Last night, under the weight of a question that refused to loosen its grip, I laid a new tarot spread across the table.
Fresh territory.
Uncharted edges.
One by one, the cards opened their doors, and I stepped through.
Again and again until the shape of an answer rose from the mist.
Clarity settled over me like a sudden clearing in the forest.
The hunt was over.
This morning I pulled out my deck to do a check-in on that same question.
Something stopped me.
I paused, one hand on my cards and asked, “What are you looking for?”
The answer: Confirmation.
I wanted the Universe to shake my hand, pat me on the back and croon what I already knew:
“You’re on the right track.”
That bit was obvious.
I was still riding the momentum of the night before.
The clarity that had cracked something open inside me.
In mere hours, a weight had lifted and the path ahead had shifted into a long, straight line.
All I had to do was walk.
I didn’t need more clarity.
What I needed was trust.
I didn’t crave guidance to a burning question.
Instead, like some B-grade movie villain, I simply wanted the Universe to be my yes-man.
Now, I’m not saying we all don’t need cheerleaders and front-rowers.
What I am saying is that don’t give the Universe that job.
While the act seems innocuous; grabbing the cards and asking for a sign that you’re on the right track.
It’s not.
What if, instead of getting a pat on the back, the Universe moves on to the twisty bits of the path you cannot yet see? Then, you’re presented with information you’re unable to process through your cloudy lens of expectation. I have done this a thousand times. Always with the same distressing result.
Then there’s the bigger reason.
Conditioning.
Look around you.
Every bit of media, every person on your contact list, every one of your followers, friends and colleagues are all repeating the same mantra:
Look Here. Look Here. Look Here.
Then there’s the tasks on your to-do list, the paperwork sitting on your desk, your endless in-box and cacophony of pings from your scheduling system.
Everything is crying out for your attention, training you to keep your focus locked on the world around you. Which is all well and good until you’re flying along your super straight path and hit a very small blip.
A moment of hesitation.
Should I finish this task or this one?
Hit send or wait?
The trap ensnares with a delighted growl at lightening speed. So fast you barely notice it until it’s too late.
You look up.
You scan hungrily for signs.
You listen intently for that voice from the outside to tell you you’re right, you’re ready, you’re safe to move.
Quiet knowing drowns beneath the flood of doubt.
You reach outward, almost without thinking.
A simple text.
A few words typed into a search engine.
A card pulled from that innocuous card deck sitting innocently on your shelf.
In that moment, you’ve crossed the threshold. You’ve walked backward into patterns the world taught you because it served their purpose.
You’ve outsourced your certainty.
Possibly to those waiting hungrily on the sidelines for the chance to pounce.
Waiting to systematically guide you off into the bushes.
Waiting to steer you toward their goals, ideas and dreams.
Truthfully? By that point, even the Universe has moved on. It’s not waiting patiently to hold your hand as you hover on one foot, dead-center on your arrow-straight path..
You’re on your own.
And you’re better for it.
So, in those times, well, and all times, really…
Don’t look up.
Look in.
The answers you keep hunting have always been coiled deep inside, waiting.
This is where the real work begins.
Not in chasing signs, but in reclaiming the quiet knowing before doubt rushed in.
It’s the still point beneath the noise.
The pulse that doesn’t clamor for your attention.
The place where trust roots itself, and every next step unfolds.
And you know it well.
It’s what’s left when all else has failed.
It’s what’s there before you even had an inkling you wanted to take a step.
Most importantly…
It’s what got you to this point and will get you to the next point, wherever that is.
The work is to remember it’s there.
That’s it.
Simple, but not easy in the cacophony of cries for your attention.
Luckily, there’s a trick to tapping into it.
And the more you do, the deeper the feeling ingrains in your body and the faster your mind returns – inward – quietly – looking for that point of stillness where everything coalesces in absolute truth.
You must know what it looks like, feels like, lives like.
You have to know your “tells”.
If you’ve ever played poker or watched the pros play, you’re well versed in this term. If not, ‘tells’ are emotional leakage into physical, verbal or behavioral differences. They are laden with information if you know how to interpret it.
In poker, you have to know every one of your opponents’ tells. In trusting yourself, you only have to know your own.
It’s so much simpler and you’ll master it in no time.
We’ll call them your ‘truth tells’.
So, what are yours?
Here are a set of activities.
Pick one and begin.
Activity One:
Baseline Observation: Notice the changes. Start when you first wake up. Take several moments to notice three things:
- Your breathing rate
- Any muscle tension
- Your mind chatter
As you move through your day anytime you change locations, interact with different people or change tasks, take a few moments to do a somatic check in across those three parameters.
At the end of the day, do a brief recap. Did your breathing rate change just before a conversation or at the completion of a task? Did your muscles tense when moving from one location to another? Did your mind chatter speed up or slow down at mealtimes?
The goal here is just to notice. You don’t have to interpret anything at first, but across time obvious patterns will emerge.
Activity Two:
Your physical changes inside the body:
Here we dive deeper into just one area. Your body and all of its physical and physiological functions that provide information. We’ve talked about breathing rate, but usually that follows along with heartbeat and can be accompanied by skin changes like flushes or sweat. Everyone is different and you might have variations across time and location, too. If you’ve done some baseline observation, now is the time to start looking for your ‘truth tells’.
Start at the beginning of your day, when you first open your eyes and do a body check in. Then do the same across the day looking for these clues.
Somatic / Physical Cues — Questions to Ask Yourself
- When is my breathing steady, slow, and unforced?
- When is my chest, belly, and throat open and relaxed?
- When is my heartbeat even and comfortable?
- When are my shoulders low and loose?
- When are my hands resting lightly, without gripping?
- When is my body moving naturally, not rigid, not restless?
- When is my jaw soft and my lips relaxed?
- When does eye contact feel comfortable, natural, and easy to break or hold?
- When does my body temperature feel even, without sudden changes?
Gather your data in whatever way calls to you. Store it in your big brain, leave yourself a voice note, jot down a few words on a sticky note. Whatever you do to track the nuances that make you….YOU, don’t just leave it to languish on your cluttered desktop or sucking up space in your ever-dwindling device storage capacity. Bring it out into the clear light of day, play with it, think about it, begin to create a picture in full color and depth. And when you have, move on to another activity. Or jumble them all together and do them at the same time. This is all about you.
Activity Three:
Your throat, voice and verbal cues:
Your voice and language often reveal things your conscious mind hasn’t caught yet. Have you ever been completely surprised by what comes out of your mouth? Not able to discern your own truth until your words hit the breeze? What about when your words say one thing but your tone or pacing says another? Studies have shown that people will often trust your nonverbal signals more than the words. And you should, too. This is the power of tapping into your verbal ‘truth tells’.
Here’s how:
Begin at the beginning. If you’ve skipped straight to this activity, every process begins the same: with the moment you wake up. If you do a quick baseline scan of your breath, body and mind chatter, then you can recognize changes across the rest of your day. Every morning will be different, but the patterns will emerge across time.
Questions to ask about your throat, voice and verbal cues:
- What does my voice sound like at its natural volume, pitch, and tone?
- When is my speech unhurried but engaged?
- When do my words flow easily off my tongue?
- When does my throat feel relaxed in speech?
- When do words vibrate off my vocal chords in a pleasing way?
- When do my pauses feel intentional rather than rushed or skipped?
- When does my tone match my intent clearly and consistently?
- When does my word choice feel easy, natural and balanced?
- When do I give just the right amount of detail without overexplaining?
- When do I offer answers directly without avoiding or deflecting?
Shifts in tone, pace and word choice can alert you to changes in emotional state or comfort level. These are crucial ‘truth tells’ that are often overlooked (except maybe across the poker table). Use yours to create an auditory landscape of your life. The more familiar you are with the lay of the land, the easier it is to make shifts into integrity in real-time.
Activity Four:
Behavioral Nuances:
This is last simply because something has to be, not because it’s the least or most important. It just is. Begin here, if you’re most called. Or somewhere else if you wish. This is all about you finding comfort in self-trust.
What draws your eye to a person, first? Interestingly, it’s probably their unconscious micro-movements that your eye will pick up before you notice the color of their shirt or that slick set of kicks on their feet. Fashion, hairstyle and accessories take a back seat to the flicker of eyes, twitch of hands or shift of feet.
And so it goes with your ‘truth tells’. This one might be best done in front of a mirror, with a partner or else with a keen sense of body awareness. Start at the beginning, as with each of these practices. When you first wake up, assess your movements big and small as a baseline. Then, throughout the day, check in on your outward-facing movements.
Here are a few questions to get you started.
- When am I handling objects minimally and with purpose? (pens, keys, cup lids, etc.)
- When does my posture shift easily without stiffness or collapse?
- When does my stance feel relaxed and natural?
- When can a square-up to someone or something with both power and presence?
- When do I not feel the need to adjust my proximity to someone or something?
- When can I make eye contact without avoidance, fixation or an increase in blink rate?
- When does my stillness feel relaxed rather than frozen, and my animation feel natural rather than forced?
- When are my hand and body gestures in harmony and rhythm with my speech?
- When do my hands rest quietly, only touching my face, hair, clothing intentionally?
Behavioral ‘tells’ are usually automatic responses to your internal, emotional state. These are visible habits, patterns, and micro-actions that you often don’t realize you’re doing but others notice before you even speak. They arrive on the same train as your presence and energy as you enter a room. Unmistakable to anyone who is tuned in. When you are tapped into yourself, you’ll notice instantly when something feels super aligned with your soul: these are your ‘truth tells’.
descendence—into the marrow, the blood-truth, the beast-core where no hierarchy lives, only resonance and raw, undomesticated presence.
Here’s where we put it all together:
Interpreting your information:
Now that you’ve gathered your data, it’s time to assimilate it into something useful and endlessly repeatable. Following your ‘truth tells’ descends you into the very marrow, the blood-truth of your essence. The place where no hierarchy lives only pure resonance and raw, undomesticated presence; the seat of your sovereignty.
The closer we live to our personal sovereignty, the more powerful our physicality becomes. This may present as an overall feeling of ‘relaxed and ready’ or ‘strong and stable’ or ‘fiery and fierce’. Every single person on this planet will experience the physical essence of their sovereignty uniquely.
And sovereignty doesn’t just live in the body; it’s carried in the voice and expressed in our behavior. Your verbal cues, including the cadence of your words, the steadiness of your tone, the ease or precision in your language, can become as much a signal of your grounded state as your posture or breath. Your behavioral cues, including the way you move, gesture, or hold still, can either leak uncertainty or embody unwavering presence.
That’s why the depth of your research into this realm is completely up to you. You may tap in on the first day and be good to go. You may take a few months before you begin to really feel the patterns unfold. Part of the challenge here is to stick to your self-forged path. Your ‘truth tells’ will emerge in a powerful and useful way.
Once you begin to spot your own tells, you’ll start noticing them everywhere; especially in those who live closest to their instincts.
Pets and children are pros at deciphering ‘tells’. It comes hardwired and hasn’t been trained out through the constant plea of ‘Look Here!’.. That means, the more we watch the children and animals around us, the more we learn about ourselves.
The more we learn about ourselves, the more we trust our interpretations of our own ‘tells’ and the closer to our instinctual guidance we become.
In business, relationships, health, finances and more, instinct is our greatest ally.
So, you don’t need the Universe or anyone else to be your action movie bad guy’s lackey.
You don’t need another card pull for the same question.
You don’t need the Universe to nod in approval or applaud loudly from the front row.
You simply know.
It’s in your breath when it steadies.
In your body when it loosens.
In your voice when it flows.
You’ll become intimately familiar with your personal ‘truth tells’.
Your tarot card spread written in bone and blood.
And these will become the only confirmation you will ever need.
Look inside.
Trust what you see.
And keep walking that straight path beneath your feet.
Thank you for Reading!
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