I often hear people claim they are simply stating the truth when in reality, they are speaking with an intention to attack another person.

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to use the generic “you” in place of “one”, or “a person” sometimes.

For myself, I believe there is a difference between “speaking your own truth”- being true to yourself- and being rude, or letting people walk on you and make you resentful until you blow up, or expressing anger or frustration you feel as “truth’ but using it to deliberately humiliate/embarrass/control another person.

“I’m just being honest” is often used to excuse words intended to hurt or humiliate. I often wonder if the person who says them knows they have hurt or humiliated, and is trying to justify it to himself/herself.

Learning to be true to yourself, learning to express yourself and still be kind is an art that has to be learned. And most of us who are learning it make mistakes, but the difference is, we apologize and repair the damage we cause. While those who use “truth” to deliberately humiliate seldom apologize, but seek to justify or excuse what they did. In fact, if you listen to how they speak, and observe both their own reactions and the reactions of the one being spoken to, if you learn to observe carefully, the intention of the person “being honest’ often becomes clear.

I’m not saying being kind means letting someone else hurt you, we all have a right to express that hurt and expect a change in the other person’s behavior or we let them go and move on from them. I am saying that, sometimes, people don’t understand the difference between standing up for themselves and actually being just as rude, unkind, thoughtless and harsh as the person they feel is being unkind to them, or what have you.

I think it is important for each person to

1) self-examine what they feel and think and examine themselves for the flaws they see in others

2) develop the strength to express their own feelings in a thoughtful way,

3) be ready to be firm if someone tries to deny you your feelings about something and tries to force you into their box

4) be ready to examine if you are the one forcing another person into a box, even if you know your own position is not necessarily correct or is the only position “allowed”

5) explain respectfully to someone that they are making you uncomfortable/unhappy and be ready to hear them out if they speak respectfully to you

6) be ready to move on if the person continues to disrespect you

and so on. As I said, I think mutually reciprocal respect and kindness are possible, but it’s an art.

Of course, this does not mean that every opinion even needs to be expressed. There might be times you have to let something pass, or ignore it, depending on the impact on others. Learning when to speak and when to not speak is another art in itself!