In therapy rooms, conceptualising a client’s problem is a fundamental step in understanding their presenting concerns, psychological symptoms, and interpersonal patterns. In the muddy waters of the initial thought-feeling conundrum, it can take a while for the client to gain a clear understanding of the matter. One of the most powerful tools to aid the process of crystallisation is truth. It’s a simple word, but reaching it is not a futile feat. Actioning truth can be difficult until we learn its vocabulary and become attuned to its varying frequencies of feeling.
“Can you hear that? No, really, listen again… do you hear it? Close your eyes, veil your thoughts, mute the noise, go within, deep within,” I said.
“I hear nothing,” said my client.
“Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your heart, breathe softly, try again.”
“Are we meditating?” she asked.
“No, we’re listening. But not with our ears. Go deeper, descend into your solar plexus, sit there for a moment.”
“OK, I’m there,” she said, her face softening, and her shoulders dropping.
“OK, good. Now, ask yourself the question again,” I insisted.
“Why doesn’t he love me?” she asked in a soft whisper. Then, two seconds later, she opened her eyes wide, with both hands still placed on her body, and said, “I don’t love HIM! It’s not even what I want! He hurt me, he lied to me! Why am I even asking myself this question?”
“Now you have your truth, now you have your soul truth!” I concluded.
Not all clients are open to the language of the soul. It’s unfathomable, scientifically abstract, and immeasurable, but for those who decide to crack open the dark hessian shell of cognitive dominance, they access the softer white flesh and drink the coconut milk of absolute truth; the good stuff, the light from within, the innate knowledge of their true self. Psychology, reason, logic, and judgment are shelved, and we access something intrinsically subjective: awareness.
As therapists, we must choose our approach wisely. Arriving at an accurate conceptualisation of a client’s presenting problem is one thing, but the tools and style we use to help the client align with the conceptualisation and own it is key. What’s tricky about truth is its capacity to masquerade and morph into different forms; it has its own vocabulary. The previously quoted client was open to the discussion, so I took a book from my shelf, Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God: Book Two. I don’t agree with everything in this book, but I quoted the two passages that were relevant to this conversation:
“When you express your truth with love, negative and damaging results rarely occur, and when they do, it is usually because someone else has chosen to experience your truth in a negative or damaging way. Failing to express your truth would hardly be appropriate. Yet people do this all the time. So afraid are they to cause or face possible unpleasantness that they hide their truth altogether.”
“But listen, because it’s more complex than you now understand. Some feelings are true feelings—that is, feelings born in the soul—and some feelings are counterfeit feelings. These are constructed in your mind. In other words, they are not ‘feelings’ at all—they are thoughts.”
The debate about the soul and its use in therapy is not mainstream. The reason for this is that it’s clouded by the word spirituality, which in turn is burdened with the weight of belief and the subculture marketed through spirituality. The truth is, many clients don’t want to access a dialogue with their soul because it’s easier to disprove its existence. It’s more comfortable to bathe in the tepid, ever-cooling bath of logic.
Helping clients find their absolute truth is more about helping them arrive at the understanding that the language of truth is neither word nor deed, but indeed feeling. And that oftentimes the feelings… the ‘true feelings’ are wading in a cognitive mire. Not one thought; not two, but layers and layers of accumulated thoughts, opinions, judgments, and internal replays that have built up over many years in certain cases.
The above-cited quotes from Neale Donald Walsch delineate a two-tiered approach in this interpretation of feelings. The first is to connect to our absolute truth, the soul’s truth. The second is to identify the counterfeit feelings; these are, essentially, thoughts in drag—they know how to work a stage, a mic, and they know about good lighting. They master the art of lip-syncing and can do costume changes in less than thirty seconds. They can perform acrobatically while holding a note and still find the energy to work the room for tips at the end of their show. That is, until we unmask them, peeling off the disguise of feeling to uncover their truth: that they are, in fact, not feelings but thoughts.
The exercise of helping a client to interpret and unpick thoughts from feelings, however, is scientific and sits at the core of the cognitive-behavioural therapeutic model. It’s a tool to which we all have access, and once we’ve learned how to use the tool, it becomes a valuable component in a client’s psychological armament. A key function of this work is to distinguish the subtle crossover between surface-level feelings (anxious, content, irritated, or hopeful) and the deeper emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, surprise).
Feelings & emotions are often used interchangeably, as feelings are simply our subjective interpretation & conscious experience of emotions.
At the heart of good therapy lies the ability to guide clients towards their personal truth—a truth that cuts through the noise, dismantles the illusions, and offers the clarity they’ve been seeking. It’s not about imposing external narratives or societal expectations; it’s about helping clients tune in to their own frequency and trust what they find there.
Peace isn’t something we acquire—it’s something we uncover. It’s there, beneath the layers of thoughts, judgments, and fears, waiting for us to recognise it. But this process takes courage. Courage to listen. Courage to feel. Courage to accept what the soul already knows.
Omnia vincit veritas—truth conquers all. It’s not a grandiose battle cry, but a quiet promise. When we surrender to truth, it conquers confusion, fear, and resistance.
And in that surrender, we find something invaluable: peace.
Main – Photo by Magda Ehlers
