Simple Truths ®
A card deck for rethinking your relationships
Coming July 2025
The latest update on the deck
About the deck
Simple Truths is a deck of cards designed to help you think about your relationships. These can be relationships with people such as a partner, friend, family member or colleague; or they can be relationships with things in your life such as money, health or career.
The deck is made up of two 'suits'. There is a suit of 100 'tangled' cards, and a suit of 100 'untangled' cards. Each card has written on it a simple sentence.
The sentences on the tangled cards are in red. They name a hidden dynamic or underlying issue that might exist in the relationship you are focussing on. For example, 'I am a little bit better than you' or 'I will take your pain for you'.
The sentences on the untangled cards are in green. They suggest a more helpful way of thinking about the relationship. For example, 'I played my part' or 'I will let you see me'.
You are invited to draw up to three tangled red cards and three untangled green cards. The sentences you draw will encourage you to reflect on the relationship and how it could be improved.
The story behind the deck
The Simple Truths card deck has its origins in the sentences used in Systemic Family Constellations.
Systemic Family Constellations is a practice that reveals hidden dynamics in family systems. Instead of analysing the individual in isolation, it looks at the wider system — ancestors, loyalties, losses, and the unspoken rules that echo through generations.
Philosopher Robert Rowland Smith first encountered systemic work while writing a book on Freud. Freud had helped him think about the self in isolation — but Constellations showed him how much of the self is not just ours. It broadened his thinking from the intrapsychic to the wider system of ancestors and loyalties in which the self is found.
Robert began practising Constellations in 2007, and has since guided hundreds of sessions for people around the world. He has also taught the practice to many students. With an academic interest in language, he was particularly drawn to the use of systemic sentences.
In 2022, Robert began working with Miri O’Connor. Miri's background in education and passion for making deep ideas accessible helped spark a new idea: what if these powerful sentences could live in a deck? what if people could work with them on their own? what if practitioners could use them with clients?
Together, Robert and Miri created Simple Truths — a card deck that delivers systemic insight into your hands.
How to use the digital deck
A short video explaining how to use the digital version of the cards
