The Truth And How It Sets You ‘Free’
The truth behind one of the greatest truths of all time.
There’s a passage in the King James Bible (John 8:32) that goes: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. If you’re a person of faith you take this in exactly the spirit it is given: a promise that the realization of a specific set of circumstances will lift a burden that has been holding you back.
Psychologists recognize the healing power of awareness to bring about a sense of closure where specific events are concerned. Neuroscientists long recognize that cognitive dissonance is the anxiety we feel when our actions or the outcomes of our actions are not in keeping with our beliefs or our idea of who we are and what we stand for.
Why we tell lies, of course, the neurobiological effect they have on us and why the truth, in the end, is always preferable are of particular importance right now, as we live in the post-truth age of “alternative facts”.
In researching and writing Intentional I was fascinated by how beliefs guide behavior but behavior is also filtered through our sense of who we are. Who we are has a strong social comparative element as we constantly curate our identity through our interactions with those around us and our perception of their expectations from us.
