I remember the moment clearly. I was folding laundry and my friend came up to me in the laundry room and said, “How are you, Juna?”
“Confused,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. Is my marriage over? Should I stay in it and not give up so quickly? Should I leave? I’m so confused.”
My friend took a deep breath and looked at me knowingly.
She said, “You know it’s over, right?”
I froze. Her words felt like a punch in the gut.
I nodded “yes” just to silence her.
She was speaking the truth I wasn’t ready to hear. I knew it, but I didn’t want to know it.
A year later, when I finally felt ready to end our marriage, her words came back to me—words that originally stung, now felt like a warm hug of validation and support.
She had been right, but I also had been “right”—I wasn’t truly ready to absorb the truth of her words. I needed to give my marriage another shot, I needed TIME to digest everything that happened, and I needed SPACE to make this big decision with all parts of myself online and in support.
I’m grateful we waited a year to end our marriage (my ex is now one of my best friends). And I am grateful my friend shared her words with me. Both were important.
Truth is powerful AND timing is everything.
I trust that if something is true, it will never fully go away. It will speak to us in our dreams, nudge us through our intuition, express through our bodies, and lovingly haunt us until we are ready to face it and take action.
Humans have a funny relationship with truth.
We want it. We don’t want it. We love it. We hate it. We climb mountains to seek it. We tuck it under the rug. We cling to it like the holy grail. And we wish we could mold and reshape it to fit our ever-changing needs, desires, or agendas.
Truth ultimately sets us free, but it also forces us to do a lot of clean up-- feeling our unfelt emotions and facing some of our greatest wounds and fears. So, it’s a no-brainer that we have a complicated relationship with it.
I now hold Truth with much more compassion.
I don’t try to shove it down anyone’s throat (my own, clients, and loved ones). Instead, I hold it lovingly, tenderly, with curiosity, and I trust that for Truth’s full inception and birth, perfect timing is essential.