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Writer's pictureGary Bonnell

Speaking Truth To Power



The human voice is an instrument that has been developed over millions of years. We use our voices to communicate warnings to each other, to voice all our physical needs, to express our thoughts and feelings, to intimate our hopes and dreams, to entertain, to mimic nature and to share knowledge as we report our observations and experiences of life. We also use our voices to be deceptive as we attempt to position ourselves in favorable circumstances ever wanting to avoid discomfort or confrontation.

The basic energy that supports all forms of life on Earth is not physical, it is multi-dimensional. It behaves in a fluid manner as it permeates everything. In ancient Eastern texts, this energy is referred to as prana or chi. The historical study of chi covers every aspect of human life, from how it moves through sentient physical bodies and flows around less-animate objects. In the human body, chi is present in all tissues: skin, muscle, connective, organ and bone. It is also the medium through which conscious awareness moves through nerve channels to purposefully animate bodily function.

As newborns and then as toddlers, our voices are naturally infused with the very subtle chi power. At this stage, we are authentically expressive with little pretense or confusion as to our place or role in life. Our needs and wants are very immediate and very real. Chi is moving without restriction. Once we are trained to behave in a certain pattern through the use of punishment and reward, or rejection and inclusion, by those beings who care for us, our chi begins to “thicken.” As chi moves into our bodies through minute openings in our skin, our newly confused thoughts and emotions about who we are distorting the energy that supports us. Because of this, our chi moves sluggishly through the nerve channels of the physical body and begins to pool in the major energy centers of our subtle body blocking the flow of energy into and out of our human form. The more confusion, the less chi moves in through those minute openings. By seven years of age, most of the chi we have available come into the body on the breath and within the liquids and foods, we ingest. In this state, the amount of chi available to remain focused, alert and productive is at a minimal level. We are in essence starving for chi. It is as though we are gasping for chi as we breathe, and we end up eating more food than we would need to get the necessary subtle Earth energy to sustain life.

We become desperate as we attempt to please others by trying to resolve our past ‘mistakes’ and rehearse the future to be right for others. We betray our authentic self to the opinions of others as we seek inclusion. The words we use are voiced to manipulate our circumstances, not to build and nurture relationships. Over time, we tell untruths as unconsciously as we breathe. This affects the quality and power we have in our voice. The more emotionally and mentally distorted we become the less and less power we have on the words we use to express our needs and wants. We become passive-aggressive in our relationships and overly compulsive in our thoughts and behaviors. We complain that no one really hears our needs anymore. We fret that no one acknowledges us.

To shift this purely human predicament we must begin to speak truth to power.

First, we must drop personal judgment and allowing ourselves to feel judged; then we can stop judging others. Judging has been the training pattern of social consciousness for thousands of generations so we must realize that it will take consistency and sincerity to achieve a judgeless condition. Next, we need to tell the inner truth about ourselves by replacing looping thought behaviors that are the echoes of our early training. This will allow us to stop accepting the opinions of others. Once we are back on track with our authentic self, we can begin to only speak truth to power. This means that we only speak the exact truth about what and how we feel as an offering of ourselves to others. As the range of our consciousness continues to expand, the communication of ideas will become dominant in our experience. Ideas are the basis of all power in the human experience. Sharing ideas has allowed us to collectively survive on this very volatile planet. This is speaking truth to power: the truth of our authentic self as it relates to the world. It has been stated that great minds communicate ideas, average minds discuss events and small minds talk about people.

Speaking truth to power, we cannot gossip. As an early teen, my grandmother, Rowena Wescott, offered me this thought, "Small minds gossip and speak judgmentally about others; average minds speak of events; great minds communicate ideas.

It is so important, now more than ever, to be respectful of the basics of life, to be authentic with our thoughts and feelings as we interact with others. There are so many ways that we can alienate ourselves and hideaway. It is important to find how we are like each other and speak the truth of that awareness as a sharing, not as a manipulation. Speaking truth to power frees us to live in a manner that is synchronistic. In this state we are sovereign.

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