Is there only one Truth?

Posted on June 04, 2018 by Julia Fourie, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.

As a Life Coach I have found that there are fundamental questions that we all ponder on. One of these is the constant struggle we have with seeking the truth, the one true path, the needle in the haystack and how this search impacts how we show up in the world, how we see the world and how we relate and what we expect from others. Lets explore this fundamental question on “Is there only one Truth”?. I recently came across this Gambian African Proverb that could start to answer this question.
If your only tool is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail.

Often we look at everything from only one perspective and generally that perspective is ours. After all, this does make sense as we live our perspective each and every moment of our life and just like once you have scrambled eggs you can’t separate it – this is true with how we see the world. We start to believe that everyone sees it the same way and those that choose not to are wrong.

This is mostly an unconscious and I might add irrational belief that we all have in various degrees. And lets face it, its really hard to change this. How do you really accept that someone else isn’t wrong for not having the same perspective as you?

Its easier when the topic isn’t dear to you – but when it becomes closer to home it becomes much harder to see it as different views versus someone being right and someone being wrong.

I often use the analogy of Shrek’s onion where he says that an ogre is like an onion – many layers. So if we go one layer deeper and add more richness to the conversation – we start to see that the emotion we attach to this also impacts the perspective. So if we are thinking “hammer” versus “raw egg”, we would show up differently.

In the one case we could start to feel that things are broken and need to be fixed or we need to be strong and push our way forward (nail and hammer), or in the other scenario we would try not to shake things up, move slowly, take it easy (egg and objets that can break it).

Try out this simple technique to sense check where you are:

1. Start by thinking of a recent conversation where you disagreed with the other person (you didn’t have to have said this to them).

2. Could you try to think of different viewpoints that for instance just the two that came up?

3. How do you feel about the different points?

4. How do you really feel about them

5. How did you feel when you heard the person discuss something you didn’t agree with (hammer vs egg)? What if you tried to change your view? (if you were hammer change to egg and vice versa)?

6. What do you know that you didn’t realise before? How can you take this into the next moment?