Truth at the Table

"Energy doesn't lie. Keep sensing it, trusting it, letting it liberate you" - Judith Orloff

Maisa loved heights. She was the opposite of me in that way. If there was a tree nearby she’d be up in it - always on the highest branch she could get to safely. She had a favorite tree in our backyard where she rigged a little pulley with a bucket so she could haul up a book, snack and a water bottle. She would stay up there for long periods of time reading and enjoying a different perspective, seeing it all. She would often tell me that being up high made her feel safer, and then she would proceed to make fun of me for my fear of heights.

She was always observing, and like me, often confused by human behavior. Why do people say one thing and do another? Why do words and energy not match? Why are people not honest, even with themselves?

It took me decades to understand that I have always been very accurate at reading energy, and that our culture trains this sensitivity out of us. Maisa was even more accurate and was always pointing out that we live in a world where words and energy rarely align. Most people don’t even notice the mismatch because they have lost contact with themselves.

We learn to translate statements like:

Hope to see you soon.

= I probably won’t call or text.

This was great.

= I had an ok time but don’t want to be rude.

How are you?

= Please say fine because I actually want you to listen to me.

I’m not mad.

= I am very mad but don’t know how to handle my emotions or conflict.

For intuitive and sensitive children, it creates a kind of spiritual injury when you can sense the truth in the room, when you can read the energy with your body, but you are told repeatedly that you are wrong. It causes microtraumas. It disconnects you from your intuition. My mother would often tell me she was “fine” when I could clearly feel that her entire nervous system was not fine. “Happy” when everything I could sense in her face and body contradicted that. I could feel the truth, but my truth was denied. This fractures children. And it doesn’t happen in a sudden, dramatic way. It is a slow, daily, invisible erasure of their inner knowing.

Most of the time, it isn’t malicious. Most people are so disconnected from themselves, so culturally conditioned to override their own inner signals, that they genuinely do not know what is happening in their own bodies. They learn the programming, and they repeat it.

But our children know. They come in connected, clear and wise. And we train them out of it. How can we stop this?

We have this cultural idea that it is the elders who hold the wisdom. And yes, those of us with lived experience on Earth do have one kind of wisdom. But it’s not the only kind. Many children come in with a knowing from somewhere else.

Maisa had this knowing. She knew things about justice. Sensitivity. Truth. How to treat others and work together. How to treat the earth. Things she did not learn in just the short time she was here. And she is not the only one.

When we gather in groups, around tables, living rooms, during holiday rituals, many of us will sit with children and young adults who are extraordinarily perceptive. Youth who feel and know the truth beneath the surface and in between the spaces. We may call them children or teens, but they are wise beings and we have a lot to learn from them. Let’s listen. Give them our heartfelt presence. Let them speak, but only if they feel ready. Don’t pressure them. Ask what they need, gently. Ask what they think the world needs. Be curious about their inner world. See them as equals, or guides. Because many of them are.

Consider what we might learn from them. Don’t try to mold them according to our expectations, but allow their knowing and clarity to soften and recalibrate us. We have so much to learn from them. This world needs a lot of help. And they might be the ones who can actually save it.