What’s up y’all. Welcome to da city & culture podcast. It’s ya girl Abba Parks. I hope y’all have been well, I hope y’all have been taking time to reflect on your journey and reconnect with yourself as we prepare to enter a new year. 

I am so happy to be back and I just want to shout out a big thank you to all my listeners. Y’all are amazing, I’m SO blessed to be able to share a bit of my wisdom with y’all and I’m so excited for all the conversations coming your way as we close out the year. So without further ado let’s get into today’s topic. 

Today I wanna talk to y’all about the power of truth. Truth is this amazing aspect of the universe that keeps everything balanced but how do we define truth for us in our daily lives. 

Truth can mean many different things to different people depending on their upbringing, culture, their state of mind, or personal belief

systems.But before we dive into this topic, I wanna tell y’all a little story about how I came to face to face with my own false reality and became aware of universal truth so y’all understand where I’m coming from. 

I grew up in the Canadian prairies. Whew. I don’t even know where to begin so I won’t go too deep. It was a painful yet beautiful childhood growing up in Saskatchewan. I was made aware of racism as soon as I started school but I wouldn’t be lying if I said the air in our house reeked of a somethings-not-quite-right-with-this-place smell long before my first day. 

I tried my best to fit in throughout elementary and high school but that smell just couldn’t seem to go away. It followed me to Edmonton to London, everywhere I went there it was. I thought for a long time that it was me, I was the bad smell that wouldn’t let me blend in, couldn’t let me fit in; the smell that always reminded me that I was different. 

When I touched down in Vancouver, I forgot for a moment about that stench as I took my first deep breath of mountain air. 

Wow, is this what life should smell like? 

As I explored nature and dove into the wilds of the Pacific Northwest I got so lost in the beauty that I didn’t notice the somethings-not-quite-right-with-this-place smell slowly creeping back into my awareness. 

Then one day as I ventured into the depths of Squamish it hit me out of nowhere point blank in the face. Like a fly swatter swatting that fat fly that’s been buzzing around your house for days flat against the wall. 

It was like a scene out of a Jordan Peel movie. I was in the middle of the woods, halfway up a mountain. It was shortly after 7am. No one else was on the trail and as I came around a bend I found myself standing face to face with someone who looked just like me. Exactly like me. Clothes, shoes, hair, everything. It was me but it wasn’t me and the smell. Oh God the smell was unbearable. I looked around me for a way out but there was no running and before I knew it clouds of smoke flooded down from the trees, came up from underneath the foliage and I found myself transported to a place that was engulfed in a full on war. 

I saw faces I knew from people in my past but they were different. They were not as beautiful as I remembered. Not as friendly as I had known. My heart was pounding, my ears were ringing and the smell, ohGod the damn smell. It was so strong. I could hardly keep from gagging. 

In that moment my first thought was ‘You can’t trust this government weed’ but as I looked at the arrows that just swiftly shot passed my head and wedged itself into the trees behind me, I knew now was not the time to be paranoid. What was happening was real. I turned back to me and she hastily gestured for me to follow. So I did. We ran. We took sharp turns, we twisted, we contorted, we jumped, we swam, we climbed for so long I thought I’d never get back home. But somehow we made a way to safety. 

It took some time for me to catch my breath but once it started to come back, calmness swept over me. That’s when I noticed my surroundings and how familiar this place felt, even though I hadn’t been there before. Then from behind the trees light appeared and long lost parts of myself began returning to me. Waves of light washed over me and I felt true love radiating from within me for the first time.

All I could do was sit and cry. Cry because I felt so full and so happy. Right there in the middle of nowhere I cried so hard because I was at home within myself. I stayed like that for some time and when I stood up I found myself back in Squamish, on my knees in the middle of the trail shortly after 7am still no one else on the path but me. So I got up, dusted myself off and quietly proceeded to ascend to the top of the mountain. 

Crazy story right. 

This awakening allowed me to develop the ability to see things clearly and begin doing the work of finding my own truth. 

I believe there is an underlying system of truth that governs us all wether we are aware of it or not. The rain falls, the wind blows, the trees grow, the sun rises and the moon glows all in accordance to a natural rhythm. 

So let’s look at how we as a society fit into that system. When we look at traditional spiritual and holistic concepts, truth is defined as justice, balance, and universal order. In other words, aligning one’s reality with the natural laws of the universe that govern everything.

Western dictionaries define truth as: the quality or state of being true then if we look up the definition of true we are told that it is: in accordance with fact or reality. So therefore in western mentality I would define truth as an action; living in a personal state of reality. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that the chosen reality is factual or in alignment with the universe, it just states that the individual is choosing to believe that their state of mind is in fact reality.

So how can we tell if what we are experiencing is individual reality, false societal reality, or true reality aligned with the natural laws of the universe. 

It is often throughout our experiences here that lines between what is real and what is manufactured can become blurred. It can be even more difficult to discern fact from fiction if one is not aware of the manipulative tactics used on the macro and micro levels in today’s cultural climate to hide us from the truth.

When we look at our own history and how that relates to the history of the world we can see where we began drifting away from the truth. I know, I know studying global history is not a task that is meant for everyone and depending on where you are in life that truth can be the enemy or the liberator. 

So how do we discover the truth for ourselves. Well there’s no blueprint but I do have some sage words from my own experience that will hopefully guide you into discovering your own truth if you’re in search, protecting your truth if you’re already there, or aligning your Self with the natural laws of the universe if your diving deeper into our global history.

We all have within us a divine spark that enables us to connect and interact with this world. It powers our body, mind, and spirit complex. It is our source of life. But just like most things in this world that spark within us can easily be put out, manipulated, or tainted if we are not able to protect it. 

In the previous episode ‘The power of reflection’ I told y’all how important it was to be aware of yourself and the environment you are in in order to build your personal defences. Awareness is the key to begin deciphering wether you are living in truth or not. If you’ve been keeping with up with all the episodes on this podcast you’ll know how the power of self knowledge, thought, boundaries, and rituals can help set a solid foundation for you to do the work of peeling back the layers of deception so you may begin seeing things clearly and aligning your personal philosophy with that of universal truth. 

Truth starts with having the courage to efficiently manage your fears. When we are living in fear we are continuously questioning our reality to the point that we become incapable of assuming our own identity. We become stuck in the cycles that put us there in the first place but how we choose to work through those processes is what will determine wether we ascend to a higher level of consciousness or descend into a lower subconscious frequency. 

When I say lower subconscious frequency I am referring to the quality of our energy source, our spark; when it is it tainted or hidden we are unable to connect our heart to a higher consciousness and therefore we are left in a perpetual state of wandering or continuous questioning. 

When we wander we are easily pulled into false realities while looking for connection and can be manipulated into rooting ourselves in the narratives we experience when looking for answers externally.

Facing our fears head on allows us to take control of the narrative we are in and from there we can determine wether we are using words aligned with our own convictions or constantly positioning ourselves in accordance to the beliefs of others. 

When we submit to another’s will we begin a downward spiral that leads us into illusion, meaning we are not questioning the mechanical memorization of data projected on to us which is largely unrelated to reality, we are unable to accurately observe our reality and we become subject to it. When we observe with our hearts in a higher consciousness we look at the external world with the purpose of learning from it. 

Meditation is a great way to observe our reality and engage in inner debate. When we enter meditation we are harmonizing our mind, body, spirit, and thought complex’s with the natural laws of the universe. We see ourselves as ourselves and in universal truth. When we are in this state of mind we begin solving the continuous questioning which leads us into easing the reflexes of always awaiting or anticipating that solutions will come from others. 

Learning how to to act from this foundation liberates us from begging and aligns us more in harmony with our words allowing us to act authentically but if we are working with a lower subconscious frequency we will begin reacting from someone else’s response system that is completely unrelated to one’s internal power. 

Reacting is often an impulse that we do blindly when triggered and leads us to begin engaging in subconscious dialogue or acting without any conviction. When we react we are more concerned with appearances, we form superficial objectives out of a desperate need to be seen by others in a certain way. But when our hearts are open, our minds are conscious we can then begin creating healthy tools, realizations, and circumstances that are vital to the development of our selves and our communities. 

We can then establish total harmony between one’s thoughts, words, and actions; further rooting ourselves in the truth of universal law. 

So you see truth is not a simple definition or a destination. It’s a state of mind, a state of being, its a never ending process that we must have the courage uphold. The universe is constantly striving for balance and harmony when we learn how to transcend our energy into creation and not destruction we learn that truth is the way to liberation. It’s how we learn our purpose in this world. Truth allows us to activate, celebrate, and amplify unconditional love as we move throughout the world. 

Truth allows our hearts to be as light as a feather and full of gratitude. 

So my question to you as we come to a close is: Are you living in truth, are you connected to a higher power or are you hiding from it, let me know what your thoughts on the matter are or don’t. 

Do you and I’ll catch you here next week. Same time, same place. Until then take it easy and be kind to yourself. Much love.