Trying to get to the truth? Try this simple exercise …

When you’re not sure what the truth is, your unconscious knows. And getting to it, might be easier than you think.

Try this: Sit quietly by yourself, free of distractions. Solitude can be as elusive as healing; but they’re almost synonymous. Now pick up a pen with your left hand (or your right hand if you’re left-handed) and begin to write about the matter in question.

“My right hand is my grown-up hand — a writer’s hand, a minister’s hand — but when I wrote with the left hand, I found that what tended to come out was as artless and basic as the awkward scrawl it came out in. It was as if some of my secrets had at last found a way of communicating with me directly,” says Frederick Buechner in Telling Secrets, his wonderfully rich memoir.

So, find solitude, but try not to be too grown up about it. Try not to intellectualize. And don’t be afraid. You can trust what comes out to be a loving step toward a happier you.