Multiple Truths Model
Hold conflicting facts together instead of forcing one total verdict
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
Africa Brooke uses holding multiple truths as an alternative to forcing a person or experience into a wholly good or wholly bad category. She applies it to her father: his abuse and the harm caused by alcohol remained real, while loving and present memories from earlier childhood were also real. The same mechanism appears later when she argues that emotional resilience can coexist with softness and vulnerability, and that old fear can remain while a person builds stronger new evidence. The practice is not averaging truths into a neutral middle. It is naming each supported reality, refusing to let one erase the other, and then responding to the part that matters in the present context. This creates room for accountability, grief, affection, change, and boundaries at the same time.
Origin
Brooke explains on The Diary of a CEO how sobriety helped her hold both loving memories of her father and the reality of his abuse.
Core principles
- 01One painful truth does not erase every positive truth
- 02Conflicting experiences can coexist without becoming equivalent
- 03Context determines which truth should guide a response
- 04New evidence can be strengthened without deleting old evidence
How to run it
- 1
Name the first truth
Describe the painful, protective, or dominant account plainly. Do not soften it to make the exercise feel balanced.
Pro tip Use observable events before interpreting what they mean.
- 2
Recover the other truth
Ask what else was genuinely present that the first account does not contain. Accept it only when experience supports it.
Pro tip Look for a fact that coexists with the first truth rather than disproves it.
Watch out Do not invent a positive side to excuse harm.
- 3
Protect the distinction
State why acknowledging the second truth does not cancel accountability for the first.
Watch out Coexistence is not equivalence.
- 4
Read the context
Decide which truth needs to guide the immediate response, such as setting a boundary, grieving, forgiving, or staying emotionally open.
Pro tip A different context may call for a different response without changing the underlying facts.
- 5
Feed new evidence
Allow old evidence to exist while repeatedly acting in ways that support the identity or relationship you want to strengthen.
Pro tip Judge progress by which evidence increasingly shapes behavior, not by whether old fear disappears.
In the wild
Brooke once saw her father only as an evil person and did not mourn his death. After becoming sober, she says she also recovered memories of him as a loving, present father before alcohol changed family life, without denying that he abused her mother, her siblings, and her.
→ She could acknowledge fond childhood memories while retaining an honest account of the harm.
Brooke and Bartlett distinguish staying grounded when strangers send abuse from allowing grief when a loved animal dies. The response changes with the context; resilience does not require suppressing every vulnerable emotion.
→ Strength and emotional expression become compatible rather than mutually exclusive identities.
Common mistakes
Using nuance to excuse harm
A positive memory does not remove responsibility for abuse or make a dangerous situation safe.
Waiting for old evidence to vanish
Brooke and Bartlett argue that old fear may remain even while stronger, healthier evidence is built.
Is it for you?
Best for
People processing mixed family histories, changing identities, or situations where resilience and vulnerability both matter.
Not ideal for
Situations where invoking nuance would excuse abuse, deny clear evidence, or avoid an urgent safety decision.
From the transcript
“I'm able to now I think in adulthood hold multiple truths”
“they can coexist it's just what you choose to feed”
From the episode
Victimhood & Self-sabotage Is Destroying The World In 2022: Africa Brooke