Truth-Telling as Spiritual Practice
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Centering honesty as a sacred and ancestral act of healing.
Why Truth Is Holy
In every culture colonization tried to erase, there were truth-keepers, griots, medicine women, prophets, dreamers, those who remembered the stories as they were, not just as they were told.
To tell the truth in a world built on erasure is not rebellion, it is remembrance.
To tell the truth is to lay your hands on a wound and say,
“I see it. I name it. I will not pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
Truth-telling isn’t about being loud.
It’s about being aligned.
It’s a return to self.
A homecoming to the soul.
Spiritual Roots of Sacred Honesty
In many Indigenous and African cosmologies, the voice is seen not just as communication, but as conjure.
Words don’t just inform, they transform.
When you speak truth, you’re not just sharing information.
You are calling in energy, summoning spirit, and reweaving what empire tried to fray.
In Hoodoo: the breath is a portal.
In Ifá: odu is spoken, divine knowledge shared through story.
In ancestral Black church traditions: testimony is a ritual, a reckoning, a balm.
In Irish oral traditions, truth was held in seanchas, the old lore passed from mouth to ear, a sacred trust between generations.
To tell the truth was not just to remember, it was to bind community, honor land, and summon the ancestors.
The keen (a vocal lament sung mostly by women) was not just grief, but protest, praise, and portal.
So when you speak your truth?
You are not gossiping.
You are not being “too much.”
You are participating in sacred repair.
Why We Learned to Lie (or Stay Silent)
We weren’t born afraid of truth.
We were trained to be.
Taught that honesty makes things harder.
Taught that “truth causes drama.”
Taught that it’s better to “keep the peace” than name the pain.
But silence is not peace.
Silence is exile in disguise.
And we carry that weight, generation after generation.
Today, we release it.
Truth as Medicine: A 3-Step Practice
Feel It First:
Before truth leaves your lips, let it live in your body.
Where is it tight? Where is it trembling? Name that.Speak It with Intention:
Not for applause. Not for revenge.
But to clear the air. To break the spell. To open the door.Tend to the Echo:
After truth is told, tend to the grief.
Yours. Theirs. The collective’s.
Let tears be your baptism. Let breath be your balm.
🔐 Below the Paywall: Integration + Praxis
Ready to take this deeper?
Behind the paywall, we move from knowing to doing, with somatic invitations, community rituals, and the Practice Your Praxis guide to embody truth-telling in your daily life.
This work is not performative. It’s devotional.
It’s not about being louder, it’s about being rooted.
To continue the lesson:
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