Jordan Peterson asked me...

Word-art. Theme of truth-seeking.

{Disclaimer: Voiceovers are my voice, not AI.}

“So, how’s telling the truth going?”

My mind went blank.

Not a shred of a thought.

I answered, but felt speechless looking into his sincere, curious face.

Before taking this photo, my VIP ticket had landed me directly in front of him, in the first row, during his talk. He ended his speech with one of his frequent expressions, “Tell the truth and have the adventure of your life.”

Hearing the sentence come out of his mouth as I looked at him on stage struck my spirit—one of those surreal moments in which my conscience shifted from attentive listening in my body to observing the moment in time outside my body. The first time I’d heard Jordan say that line was early in 2022.

“Tell the truth and have the adventure of your life.”

and

“Whatever happens as a result of telling the truth is the best thing that can happen”,

Those were the two sentences that I had latched onto. I burnt up and destroyed my old life of lies in favour of one that told the truth. The radical turning away from one life into the other had changed everything. A rollercoaster of chaos ensued, and it was these two truths that Jordan spoke that I frequently reached for anytime the consequences of speaking the truth started to rattle the stability of my sanity, making me question everything to critical levels.

“But Jordan Peterson said...” I’d tell myself as I pointed my finger to the sky, proving a point to myself and whoever I was arguing with in my mind.

I decided I trusted Jordan’s wisdom, and that was that.

After all, look where my logic of lies had gotten me. Chronically getting black out drunk and denying it. Trying to hide years of rampant bulimia and anorexia. Trying to climb the materialistic prostitution mountain of deception and brainwashing as I waited for death. Trying to mentally escape the next bout of unwanted sex while somehow keeping my sanity intact so I didn’t start hysterically crying and forfeit the money I needed/wanted to earn.

I mean, woof.

Jordan was repeating the same sentences he’d said three years ago. In that way, he was the same. I was the different one. Now, I knew Jesus, and lived a radically different life. I wasn’t preparing for more paid sex, or getting drunk, or waiting for the day to end as I tried to make sense of the critical levels of overwhelm I felt daily. I was sitting in front of him, listening to him talk about the importance of truth through storytelling, daily action, and more.

I went from avoiding the truth at all costs to telling the truth, no matter how ugly, with Jordan as my first truth mascot. Then, I got to meet him, and he asked me, “How’s the telling the truth going?”

And so…my brain stopped working for a moment. Mouth open. ‘Every thought has exited the building’ kind of moment…It was a surreal amount of meaning about all the things that deeply mattered to me and changed my life. No neat little summary came to mind.

When it was my turn to walk up to him, I handed him this piece of paper because my book wasn’t finished yet.

Walking up to him, I said something like, “Hi, I lived this life of lies and then I started telling the truth, largely because of your influence, and then I wrote this book of truth. It’s really more of a piece of art.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Shoot.

I never say my name. Old prostitute habit. I used to avoid saying my name, both because I didn’t want to accidentally reveal my real name instead of the fake one, and also because verbalizing the fake name was another moment of lying. Every time, it killed my soul a smidge more. Uttering the fake name felt like a lie and it affected my soul in some small way that I could feel and didn’t enjoy.

I’d also avoid introducing myself and refrain from asking personal questions when meeting people. I didn’t want to lie to random people I met out and about when they asked what I did for a living. A problem that was solved if I didn’t try to socialize. I didn’t want to pry into clients’ lives either, because the more I knew about the potential wife and kids they were neglecting or deceiving, the more I felt responsible. The less I knew about a client, the more plausible deniability I subconsciously felt I had for any consequences of my actions. I didn’t want to be more involved in their lives, or have them be involved in my ‘real’ life in any way. I did lots of pretending that my prostitute double-life wasn’t part of my ‘real life’, as if a person can lead two separate lives.

There was only one life.

One life that was consumed and characterized by lies.

I still have many sad, toxic prostitute habits I need to eradicate as I write this…

“Céline”, I replied to Peterson.

He quickly looked over the printout and asked when the book was published. I said it’s almost published…then he stood back, looked at me, and asked, “So, how’s telling the truth going?”

He was still holding my printout as he asked. For whatever reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about how ugly the truth was in the stories I’d written…spent a split second questioning my sanity in writing so honestly and putting my real name on the book.

I replied, “The truth is really ugly, so it’s been really hard.”

I’d be lying if I said I remembered the rest of the exchange. Something about chaos ensuing after telling the truth. After exchanging more words, I thanked him again and walked away, leaving room for the next person.

If I got to answer Jordan properly, I’d say,

---

“It’s going like…someone took the bag I had over my head for my entire life off. I realized that I’d learnt a long time ago that the truth was dangerous and lies made me safe, which escalated into prostitution seeming like an acceptable solution to financial desperation. Building a life of lies meant that my identity disappeared in favour of fabrications that allowed me to bend situations to my desired outcomes. Primarily, my drive stemmed from a hyper-independent fear of never having enough money to survive.

So, I discovered that the truth demands things.

It doesn’t force, but it demands…

Once the truth is known, it asks,
“What will you do now that you know the truth?”

So, it was more about whether I was willing to change once I acknowledged that the truth was true.

Would I swallow my pride?

Willingly reduce my life to nothing (because what I built was on a foundation of lies)?

Deal with the avalanches of shame, grief, chaos, uncertainty, labels of being insane and more?

Would I do all that trusting that it would work out for the better?

…

... I didn’t have anything better to do.

I’d been waking up with the subconscious goal of trying to find ways to make the day end faster for years. Nothing made more sense than trusting the truth.

But was it worth it?

…I didn’t know, but I trusted your logic based on who you were more than my logic based on who I was. Something about your willingness to die on ‘the truth no matter what’ hill struck me.

My soul wasn’t willing to die on the ‘prostitution is healthy or good’ hill, despite my past arguing in favour of it being a choice to normalize. Often under the guise of being a sort of noble, resilient sacrifice to respect, or as inconsequential when undertaken by an “empowered, independent woman.”

Once I met a man who presented the idea that Jesus Christ was real and had a plan for me in September 2022, although I didn’t understand it, it somehow still offered the hope I lacked and desperately needed.

I spent countless days sobbing. Hiding. Lost. Trusting the process.

Didn’t know what the process was beyond ‘tell the truth’—but I had nothing better to do than to stick to the plan. I didn’t know how many more days I could spend waiting for the day to end before I’d try increasingly alternative ideas to mentally and physically escape reality.

I kept seeking, and then, slowly, God revealed Himself.

Still, my new life didn’t feel like my own (2023). It felt like I was living someone else’s life until about halfway through last year (2024).

Now?

Well…God made me a new life. He’s given me a mission.

It’s something like… revealing the truth when it comes to love, revealing the beauty of marriage and the nuclear family, revealing the role of chastity and the beauty of the sex we were created for, and the deadliness of its counterfeit, and finally, revealing the beauty of God’s design for femininity and boldly expose the feminist lie.

I feel clearly instructed that it’s a ‘reminding’ because the truth is always in plain sight if we’re willing to turn away from the lies and see it. I’m to remind people because we all know the truth deep down - God’s law is written on our hearts - but we’ve been blinded, or forgotten. Lies are so deeply woven into the fabric of what is called ‘good’ or ‘normal’ in our society that it’s hard to learn what truth looks like. I get that. But once reminded of the law written on your heart, the truth speaks for itself and becomes obvious.

I hope to use my story to help other lost, confused souls have the adventure of their lives, too. Sometimes we need people who have experienced similar living nightmares to be the ones to tell and show us about the hope that lives in telling the truth. The avalanche of chaotic consequences that comes with telling the truth deters many.

You need a truth-mascot.

Oddly enough, I trusted and listened to you because I also had benzo withdrawal. I first heard you talking about your second book on Tim Ferris or Joe Rogan in 2021. It was hearing you explain your mental state during the withdrawal that made me empathize with your suffering. I experienced the same withdrawal suffering, though yours was much worse. I listened to you and concluded that we’d survived a similar nightmare together, and you were my friend, officially on the same side as me.

Except that you lived by a different set of ethics. One that resonated with my soul, that had been critically dehydrated for years. I’d tried many drinks in an attempt to hydrate it. My best friend of many years at the time was a big fan of Alan Watts and identified with elements of stoicism and Buddhism. He kept telling me everything in life was meaningless and that was the beauty of it. I got to assign meaning. The idea filled me with a deep-seated desire to give up on life entirely. Everything was meaningless? So, then, why bother? His philosophy was like reaching for tequila in the desert. I explored many other philosophies over the years that changed nothing or led to worse dehydration. I almost gave up on reaching for another drink entirely, surrendering to death. But then…your adherence to truth and objective morality was like coconut water. Coconut water that led to living water.

I told myself, and believed, the lie that my grim circumstance meant that I had to sell sex to survive. So, I enslaved myself to money and chose prostitution.

Then, I learnt the truth - that I always retained free will and chose slavery, which meant I could choose freedom.

So, I pray my story resonates with other shared experience captives (who buy or sell sex) in a way that sets them free, too.

There are many layers as to why a person chooses a victim mindset and surrenders to being a slave to specific circumstances or situations. Not the least of which is often past trauma, which can teach that certain abuses or dysfunctions are normal and unavoidable. Nevertheless, I think it’s true that adulthood is essentially choosing what you want to be a slave to.

Being a slave, or servant, to Jesus Christ is the only option that allows freedom.

Being a servant to Jesus Christ is synonymous with being a servant to truth. (A paradox for another time, but if you’re curious now, watch this.)

If a person rejects, or doesn’t know Jesus, settling for a victim mindset that views one of freedom’s deadly counterfeits as Jesus’ true freedom is common. I settled for a counterfeit. I used to believe those who made a high income were truly free because they were free from other things, like abuse, homelessness or poverty.

However, that was a lie.

Choosing prostitution can look like being free, but then see what happens when you try to quit. How easy is it to start living a different life?

…not so free after all…the insidious ties behind the veils of the counterfeit freedoms are significant.

Sounds like a paradox to say we’re free as adults, yet also inescapably slaves to something…confusing, right? I’ve got you - God revealed the wisdom.

The freedom is in the choice.

God created man to worship.

We were created to have a master. It’s in our blueprints. There’s no opting out.

Specifically, we were created to worship Him, but that’s a choice up to each of us.

He is love, so He won’t force us to do anything because that’s not love. Free will is what makes true love possible. Love is a choice.

You and I get to pick the master of our lives—the thing at the top of the pyramid of what defines us and where our priorities lie. The thing that we choose to fear most.

Some choose Jesus Christ, like present-day me.

Many choose money, like past me. Others choose the New Age and make themselves Gods who manifest and create their own realities…

Ultimately, life is about how we choose to use the free will God gave us.

Will we choose to surrender to Him and imitate His version of love, or something else?

Anyway. I hope my story gives coconut water to those in the desert hell of justifying the choice to buy or sell sex.”

---

Then I’d put my hand on my hip and make an awkward, friendly smile.

I wonder what he’d say. Probably that I could have summarized that a bit more :)

Anyway.

When I saw that he’d be in Regina, Saskatchewan, on his "We Who Wrestle with God" tour, I browsed the tickets and was accidentally redirected to the meet-and-greet page. I thought how incredible it would be if I got to give him a copy of my book. I quickly dismissed that thought as delusional. Several days later, it flooded my mind again. Took the opportunity to ask God about it. The next day, I fasted and prayed, asking if I should get the ticket.

I work as a part-time server and lead a humble, modest life now. It would be an extravagant purchase for me. That Friday, I was filled with so much hope and joy that it felt like it would burst out of my skin. It’s hard to explain what hope trying to burst out of your skin feels like, but that’s it. So, I did it. The event was five or six months away at the time. I had no idea if I’d finish the book, let alone have a printed copy.

Many people have stories of Jordan Peterson’s work significantly influencing their lives for the better. I’m by no means unique. But his voice and adherence to truth made a massive difference in my life. If I managed to get a copy of the book in my hands by the event date, I didn’t know if I’d be allowed to give it to him. If I did, I didn’t know if he’d read it. I was just excited to have a goal and shake his hand.

Total pipe dream, but wow! Did it ever rouse hope in my soul!

Made me very emotional.

I realized it was the first goal, or thing I looked forward to in…I couldn’t remember how long.

I waited for death for so many years. I looked forward to nothing. I’d wake up discouraged, anxiety-ridden and full of despair about how to spend the day to make it end faster. I focused solely on fulfilling my next work obligation, driven by the ever-creeping survival-mindset fear that I never had enough money to relax.

This time, I had a goal. I’d get to thank the man who was a mascot for truth for me when I had no one else like him in my circle. It sounds silly, but I’d forgotten what it felt like to get excited for the future. I sobbed with gratitude for the feeling of expectancy. Profound joy for being part of the experience, regardless of the outcome.

Skip to April 4, 2025. The book wasn’t finished, but the cover was. So, that’s what I gave.

Tell the truth and have the adventure of your lives, friends!