What Does Truth Feel Like?

We spend a lot of time trying to work out what is true.

What do I really want? Is this right for me? Should I stay? Is this the right work, relationship, place or path? Am I being authentic?

We think about these things, and then we think about them some more. We make lists, ask other people what they think, look for signs and try to reason our way towards some kind of certainty.

Lately, however, I've been more interested in a different question:

How does truth feel in the body?

We have all had times in our lives when we knew something wasn't right before we were ready to admit it. Without knowing why, we could feel it.

A tightening. A heaviness. A breath held somewhere too high in the chest.

And we have felt the opposite too. Moments when something felt so true that the body responded before we had time to make sense of it.

A deep breath. Goosebumps. Tears. A sudden sense of aliveness, or a softening somewhere we hadn't realised we were holding tight.

The body is always having its own conversation with us, long before the mind finds the language for it.

I mean this in a more personal and immediate sense. The truth of how we actually feel, what we need and whether something is right for us.

I have been curious about what happens to the body when we say something we don't quite mean, or remain someone we no longer want to be.

What happens to the jaw, the neck, the breath or the belly?

And then what happens when we imagine making a different choice? One that feels more authentic?

Where do we soften? Where do we brace? What makes us feel more alive?

These inquiries keep drawing me back to sensation.

Heat and cold on the skin. Feet on the earth. Wind. Sound. Breath moving in and out of the body.

Sensation brings me into what is actually happening, rather than what I think should be happening. Beneath all the stories we have built around a decision, a feeling or a version of self, there is often a much simpler sensation waiting to be acknowledged.

This is one of the reasons I love the sauna.

Heat makes it difficult to keep holding on to everything. Eventually, there is only the body in the here and now, the breath, what is happening in that moment and the permission to let go.

Then cold water brings us back. Then breath again.

Between these contrasts, things often become clearer, more spacious and simpler.

Simple. Clear. True.

Three words that have been finding their way more and more into Sweetwater.

Truth does not always arrive as a big revelation. Most of the time, it is incredibly ordinary.

Close your eyes and feel the weight of your body where you are.

Let your jaw loosen.

Take a breath through your nose and allow it to leave slowly through your mouth.

Bring to mind something you are currently trying to understand.

You don't need to solve it. Just notice what happens in your body when you hold it there.

Where do you feel it?

What happens when you imagine saying yes?

What happens when you imagine saying no?

What contracts? What softens? What feels alive?

And underneath everything else:

How does truth feel in my body today?

You don't need to have the answer.

Just notice.