the lunch was finished and I couldn’t understand what had happened since the beginning of lunch was so pleasant. Humility came to me from being more committed to rapport with her than proving to myself that I was right.

So, once home, when she finally let me back in her room and I apologized for whatever I had done but told her that I didn’t know what that was, she turned to me with the sudden visage and wisdom of a mature woman and said, “I used to think that everything you told me was true, but now I am becoming aware that other people have other points of view, and I can’t just take your word for it, I have to figure out for myself what is true for me.” Her frustration instantly made sense to me as impersonal, and the result of my lack of listening to how she saw the world.

This article is an excerpt of a larger body of work, The Creative Process: A Portal to ‘Not-Knowing,’ which you can read HERE.