Busting the myths that keep you silent and afraid.
In the last post, I promised to expose the cultural narratives that keep you silent, afraid, disempowered, and unknown, and also clarify what’s actually true. I’ll start by saying this: the stories you’ve been told about speaking your truth are utterly untrue.
When you see through the myths, you can rewrite the narratives.
Myth #1: My Way or the Highway
The message in this faulty myth is that authenticity means you don’t care about what anyone else thinks or feels; you’re someone who does things your way, no matter how it affects anyone else. Speaking your truth makes you a self-centered, insensitive, emotional bully. The fear of being perceived as this kind of person then keeps you silent and afraid to speak up for yourself.
But expressing how you feel and what you want has nothing to do with being insensitive to other people or lacking empathy. It doesn’t mean you stop caring about the other person’s experience or how your truth impacts them. In reality, it’s the opposite. When your truth can be heard and known, you feel more present and seen in the relationship, more connected. As a result, you feel more empathy for other people’s experiences. You’re open to adjustments and compromises because your needs are also being considered and included. Expressing yourself is not an aggression against someone else, as it’s been framed through this cultural narrative. It’s actually an act of intimacy and a gift to the other person—and to yourself.
Speaking your truth is a starting place that offers you a seat at the table so you’re not just an invisible peace-keeping need-filler. The idea is not that only your needs matter, but that your needs also matter as much as anyone else’s needs. It’s always both and not either or.
Myth #2: Truth Is All or Nothing
Emotional honesty must arrive in a fully complete and raw form—all at once. The message is that anything less than the whole truth is a failing on your part. Once again, this is false. Your truth does not need to be shared in one go, in a say everything, consequences-be-damned style. It’s your right to control what, when, and how much you share, to express your truth selectively, sensitively, and strategically, in your own sequence and at your own pace. You can be mindful in your delivery and make adjustments along the way, depending on how your truth is landing, always paying close attention to when enough has been shared for the moment.
You can start with small pieces of your experience, bounded, curated truths—parts of the whole. You can use non-threatening, buffered I statements and describe your reality more broadly, as in “something in me is changing and I want to slowly start sharing more of myself.”
Telling your truth does not make you suddenly impulsive, unaware, and unrealistic. You’re fully present when you’re sharing, and it’s a process you control. It’s critical to communicate skillfully, particularly when you think it might be difficult for the other person to hear. What’s most important is that you express your truth in ways that take care of and protect you.
Myth #3: Truth Should Be Shared Regardless of Safety
In this false cultural myth, speaking your truth is unrelated to the person you’re sharing it with or the potential repercussions to your safety— psychological, emotional, or physical. To be fully authentic, you have to say everything you feel; any adjustments to protect yourself are evidence of your cowardice and “inauthenticity.”
If you remember one thing from this post, remember this: there’s no shame in protecting yourself. Safety always trumps “authenticity.” Telling your truth must consider your reality. The price you will pay in terms of retaliation, punishment, abandonment, anger, conflict, financial stability, family structure, or anything else is a major factor in deciding how and if you share your truth. Power dynamics are a real thing. This is not fear talking, it’s wise discernment.
What’s non-negotiable, however, regardless of how you present your truth to others, is to honor your experience inside yourself—to yourself. Most importantly, that you clarify and own your truth internally, and not deny, shame, criticize, or ignore it. With that internal ground in place, you’re on your own team and can act from a place of strength.
Furthermore, if you determine that speaking your truth could endanger your freedom or safety, then ask yourself what you can do to give yourself more options for stability. That might mean building skills and credentials, creating other sources of income, or cultivating an emotional support system outside the relationship so that you feel more secure and have greater options for independence. What steps can you take to make yourself less vulnerable to repercussions that might arise from your honesty?
Speaking your truth doesn’t happen in an idealistic bubble. Honesty always includes your reality and should expand your freedom, not endanger it. Authenticity should never entail sacrificing safety. Discernment is not self-abandonment—it is self-protection, self-loyalty, and self-compassion. You can move towards the truth in a way that protects you.
Myth #4: You Will End Up Alone
The message of this myth is that if you’re honest, you will be abandoned; no one will be willing to put up with the “real” you. Like an animal left behind by the herd, speaking your truth will leave you alone to die. Neither the relationship nor you will survive your truth.
This fundamental cultural narrative is also abjectly false and profoundly damaging to your freedom and empowerment. But because it’s believed so wholeheartedly, and the prospect of existential aloneness is so frightening, you don’t risk speaking your truth in a relationship. You don’t trust that the relationship will survive your honesty, and thus that you will survive it.
In reality, if your truth is unwelcome or dangerous in your relationship, no matter how skillfully you roll it out, then you may need to change the kinds of people you’re in a relationship with. You may need to start choosing partners who give you the space to be honest, and maybe even who want to know your truth—because they want to know you.
The next time you find yourself staying silent when you want to share, or saying too much and suffering the consequences, ask yourself, what cultural myth are you believing and obeying? Question it. Challenge it. Is it possible to be more forthcoming or more strategic and skillful in your communication, to give yourself a true place and voice in the relationship? Is there a way to be more fully known while still protecting your safety and well-being? You can use wisdom and discernment when speaking your truth, and if nothing feels possible, then a deeper seed-change may be necessary.
