013 – Tamika Schilbe Cole: The Truth About Truth Aches

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] I’m Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories, about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves.
The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love, and life-saving tools.

[0:27] Music.

[0:39] Today we have Tameka Shilbe Cole. It is kind of wild that our paths are crossing again after almost 20 years having gone in different directions, but we both started with Dawn and Amba Stapleton at the Nosara Yoga Institute, now Self-Awakening Yoga. And she says this quote from Dawn that I don’t remember but I’m so grateful that she brought forth which is, truth without beauty is violence. Tamika’s book, Truth Aches, is an incredible, it’s an incredibly easy read, but it’s also so beautiful because it takes something that would seem black and white, truth or lie, good person or bad person, and brings in the complexity, of being human with one another, of considering our hearts, and also considering the weight in our bodies when we’re not in alignment with ourselves and the way that that can even have a ripple effect out and around us.
She says truth is complicated. We need to treat it delicately. Speaking our truth, is the gateway to those deep and profound intimate relationships. Without, it we’re only sort of half there. Please listen in. I am so grateful to have her here and I’m, I am so grateful to be able to share her with you.
Enjoy.

[2:02] Music.

[2:13] Welcome. I’m very excited to introduce Tamika Schilbe Cole.
Tamika and I first met, we were trying to figure this out just a moment ago.
Like what year exactly did we meet? But we know that our crossings happened in Costa Rica at the Nostara Yoga Institute and that we both share some roots with Don and Amba Stapleton who were, I’ll say for myself, primary teachers for me, and definitely influenced the way that I went on to do my work and the way that I, I’m gonna say the way that I be in this world.
And I’ve also just noticed that the students who go through that programming, it seems to be a thread that keeps us together.
And so when Tamika came out with her book, I was so excited to read it and super excited to introduce her to all of you.
So I’m going to start by reading a bio so that we can understand a bit of her professional background, and then I’ll let her do a lot of the talking today.
So the book that we’re diving into today and the work is called Truth Aches, everything you need to know about speaking and living your truth.

[3:33] Tamika’s work has come from her 30 years of strength-based counseling with individuals, families, and groups.
This book is based on years of informal research, interviewing clients and students about true things, and two decades of travel across five continents to study Eastern philosophy, meditation, and mindfulness.
Tamika has her master’s degree in social work, and she is a registered social worker and psychotherapist in private practice.
She has worked with addictions, medical social work, child welfare, intimate partner violence, and school-based counseling and consulting.
Over her career, she has specialized in holistic approaches to anxiety, as well as recovery from trauma, loss, and grief.
In her roles as a college family dynamics instructor and university adjunct professor, as well as certifying hundreds of yoga teacher trainees, she has explored the ethics of truth-telling with a broad spectrum of students.
Students.

[4:49] As faculty field coordinator at the University of the Fraser Valley, she has facilitated Truth Aches workshops to social work interns. The truth archaeology technique she has developed with her clients and students have helped over a thousand people reclaim the power of their hidden truths, transforming their lives and relationships. And I’m going to say that that number is going to skyrocket with this book. And the fact that I think you shared with me that it was number one one bestseller in Canada for a few weeks straight.
Congratulations. And thank you for being here.

[5:25] Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I just really appreciate you and everything you are and embody. And so it’s it’s an honor. It’s such an honor to be here.
Thank you. Yeah, I noticed, I’m gonna just jump right in here. I noticed in your dedication. I just want to know a little bit more about this. It says, to mom and dad, my first teacher is in the search for an authentic life. Could you expound on that a little bit?

[5:56] Oh, that’s a good place to start. Well, they’re both gone. They’re both on the other side. So it’s kind of it’s a little bit tender, but they like my mom brought the love and the unconditional love. And I wouldn’t say that she was a big truth teller, but she softened the sort of courageous truth that my dad would tell in his world. So I think the marriage of both of those, not just people, but those energies of we can’t just speak our truth, you know, from a place that’s unskilled or just impulsive, not that my dad was impulsive, but he was very, at times, self-righteous in his claiming what he believed was right. And then my mother would bring in the unconditional love and just caring for everyone, holding everyone. So I feel like those two energies, you know, really shaped who I am and just what I see with people, my own mistakes and speaking my truth where I’ve gone off course.
And yeah, they were both really interesting and beautiful people in different ways. Yeah.
Thank you. And I think your book expounds on this. Something that I really took from your book.

[7:23] Was how truth-telling is not black or white. And you have a quote, and I wish I had pulled it up here, where maybe you’ll have it on the top of your head, and it’s okay if not.
It’s something about how the most honest person will tell how they’re never fully honest.
Something like that. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. And there’s part of me that wants to read through a few of the questions that you asked in this book, because for me, I think I’m a really honest person. And I can also look at various points in my life where I had to fine tune my truth telling. And as I read this book, I could see how often I’m also not in alignment with my full truth and how easily that can come in.
I mean, you list so many reasons in the book how this might show up and you give it in story form too, which really makes it digestible and land in my body.
So I remember at some point in my life, I was having a conversation with my father.
I had told him something that was going on in my life. I, in the moment, don’t remember what it was.

[8:44] And I was like, do I have to tell mom about this? By the way, I know they’re gonna listen to this.
Do I have to tell mom about this?
And it was something that didn’t have to do with her. So it wasn’t gonna change the course of her life, but it was going to upset her.
And it was going to upset her maybe because I’m imagining that it was something like, if it was hard for me or something that happened bad, hurtful towards me, that then she would lose sleep.
Does this make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. I was like, do I have to tell mom? And he said, you know, I’ve just found that it’s easier to always tell the truth because in my younger years I would selectively truth tell, or I would shift the truth a little bit.
And then you start weaving all these webs that are hard to keep up with.
And then you’re like, wait, did I tell that person? How did I tell them?
Did I tell this person something different?
And he didn’t say this part, but I’ll say this part that in my experience, that makes relationships much more surface level.

[9:50] And kind of like, what do I have to retain? And at what level can I enter those relationships?
So I remember him saying that, and there’s still part of me of like, oh, what do I get to keep for myself?
And what do I have to share? So that was one point.
And the other point was when I started studying yoga.
And in the yoga sutras, there are eight limbs, and the first limb is the yamas.
And these are the yamas are kind of like the social ethics.
And one of the first yamas is satya, truth-telling. And it really made me think about the little things.
When I say that I’m late and I may be in a little bit of traffic and I may have gotten a red light, but was I also just not giving myself enough time? And, you know, just being honest of like, yeah, I’m running late because I didn’t give myself enough time.
And just noticing the little things like that.
Yeah. But then I just think it gets much more complicated when it comes into, for me, people’s feelings.

[11:02] Yeah. And that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. That you, that you, you said that, right?
Like we have to, it’s, what is it? You know, do you remember Don had this amazing quote, which was our teacher Don Stapleton had this quote, which was truth without beauty is violence.
And I often think of that. And it’s sort of like you’re describing the beauty of people’s feelings.
And I think it’s absolutely important to keep that tenderness, you know, in mind when we’re speaking our truth.
Truth without beauty is violence.

[11:41] I don’t remember that one and that’s good. It’s a good one. Yeah, it’s really good. Yeah.
Was there a moment in your life, so the podcast is also threshold moments, right?
Was there a threshold in your life in which the importance of truth telling became so clear so clear and or that it became something that you knew as an inquiry worth looking into.
Yes, I would say that when I was I did write about being five years old and having this moment with my mom when I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth.
Actually, I think I was eight years old when I was five years old.
My brother died in an accident and my parents were quite honest with me about that accident.
And there was, you know, controversial things associated with it.
And I appreciated that, like I was able to handle that. I mean, obviously, they didn’t give me details I didn’t need to know.

[12:41] But then a few years later, my dog, my mom told me my dog ran away, and I knew that my dog didn’t weigh. And so, I was looking at her, that was the first time that I had this, I didn’t say that was like a really young threshold moment where I don’t know if it’s a threshold moment, actually, because I wasn’t faced with a dilemma. But I was confused. And I remember looking at her and going, she’s not telling me the truth, but I trust her. 100% I trust her. And holding both those two things at the same time was tricky. But I know that she was mourning my brother and still, like, obviously her son. And so it was really complex for her too around death. And so, yeah, she was trying to protect me. But it actually, like, I love you, mom, but that wasn’t helpful.
It wasn’t helpful because I looked for my dog. My dog and I looked like we had these woods.
We had all these maple syrup bushes around us and I searched and searched and called and called.

[13:46] Yeah. So, you know, this is where I think I knew truth is complicated and we need to treat it delicately. Yeah. That was the first one. But around the book, there’s more.
I don’t know how many moments you want that are thresholds, but gosh, I feel like I’ve had a whole slew of them.
I’m sure you have too.
Yeah. I mean, I can feel something certainly even building in me.

[14:15] I can name a few recently. Here’s a really silly one. And this is just to go like to show how small they can be too. And I can say this because it was reconciled. My friend and I, we have two little girls who are best friends. They’ve been together since they were one week old, and they have the same ski helmets. And we were in Florida and both of the helmets happened to be at our house. And so my friend came over and took one of the helmets. And when we got back, the helmet that was left had kind of like a broken ear on it, but it was also too small.
It was just too small for Sophia’s head. And I was like, oh, we’ll just adjust it. We’ll make it work, because I felt way too uncomfortable saying, I think we got the one that’s… I think because it was also broken. But the biggest issue is that didn’t really fit her head. It was just too small.
So we were about to buy another one because we were too self-conscious about saying these were swapped out. I know it doesn’t, it probably doesn’t even make sense on here. I was in the car when Steve was like, should I just buy this helmet? It’s on sale for $70. And I was in the car with my friend. I was like, Hey, you know, the helmet, it doesn’t really fit. Sophia, is it okay? If, and she was just like, yeah, no big deal. Like they just didn’t even care. But the tension that we held in us for like a few weeks of like, it’s the wrong helmet.

[15:38] But we don’t want to give them back one. That’s not in like perfect condition.
That’s like a really small example of a little truth ache.

[15:49] And I think bigger examples of truth for me might be, you know, not getting like too detailed in, like my marriage or like my closest friendships is when I haven’t had the energy or like the bandwidth to talk about something tender, or maybe I don’t feel safe for whatever reason it is.
And so those things like stack slowly over time. And I kind of go into the place of, of from the four agreements where it’s like, nothing’s personal.
And I’ll use my rational mind to tell myself like, where I went wrong or how I could do better.
And I can do that for years before I can actually just say like, oh, you know, when this happened, I felt this way as opposed to like your fault, or like I need, you know.
So this is a growing edge for me, because I find that my relationships aren’t as deep and aren’t as intimate when I haven’t said the things.
Absolutely, because speaking our truth is the gateway in a certain kind of way to those deep and profound kind of intimate relationships.
I think, you know, without speaking our truth, we’re only sort of half there, you know?
We’re not even really fully there.
Yeah. There was a line somewhere in the book where the way you described that.

[17:15] I think it was like, almost like you’re watching a movie, like such like a dissociative, like you’re there and you’re in the conversation, but it’s almost like you’re watching a movie of your life unfold, which to me kind of feels like being disembodied, if I am having to stay in my head and away from the emotions that might be there, and just putting part of myself out.

[17:39] And I have the benefit of getting to know what both of those feel like, what it feels like to feel like so safe and to be seen and really be with somebody and then also knowing the feeling of a more dissociated conversation. Yeah, and I think it’s okay that we oscillate in between those two states to expect ourselves to be in that fully embodied, you know, honestly, me kind of place all the time is probably.

[18:09] Not sustainable or even reflective of sort of the energies around us too, right? Like, it, we do get impacted by other things around us and sometimes it isn’t like you said, safe to be fully in and fully ourselves. And I definitely, that’s something that everyone should know is know is that safety always trumps truth.
And you and I are probably in many ways privileged and able to speak our truth in situations where other people maybe aren’t in even different countries.
But even in this country, even in different situations that people find themselves in, even maybe with a boss that’s not kind to them or with a partner that they’re dependent on or whatever it might be, There’s so many places I think that all of us can get off track with speaking our truth.
And I think it’s really good to say, it’s okay, I don’t feel safe.
And I know you appreciated this about the book that so much permission not to speak your truth if you can’t.

[19:14] That’s the whole thing. Because if we impose this work on ourselves, and we do it in a way that’s pushing something too far, when it’s not meant to open, It’s kind of like ripping the butterfly out of a cocoon.
It’s probably not going to work. It’s probably not gonna have wings and fly.
I love that. As you’re saying that, I’m thinking about how many years women might stay in oppression before a few do risk their lives to speak the truth, and that there is a time where.

[19:50] The truth begins to come before safety, but it’s not for everybody, and it’s not all the time.
And I’m also interested in like how do we create conditions so that when it feels unsafe, like what support systems can we start putting around us if possible so that when that moment that feels really unsure comes about, is it possible that we’re not there by ourselves?
You know, is it possible that we have a friend? Is it possible that we’ve like laid layers of support around us.
Would you, there are two parts of maybe three truth ache questions I have to help the listeners a little bit more, which is the first one would be, could you describe a truth ache?
Cause I’m noticing, I’m like, oh, we’re just talking about truth ache.
Everybody completely understands. Can you describe truth ache?

[20:43] Maybe also the contraindications and the benefits. But first, just like how you would describe a truth ache.
Dr. Sarah Lichtenberg I would say that a truth ache is something that we hide that hurts us and potentially other people, depending on what we’re hiding.

[21:02] And there’s lots of reasons that we do this. We do this to make other people feel comfortable.
We do this to keep peace. We do this to keep ourselves safe. There’s so many reasons that people don’t fully share who they are or the truth of the situation. But a truth ache really, the ache part is important in this because a truth, when we know we have a truth ache, it’s because it starts to ping us. So it starts to sort of like, oh, there’s that again. Oh, there’s that again. Like, maybe even the helmet, you know, the situation. I don’t think it’s small because it was pinging you, right? Like, so for you, that was a thing. And, you know, as a parent, that’s your right to have the things with those sort of feelings around things like that.
So it’s different for everyone. But yeah, there are small, medium, and big, but we know when we’re getting pinged over again, over and over again. It’s the stuff that kind of the stuff that keeps you up at night. And that’s when you know it’s a true thing. You might go to work late and tell your boss that you got stuck in traffic and you didn’t get stuck in traffic. And that might be about the relationship with your boss that you have. And that’s, you know, a specific dynamic.

[22:15] But that might not keep you up at night. So that might not be a true thing for someone, right?

[22:20] But it’s those other things. And as you mentioned, a lot of the ones that I see are and that I work with in my practice.
Are, you know, that person hurt my feelings and I don’t know how to tell them. I love them, or I like them a lot and I just, I don’t know how to say it. So that would be like an everyday kind of truth ache. And then there’s, you know, the bigger ones like infidelity and, all of those kinds of things too, more serious things or wanting to leave a relationship or not being happy in a relationship that isn’t, doesn’t even involve infidelity, but saying, how do I say this? How do I approach this? Where do I, how do I change my whole life? So the stakes are high for those bigger ones. And the way that people are going to manage it is different for everyone, because every situation is so unique and has so many different, you know, colorful aspects to it.
But I do have a chapter in the book, which I don’t know that there’s any other book that does it like this. So I love that. If I can do a little brag, I love this book.

[23:29] You know, there’s a chapter in the book about like how to speak so people listen, how to excavate. There’s a chapter on excavating your truth before you speak so that, you can really see if there’s some areas in your life where you need to take some responsibility and just sort this out with yourself before you speak. And then of course, sometimes truth just like bursts out. And so we don’t always have the luxury of like workshopping our truth ache. But even in those cases, I think the book helps people understand how this, how this went down. If it didn’t go well, what I could do differently and sort that out for themselves. So that’s a little bit about true things.

[24:12] Yeah. I love in the book how you spoke to, if you have, I don’t want to say the luxury, the time to process it. And then also just when the explosion comes, which in the cycle of awareness with that interruption of norm, this is episode two that we spoke about. And Tameka is, very aware of this because this is from Don and Ava Stapleton. I think about this rubbing that happens where sometimes it’s like an event that happens really quick, but sometimes, there’s been a rubbing for a long period of time of all the things you didn’t say And it builds up, builds up, builds up like that straw that broke the camel’s back.
I’m thinking of like a balloon that just keeps building up and then it snaps.
Steps. And then it feels like it feels like it happened in one moment, even if it was building for years.

[25:04] The potential for collapse, you know, the potential for things to break away, for all the safety structures to fall, but for a more authentic life to be possible on the other side.
Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes those moments of breaking go well, and sometimes they change the trajectory of our lives in different ways too. But I love how your Cycle of Awareness podcast describes and Donna Namba so beautifully taught us that there’s there’s something we’re, going toward that is is going to be even better and truer for us. Yeah.

[25:48] In these moments that we’ve spoken and even before the podcast started, I am so fond of what you remember from Donna Namba, because some of the things that you say aren’t things that I remember. And so it’s adding layers for me that I am really appreciating.
I was like, that feels good just to remember that. Okay. We are like in chaos and confusion or fertile void. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s a direction. So it’s a, it’s a nice reminder, which of course is what the map is for of the before and after.
We had good parents. We had good yoga. You sure did. Yeah. They’re amazing.
I’m sure it did. Yeah.
Yeah. The benefits, which I guess we’ve touched on a little bit, but maybe you could highlight again, the benefits of beginning to pay attention to these true thanks and honoring them.
I love how you said that of beginning to.

[26:51] I had moments when I was writing this book where I was like, I’m gonna, I am, there’s not gonna be one moment of the day where like, I’m gonna practice radical honesty for a whole month.
And I think I got maybe into one day and I found myself in a situation where I would have really, really hurt somebody if I was honest. And I was like this, okay, I got to universe, This is really complex. And I think I know what I’m talking about, but I actually need eight years to workshop this material, which is how long it took to make the book. Yeah. Yeah. Eight years.
I appreciate that.

[27:26] Yeah. And I think I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I didn’t know when I started. I really didn’t know. And so, yeah, it’s amazing. But the benefits are being able to have deeper intimacy, which we mentioned being able to feel more in yourself. I think, I don’t know if any of us can really create a fully creative and embodied life without speaking our truth. I just don’t know, anymore. Like, I don’t mean radical honesty in every situation, but at least in the places where it matters to us, being able to step forward in truth. I just don’t know how we really do that without it at this point. But of course, when I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I was living as embodied a life as I could, right? I was, you know, doing the things and doing them my best.

[28:21] And I’m sure we all do. But I also think this is something that’s rising on the planet right now.
So for us to be looking at this work and courageously, so any of your listeners that are like, oh yeah, I want to do this work. It’s you, there’s a certain level of courage that you have to have and with those energies swelling on the planet.

[28:44] And we do live on the blue planet, I have to say too, which is the color of the throat chakra.
Interestingly, it’s that time on earth when we are all being called to more honesty and, you know, transparency at all levels, like levels of government and levels of different types of leadership and, you know, all kinds of places. So I think we’re in good, we’re poised well if we’re doing this work at this time on ourselves, because it starts with us.
I mean, we can all point fingers at government and say like, who’s telling the truth? We don’t know the truth. And what’s, you know, all these terms like misinformation, just, you know, all these things like what is the truth, but if we’re not sharing the truth in our family, like that’s the place to start. And then all this stuff will clear up eventually, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually all this other stuff’s going to clean up because the energy will be cleaner.
That’s one of the benefits. You named in the book, I really love this section, you named how.

[29:55] When we have a truth ache, it’s contagious. And also actually as I say that, so truth ache, Obviously, there’s a closeness to toothache.
And at the beginning, you talked about a truth canal. And I was giggling because my husband does root canals.
So I was like, oh, there’s so much here.
But to go back to what I was saying was this idea that truth aches are contagious.
So if I had something going on with a friend, and they had no idea that I have something internally going on and I’m afraid to speak it.

[30:35] Then when we interact with each other, I might not be the same and they might start sensing something and they might feel like I’m being cold and then they might, the only thing that they could then do is make their own story in their head.
And now we keep coming up against each other’s stories and the relationship changes or somebody’s feelings get hurt because I was afraid to hurt their feelings, their feelings get hurt because I haven’t spoken it and they don’t understand why I’m not showing up the same.
You gave many examples where I was just a little blown away, Like, wow.

[31:10] Holy smokes. This is, I see this. Your examples were so clear and they were so obvious, of the way that truth aches are contagious.
They go viral for sure.
In like friendships, offices, communities, schools, they go viral, they do.
And everybody’s like a little like, what? Something’s not right.
I don’t know what this is.
You know, it’s a lot of guessing, right? It’s a lot of like projecting and guessing and maybe walking on eggshells.
First feeling like, ah, my feet are on the ground. I’m in this space, I feel safe.
You also just mentioned this idea that at this time on this planet, more and more people are doing self-work and truth excavation and wanting to be in alignment with our authentic self.
And this brings up a point for me about the idea of integration and through repetition of positive experiences.
So my experience is that I could hear the things that you and I are talking about and say, that sounds good.
And then my body security system could be like, nope.

[32:29] My mind is like, yeah. And my body is like, oh, hell no. And so to have a friend, or maybe it starts with a therapist that you can practice being truthful with, that you find people, I’ve said in other podcasts, like maybe you start by being in nature and you say your things out loud.
Maybe you start in a journal, like various ways that we can start being relational with our truth. And then when you find a friend, Like I’ve been so lucky that.
Over the last four or five years as I’ve practiced saying harder truths where I just claim my feelings so I don’t argue like I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, but this is my feeling.
I have had the most gracious friends who so fully receive my experience.

[33:22] It’s been healing and I’m still not fully comfortable with it. It reminds me a bit of of getting in an ice bath where like the beginning part is always quite hard, but the repetition of, oh, I survived that and I actually had a good experience and now my relationship is deeper and more authentic and I feel more in my body.
And then when I’m with this person, I’ve had multiple experiences.
I’ve had a great experience with that with my mother over the last two times in the last two years and yeah, with two of my closest friends here, with actually just multiple friends, I realized how many of my closest friends I had not said my full truth to.
Whereas like, I’m just being overly sensitive. I don’t want to burden the situation.
And then when I did, it was like, wow, I got to have some reps of people saying, Oh, that wasn’t my intention. And I understand the impact.
And I see you and I’m so thankful that you shared that with me.
And my hope is that the listeners, as you share in your book, it doesn’t always go that way.
And I do have other times where it doesn’t go that way, but building friendships and relationships and maybe again with a therapist where it’s practice and repetition of what.

[34:43] Being able to have a healthy conversation about your emotions, where it’s safe to be an emotional being, is such a gift. It’s such a gift, but I think it’s also something we can seek out and practice.

[35:00] Absolutely, and even when it doesn’t go, like let’s say you do all the things right, and you claim your own feelings, you don’t blame someone for your feelings, and you say it the right way, and that person doesn’t receive it. Like, I know you’re saying you’ve got all that, but you’ve had the other experience too, where it hasn’t gone, hasn’t landed for that person.
And maybe it, you know, creates a tear in the relationship or even ends it. And that can happen to certain people. But you have so much information from that interaction. And you can, when you’ve done the work ahead of time, you can say to yourself, I know I did my best. You know, I might not have done it perfect, but I did my best. And I didn’t blame that person for my own feelings.
And they still weren’t able to for whatever reason in their own journey. It wasn’t resonant with them at this moment. And so, you get to learn that resonance isn’t there on that level.
And for some people that might be okay, I can’t go there, but I can still be a co-worker to this person or I can still be, you know, a neighbor to this person, but I can’t be that intimate, close, close person with them. And, you know, I think that’s the beauty of clearing true fakes is that we always learn something. There’s always something fascinating to learn. Yeah.

[36:25] But also, you know, a regulated nervous system, which I know you know so much about, If you feel so shaky and you can’t manage it because of the fullness of your life, then I think it’s okay to put that in the parking lot, you know, until it grows and grows and grows until you want to explode.
That’s a whole different thing for your nervous system. But parking lotting, this stuff is okay when things are crazy in life.
And they do get that way, right? They get overwhelming sometimes.
Just that’s what we get dished out sometimes. I saw a therapist once who said, strike when the iron’s cold.

[37:10] I love that. Yeah, I said that. And he just said, when your amygdala is hot, when that emotional center of the brain is hot, we don’t have access to the prefrontal cortex.
So we don’t have access to all these great skills we have in our co-listening and our nonviolent communication.
Like it’s just out the window and…
I find that hard. I don’t know if you have anything to say on that. I find that striking while the iron is cold is challenging because that usually means things are going well, and you’re going to decide to bring up something that’s not going well.
And therefore you’re making a choice to be in a place that’s left less comfortable, for the benefit of the long run. Although I like the idea of strike while the iron is cold, It also, again, it’s like getting in an ice bath or before a workout where it’s like, I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty good right now of just like that initial breaking of either momentum or stillness, like the Newton’s law of what’s in motion tends to stay in motion, what’s at rest tends to stay at rest.
So that outside force that changes it has to be some form of like willpower to strike well, the iron is cold as well as like some willpower to not strike when the iron is hot, especially when we have less access to.
Yeah.

[38:36] Yeah. Well, I think one of the things for me that’s helpful, the striking when the iron is cold, which I’ve never heard, I love it.

[38:45] Is assuming that this is going to be a bonding experience for us instead of a conflictual experience. But obviously, not everyone is going to take it that way. The other person might not take it that way. But my intention going into clearing a truth ache is probably one of the biggest things that determines the outcome of that, the resolution of that situation.
And, you know, a lot of people go into and not, I’m sure you don’t, but a lot of people go in with like, I got to give that person a piece of my mind, which is never a great idea. You always know you’re setting things up for a disaster if you’re thinking like that. But we’ve all felt that before. Like this person needs to know how they treated me and this isn’t okay. And all those, interesting things that we can say. But I think a more balanced intention is something like mutual understanding. So I want, I want to be the speaker, but I also want to hear them out. And that’s probably the biggest mistake that people make when speaking their truth is they forget they’re a transmitter receiver. You know, their whole body is transmitting energy and sound through the voice, but also they’re receiving the input back.

[40:10] It requires a lot of patience and pausing. And what I heard you say is, you know, those kinds of great tools that we know and love.
Yeah, and just to clarify for the listeners, when Tamika said, what I heard you say is, again, Zahn and Amba, part of the co-listening that we would do.
There is advanced teacher training and I was in my young 20s.
And so for me, that meant, oh, we’re gonna learn arm balances and we’re gonna learn Sanskrit.
Like this makes you an advanced teacher. This is my young naivety.
And Dawn and Amba who have been studying for 40 years and understand just so much more about life, we’re like, we’re gonna do gestalt therapy methods.
Gotta learn co-listening. And part of the co-listening is just to sit without saying anything and actually not looking eye to eye but maybe shoulder to shoulder.
There are many ways that one could sit, but it’s not face-to-face.
And when the person’s done speaking, you reflect back, you kind of crystallize what, as the listener, what the listener heard.
And then it’s, did I hear you right? Is there anything you’d like to add?
And what’s so amazing for me is that sometimes as a speaker, the listener heard something that I didn’t even realize I was saying, but feels true.
Like, wow, that’s my story.

[41:39] Wow, yeah, I didn’t even realize that that’s what I’ve been saying. But yeah. And other times they say something like, oh, that’s not what I meant. So it’s so great when somebody reflects back.
I so many times when Erica Magliero would say like, would you like, would you like a say back?
I was like, like internally, I’m like, man, not really. And then she’d say something like, whoa, she’s so skilled with that. And yeah, did I hear you right? Is there anything you’d like to add?
I don’t always remember those skills day to day, which is why I like the formal practice of it is great.
Yeah.
Maybe I’ll ask you if there’s one you want to touch on. In some ways I felt like we’ve touched a bit on.

[42:25] The various ways or reasons why we might hold back from… Yeah, I’ll go here.
The reason I hold back from saying our truth and you have the field work, do I have a truth ache?
Would you be open for me just reading a few? Yeah. Please, yeah.
When I’m confused because of a behavior or conversation with a loved one, I wait until my confusion goes away instead of talking to the person and asking clarifying questions.
And we could circle often, sometimes, never.
Three and four I’m gonna bring together a little bit. When somebody wants to visit me and I’d prefer they don’t, I say yes anyway, or if I combine that with three, it might be, or I tell someone I’m busy when I’m not.
When people lie to me, that’s it. Dishonesty is wrong and I don’t want them in my life.
I never look back, often, sometimes, never.
I lie about my age, avoid the question or make a joke about it instead of telling the truth of how old I am.
I lie about being sexually satisfied or fake an orgasm to make my partner feel better.

[43:39] I’m keeping a secret from my child because I don’t think they can handle it until they’re older and I have to create other lies or managed circumstances or information to keep it hidden.
Often sometimes never there are many, many great ones in here. I have a question on that one. Yeah, Santa.
And surprises. Santa and surprises. I’m like, I threw a surprise party for my husband when he graduated from dental school and his response instead of like, oh my God, thank you, he’s like, I didn’t know you could lie so much.
I had to make up a lot of lies. Like make this.
And I was like, but I did it for the surprise, which he got and he was thankful for.
But yeah, then Santa, the excitement. I was unsure if I was told a few years ago that maybe 10 years ago that whenever we lie, that it builds some form of tension in our body.
And.

[44:40] And the suggestion was, like, even with kids with Santa, that we could talk to them about like, oh, the energy of Santa, the intention of Santa, and when I had my own child, the first two years, I just didn’t mention Santa in the third.
It’s like in the air and people are talking about it. and she got so excited.
And you know, the holidays are so exciting.

[45:01] Do you have any thoughts on this? I don’t think you would tell anyone like you must do this or that, but I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts. No.
And I have to say I’m not a parent, so I don’t know all the pressures that you all feel, even from the culture around Santa.
So I think that’s a whole level of things. And then also the magic of your own childhood and the feelings that you wanna pass on to your children around Santa, all of those things are really valid.
I do feel, if I’m being completely honest, which why wouldn’t I be?
I do feel like that will be a dying thing, the Santa story. I do feel like going forward in our culture, that won’t be a thing because it’s so random who Santa gives what to who.
It’s unequal, like why in a classroom does one kid get a bike and the other kid gets socks?
You know, it just, it doesn’t make sense. And I think I loved Santa as a kid.
Like I don’t have any like personal anger about my parents telling me about Santa. I loved it.
I know a lot of kids actually fake it that they think it’s real when it’s not.
Like even up to 12 years old or older, they fake it so that they can keep getting the presents which is also kind of a strange dynamic. Like, what if we could all just say.

[46:19] There’s like you said, the energy of Santa or this giving spirit that this embodies and we make this happen at Christmas and let’s all revere Santa.

[46:30] But then you have the problem as a parent of them telling somebody else that doesn’t want their kids to know that this isn’t real. And Carolyn’s kids, I think I wrote, oh, I probably wrote about this in the acknowledgements in the book. Yeah, I did.
That one of them was cornering me in Costa Rica when she was I think four and saying, I wanna know if Santa’s real or not.
And the other, and Annabelle, who was a bit older, was like, I don’t wanna hear about this.
Like, don’t talk to me about this. Like, she was getting upset with just the question.
And so I said to Stella, I can’t tell you that’s up to your parents.
It’s not my place. Like, you’re gonna have to ask your mom.

[47:11] So I know it’s complicated, But I think the other thing is I’ve worked with kids in the school system who would be beating somebody up on the schoolyard.
And then of course, as a counselor, I’d be working with them.
They’d sit down in my office, cry their eyes out and say they just found out Santa wasn’t real.
And so I think it’s also family dependent because if you don’t have a lot of other magic in your family, and that’s the one time a year that there’s…
Oh, it makes me feel almost emotional talking about it. Like there’s this magic. These were boys. I always found that interesting. One that it came to me, these were like several, like maybe five or six. These situations over my 16 years as a school counselor.

[47:55] And I thought that was a lot because it’s not something you hear about every day, but there were always boys too. And I think, you know, sometimes the boys in our culture have been a little bit more cut off from, you know, be a man or at least back at that time, it was like less of that spiritual kind of magical flavor that they got to infuse in themselves.
And yeah, they would come in and just cry their eyes out and say like, I can’t believe this. I can’t believe they lied to me.
And it became for those kids, and I’m sure there’s more than those, but a trust issue.
You know, what else are they lying to me about? What else isn’t real?
And I remember when Stella and Annabelle talked about this, one of them said, are angels real?
Are angels fake too? Is God real? Or is God fake too?
You know, you could change that with universe or whatever. But I think, I don’t think we’re going there in the future with Santa.
I don’t think it’ll be a thing. But right now it is.
And I think every parent just has to do their best with sorting all that out.
I don’t know if I’m getting off, like two off topic, keeping on the Santa thing, but, I’m thinking about somebody was many years ago told me how Coca-Cola made orange slice so that kids would get addicted to soda early so that then they would be future customers of Coca-Cola. Right.

[49:20] So it was like giving them a child’s version. So they would grow into the adult version.
It would be the seamless thing.
So when I look at Santa, the other thing that I see is a child’s version of the Christian God white man in the sky. If you are good, you’ll get presents.
If you’re good, you’ll go to heaven.
If you’re bad, you’ll get coal, a child’s health. That there’s like this, I don’t know if it’s clear what I’m saying with like the Coca-Cola and the Santa to the believing that there is a God who’s going to say like, you’re good and you, this is your reward and you’re bad. And this is the punishment. So I’m aware of that. And I, I think what I hear when you say, is there a God, are there, Are there angels? Are there spirits? Are there fairies?

[50:20] I mean, for me, those are the fun things to just imagine into. I like to imagine like, yes, and then, see what happens and can I find evidence of it? I kind of feel like it’s a little bit of a choice of am I going to choose to believe into this or not? And how does my life feel when I choose a yes, versus a no? And does it feel more magical or less? Is it more enjoyable or less? Does my nervous system actually relax. And I think that there are more layers of support that I can’t see.

[50:52] That are there. And then I start to find evidence on that behalf. But I think we find evidence on behalf of whatever we choose to believe too. Absolutely.
Like I’m all for the fairies and the angels. So your kids have magical things, right? Available to them. It’s not all pinned on the white guy in the sky with the reindeer. It’s not all pinned.
I also want to say that if anyone’s triggered by this, I get it. I get it because there’s so much wrapped up in it and we’re so used to it. And again, I want to say I’m not a parent. I have no idea how you would manage this in this culture that we’re in and have kids in school and enter.
I have no idea. You as the parents know how to manage this. And I also know that I piss people off by talking about Santa. It really hits such a harsh core of people that I stopped talking about it for like a decade because I just started talking about it again recently because someone asked me. But I don’t mean to piss you off if you’re listening. I respect your parenting.
What do you need to do it? I’m aware of the time and I’m not sure if there’ll be be time to fully elaborate on this.
And I’m so interested on your take and your experience of this, which is in the book you talk about being stung on the head.

[52:18] And how you stepped away and you found by a B. Thank you.
I’m not like by a piranha or anything. You never know.
Yeah, I know it didn’t happen in Costa Rica, but yeah, so you’re stung on the head by a B.
And you step away and it turns out in that moment.

[52:41] You’re not having an obvious allergic reaction, but it does also So you find out, make it so that you have an anaphylactic reaction to sense like chemical sense I’m thinking is right.
This comes to me. I, what I have found is that when I teach something, the universe is like, oh, I’m not, saying this is, this is my projection, right?
Then projecting this into you because it’s my experience. And so now I want it to also be a question where I might teach something and then the universe is like, oh, I’ll give you plenty of opportunities to practice this.
So in your experience, now you have something that could send you to the hospital, like really severe, but it’s like an everyday thing where someone could be wearing perfume or somebody could have a certain smell in their house or that they clean with and it’s dangerous for you.
And so this is like a level of having to speak your truth to save your life.
But people on any day or any occurrence could feel offended by it. Yeah.

[53:55] That feels like a big one. Yeah, it’s big.
It’s been one of the bigger ones for sure in my life.
I think it was probably an initiation. Someone has told me, multiple people have actually told me that the idea of that bee stinging you on the very top of your head in an auditorium when you’re teaching a program is so like right on the crown of my head.
So it’s interesting how it all came about, but I think for me, it kind of opened up a new learning about my liver.
And looking back, I actually really am into Anthony William, the medical medium, which I know is a little bit controversial sometimes, but his work has really helped me and actually I’m not having the same reactions that I used to because of his work.
And just taking such sweet care of my liver and realizing that that venom actually was not the cause of the sensitivities. It’s an overburdened liver.

[55:03] And so because my liver had to pull that venom in and try to manage it for me, because it’s like the mother inside, right?
My mom was looking, trying to look after me, my liver, which is that mother.
It just was too much and it sent me over an edge, you know, because I had had many health issues over the years, like from a very young age, like was hospitalized for severe asthma and things from like about four years old on.
So this.
It was kind of an initiation into really understanding my liver, how it sops up toxic adrenaline when I’m adrenalized and how it impacts all the other systems in my body, because the liver has over 2000 metabolic functions. So it just, it kind of opened the path for a new, not just speaking my truth, but just a new way of being that was more more, for sure felt feels constricted sometimes because of what you were saying, like, I don’t know when it’s going to happen.
There’s certain places I can’t go to because it’s too possible.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to move tables in a restaurant because someone comes in with really strong perfume and how to do that nicely.
Like so it’s like, oh, you guys sat down now I have to move. It’s tricky.
It’s really tricky. But I think it’s just time and practice that has helped me to be able to speak it, to be.

[56:30] Able to be like, Oh, this is like me and my liver.
I have to speak on behalf of my liver too, and just support it as it does what it does.
So yeah, that’s a little bit about that.
I don’t know if I answered your question, but it’s definitely been a big threshold moment having that happen. As you said that, I was like, Oh, that’s a threshold moment right there.
It is. No, and I also appreciate you calling it an initiation.
That is probably how I would have seen it as well. I just, the way that the universe works sometimes from my perspective, I know not all listeners We’ll see that way, but I do, and I experienced it that way.
I mean, to be honest, I was nervous to call the podcast threshold moments because I’m like, please don’t make this mean that the universe is going to like put me through more thresholds.
Not too fast, please. I love this. I love this. Your honesty.
I’m in out of one. It’s a beautiful title for this podcast.
It just is you too.
It’s just your elegance and your grace and your thoughtfulness and the breaths you take, as you share the rhythm that is you in this podcast really touches. I mean, it touched me so much. I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be touching so many people. So thank you for doing this. It’s incredible. Thank you for coming on today. I truly like for the listeners.

[57:56] True thanks. They can get it on Amazon and bookstores. Yeah. It’s new. So you may have to ask your local bookstore to order it in, but it’s distributed by Ingram, so you can ask them to get it if they don’t have it.
It was so well-written. I mean, I really enjoyed writing it. And I really, just one more time to say, I loved getting a feel for how woven in and really how complex truth is. I’ll say that, how complex truth is, how gentle one could be, what an art it is. And it really took, so much shame out of like good or bad, if that makes sense. It wasn’t like a morality. It was It’s just like, ooh, humanity, to be human and to be human with a heart.
I just feel like it was this beautiful hand-holding and layer of support and.

[58:55] Both the courage to give it a try, but also the permission, as you stated at the beginning, the permission of like, and not at every moment and every truth is at the time, like to be able to put some things on hold. And so I just, I really highly recommend it.
And I wouldn’t really highly recommend something that I didn’t believe in. Otherwise it wouldn’t matter if I recommended things in general, right? So I really highly recommend this book and I’m so, so happy to be in your presence again. Thank you.
Thank you. You’re incredible. It’s such an honor. It’s an honor.

[59:32] Music.

[59:40] Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called, 21 Days of Untapped Support.
It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com.
If you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it’s wildly useful.
So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom, subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two.
If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it.
It’s totally fine.
I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.

[1:00:20] Music.