{"id":510,"date":"2022-12-30T23:24:36","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T03:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/how-to-relate-to-people-with-low-truth-alignment-steve-pavlina\/"},"modified":"2023-01-02T19:54:28","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T23:54:28","slug":"how-to-relate-to-people-with-low-truth-alignment-steve-pavlina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/how-to-relate-to-people-with-low-truth-alignment-steve-pavlina\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Relate to People With Low Truth Alignment \u2013 Steve Pavlina"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Profit<\/a>\n
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The first chapter of my book Personal Development for Smart People<\/a> is called \u201cTruth\u201d because truth alignment is one of the fundamental principles of personal growth. <\/span><\/p>\n

In order to grow intelligently, we must face and accept reality in as many areas of life as we can. <\/span><\/p>\n

This often involves confronting and dealing with unpleasant truths that we\u2019ve been avoiding for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t get aligned with truth, we slide into falsehoods and denial, which can slow us down tremendously. <\/span><\/p>\n

Have you seen the lack of truth alignment playing out in the world recently? It\u2019s hard not to notice it these days.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we invite, face, and accept more truth alignment into our lives, we may feel tense, anxious, or resistant at first, but it can lead to a tremendous new flow of energy in a fresh direction when we finally surrender to reality. <\/span><\/p>\n

We so often see this when someone experiences a powerful wake-up call regarding their health, family, relationships, career path, finances, life purpose, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often found it to be a powerful intention to say: Show me the truth.<\/em> Show me what I\u2019m not seeing.<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

If the words can be spoken with genuine desire, this can really get some stuck energy flowing again; however, it may not be easy to face and deal with what comes up.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this article though, I want to address a specific concern that many people have, which is how to deal with other people\u2019s lack of truth alignment.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you do when friends, relatives, or co-workers succumb to conspiracy theories and start spewing out falsehoods?<\/span><\/p>\n

What if someone you know is in deep denial about certain issues but doesn\u2019t seem interested in hearing any honest communication about it?<\/span><\/p>\n

What about people who wrap falsehoods into their beliefs and still expect to be treated with respect?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Harmony Approach<\/h2>\n

A common solution is to try to go for harmony. In principle this is good, but in practice people tend to mistake something else for harmony. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s like watching someone do a heavy weight training exercise with terrible form, and you know that in the long run, they\u2019re probably going to hurt themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Genuine harmony is an aspect of oneness. Oneness is the combination of truth and love, both of which are fundamental principles that help us move towards growth. <\/span><\/p>\n

For harmony to be real, it must be truth-aligned. Without truth alignment you can\u2019t experience harmony. You will get some version of discordance instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you ever find yourself pursuing harmony at the expense of truth, realize that you\u2019re not going to experience harmony. <\/span><\/p>\n

You will experience something else \u2013 most likely some form of tolerance rooted in denial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without some solid truth alignment, you\u2019ll be in the land of pretend, and that isn\u2019t actually going to help you or anyone else grow. At best it will perpetuate stagnation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pathway to real harmony is through the truth. This pathway may seem utterly chaotic at first, but the chaos isn\u2019t caused by the truth. The truth just is. <\/span><\/p>\n

The chaos is basically the falsehood and denial doing what they do best \u2013 resisting the truth. So let them bitch and moan, and stay aligned with truth anyway. <\/span><\/p>\n

Real harmony lies beyond this point.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does it really serve our best interests if we try to bury the truth and pretend that everything is okay when we have some serious disagreements? <\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t truth alignment \u2013 it\u2019s confrontation avoidance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aligning With the Truth<\/h2>\n

Getting yourself<\/em> aligned with truth is a good first step.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have a disagreement with someone, can you delve into the facts and details and find out what\u2019s actually going on? <\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, if someone is delving into conspiracy websites, you can look into fact-checking sources and see if those sites are actually truth-aligned or not. <\/span><\/p>\n

You can research the background of those sites and see what you discover.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can also consider what you know about the person who\u2019s succumbing to these falsehoods. Are they lonely? Feeling disconnected? Seeking a new peer group? <\/span><\/p>\n

What are their emotional reasons for going down that path? Is there some secondary gain in it for them? Can you get some sense of what may be driving them?<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, one friend started sending me conspiracy articles that apparently discredit COVID vaccines. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, when I looked into the sites he shared, they had ties to the Kremlin, so they\u2019re basically political tools used to cause disruption. <\/span><\/p>\n

Such sites can be very effective at this, but they aren\u2019t trustworthy sources of vaccine info, and some will even post false charts and graphs of fake research info. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course I shared this with my friend to let him know that he was essentially a pawn being used in this political game. <\/span><\/p>\n

How he processes that info is up to him, but his actions also invite me to update my opinion of him. <\/span><\/p>\n

I regard him as less trustworthy, and I\u2019ll be more suspicious of info he shares with me \u2013 not because of his intentions but because of his lack of fact-checking skills and his vulnerability to accepting erroneous info as true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I would agree that we can\u2019t have perfect information, and everything we learn through a screen must be considered suspect. <\/span><\/p>\n

But I also think we can leverage reasoning and some understanding of human nature and basic fact-checking and credibility assessment of sources to at least lean towards better truth alignment. <\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to develop clingy fixed beliefs that could be wrong, but we can assess likelihoods and weigh the preponderance of evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think most of the time, we are too gullible when we ought to be more curious and suspicious. <\/span><\/p>\n

Conspiracy theorists may seem suspicious or jaded, but they\u2019re actually among the most gullible of all since they\u2019ll swallow falsehoods from the most unreliable and discredited sources. <\/span><\/p>\n

IMO such people aren\u2019t nearly suspicious enough. It\u2019s rather silly that they\u2019ll reject mainstream sources and then flock to even less credible outlets for information. <\/span><\/p>\n

Or they\u2019ll switch to unreliable and untrustworthy mainstream sources, such as Fox News, which is laughable in terms of truth alignment but also quite sad in terms of how it affects people and society.<\/span><\/p>\n

A key area of truth alignment for yourself is accepting when the people in your life are seriously lacking in truth alignment. <\/span><\/p>\n

With so many millions of people claiming to believe in falsehoods that have been abundantly debunked and discredited, it\u2019s likely that you\u2019ve had to deal with such people too.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, who do you know that holds goofy religious beliefs that aren\u2019t actually true? <\/span><\/p>\n

Do you accept the truth that someone you know has been duped into such falsehoods? <\/span><\/p>\n

Or do you still pretend that you\u2019re okay with it, such as by saying, \u201cWell, they\u2019re a good person, but\u2026\u201d? <\/span><\/p>\n

Do you seek a false form of harmony that wants to hide from the truth?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Emotionality of Truth Alignment<\/h2>\n

Getting aligned with truth can be surprisingly emotional. <\/span><\/p>\n

You may feel all sorts of intense emotions such as anger, disappointment, betrayal, resentment, frustration, anxiety, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let yourself feel those feelings. It\u2019s wise to let them flow, so you can process them. Those feelings represent your inner truth. Let it be true that you feel what you feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you see a friend or relative go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, let yourself feel the disappointment and worry.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you see the U.S. Supreme Court make another ridiculous ruling based on a skewed notion of reality, let yourself feel pissed off about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you see Sergey Lavrov say pretty much anything, let the vomit flow up your esophagus. It\u2019s normal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t stop there. Ask your feelings what they\u2019re trying to communicate. The message isn\u2019t just raw emotion. There\u2019s a purposeful invitation behind those feelings. <\/span><\/p>\n

What truths are those feelings inviting you to discover?<\/span><\/p>\n

I often like to journal about my feelings to ask them what their honest message is. This is a great way to become more truth-aligned on the inside. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once I receive and acknowledge the message, the feelings almost always grow milder, or they stop being noticeable after a while.<\/span><\/p>\n

Driving Towards Resolution<\/h2>\n

One reason that other people\u2019s lack of truth alignment tugs at our attention is because it\u2019s an invitation to get ourselves back into the flow of growth and change.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we obsess over someone else\u2019s misalignments, we\u2019re using a common delay tactic. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other people will present an endless stream of issues that we can call out as problematic, and it\u2019s fine to do that now and then, but if we overdo it, this can divert our attention away from looking more closely at our own truth alignment issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we see other people as blind, deluded, or misguided, we can get hung up on objections to their words and behaviors without actually resolving our thoughts and feelings about them. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s fine to go through those phases, but we don\u2019t want to remain stuck there.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you object to what other people are thinking or saying, don\u2019t stop there. <\/span><\/p>\n

Do your best to accept that they really are doing that, and then take the time to process and decide how you\u2019re going to deal with them. <\/span><\/p>\n

How will their lack of truth alignment affect your relationship going forward? What meaning will you assign to their behaviors? <\/span><\/p>\n

How will you re-classify these people within your internal relationship matrix?<\/span><\/p>\n

If you resolve your thoughts and feelings about such people to your own satisfaction, your mind can settle down, and you\u2019ll no longer need to obsess about such people. <\/span><\/p>\n

This will free up more energy to pursue your own path of growth, which may involve facing your own difficult truths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beware the secondary gain that comes from obsessing over other people\u2019s problems. <\/span><\/p>\n

If this is a way to let yourself off the hook from facing your own issues, it\u2019s best to remove that incentive for using this as a delay tactic. <\/span><\/p>\n

I find that a good way to avoid the secondary gain issues is to give myself full permission to consciously put the brakes on my own growth when I want a break. <\/span><\/p>\n

Let it be perfectly okay to pause or slow down without having to justify the decision. <\/span><\/p>\n

If I can pause whenever I want \u2013 guilt-free \u2013 I don\u2019t need to obsess over other people\u2019s issues to force myself to go slower.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you currently have a crushing relationship with someone else\u2019s lack of truth alignment, invite the truth to really sink in. Do your best to fully accept what you see. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then ask: Now that I see this and can no longer deny it, what am I going to do about it? Who do I want to be in this situation?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

One way to frame this is to consider that reality is testing you. What must you do to pass the test?<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll remain stuck if you don\u2019t pass the test in a way that satisfies you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Generalizing Your Answers<\/h2>\n

A good way to figure out how to resolve a situation with someone \u2013 at least in your own mind \u2013 is to state the issue more generally and then solve the general version of the problem. <\/span><\/p>\n

This won\u2019t rid your social life of problems, but it will enable you to graduate to different classes of problems, so you don\u2019t have to keep dealing with the same types of issues over and over.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, if someone you know is spouting COVID conspiracy nonsense, you could ask yourself questions like these:<\/span><\/p>\n