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I got this email that is very apropos.
Here is what that email said:
This describes a lot of people:
‘Pathological liars on the path of least resistance.’
It’s an accurate portrayal, though not too flattering.
I’m talking about people lying to THEMSELVES, which are the worst kind of lies.
What kind of lies are they telling?
‘If I just work a little smarter, I will.’
‘When I get more organized, I will.’
‘If I can just free up a little more time, I will …’
‘I will just work just a little faster, and I will’
Does any of this sound familiar – even a little?
They’re ALL familiar to me because I used to use these lies to give myself hope.
I could temporarily relieve the pain of mediocrity…
…by daydreaming about all the amazing things I was going to do in the future.
Daydreaming. Buying stuff and not using it. Signing up to workshops and not doing the work.
Yeah, I think I am talking about nearly everyone.
Whether the area where you lie is your eating habits, working habits, relationship habits, it seems to be human to lie.
The truth hurts and humans are sissies. Crumble in the face of emotional pain.
Lying is the path of least resistance, the easiest path to take.
When in my workshops I tell people, individuals, that they are lying, they are stumped. Confused. Why am I lying? They ask… and there you have it, another lie on the top of a lie.
This is a problem that can be solved, because it is a real problem.
It is a real problem because of a rule of reality, that without integrity nothing works. Without integrity your life can’t work. Without integrity life can only limp along. like a bicycle with a crooked wheel.
Of course integrity is also not a 100% yes/no phenomenon: it is in degrees.
Like a little bit bent bicycle can still take you home. but a bicycle with wheels with no spokes won’t.
One of the lies that very few people are aware of, because most of it is below the conscious level is the lying about the context.
Context is the background, the attitude underneath an action.
Some contexts are on the side of life, some contexts are aligned with the actual actions, but most don’t.
Here is an example: you are a wife, and you shop and prepare food for your family. On the surface you are a loving, caring woman. But underneath the visible, you feel used. You feel that you don’t have any time for yourself. You feel that shopping, cooking, being a wife, being a mother is a burden.
And what is the result that is in the visible?
The food you buy is not healthy for your family. Your activity promotes death, not life.
Or an example against yourself:
You say you want to be healthy. You say you’ll do whatever it takes to be happy, healthy, and wise.
But what you don’t see, what you discount, is that you hate yourself. You think poorly of yourself. You, unknown to yourself, wish yourself dead.
And that is the underlying attitude in whatever you do.
I have had clients with cancer. They allowed their cancer to advance until the best anyone can do is lengthen their lives. all because the underlying attitude of self-hate.
Self-hate is the result of lying. Lying to yourself. You betray yourself and then you lie about it.
I used to be like that more than I care to admit.
The email’s sender (above) talked about one kind of lies… the lies of delusion. But there are other kinds of lies, ‘the lies of getting off the hook’ I call them.
I’ve tended towards those. The lies when I say ‘I cannot take it‘, or ‘I cannot do it’. or ‘I am not smart enough‘
Or ‘I don’t have the time’. Maybe this: ‘I already have too much to do‘.
Either one of those is an effective lie to get me off the hook of being in integrity with myself, and do what is mine to do. Do what I said I would do and do it on time. And do it well…
But why do we lie?
I have a theory that the first lie we told ourselves was around the time when personhood began to emerge, around age three.
When some traumatic incident happened, to you or around you. But it was traumatic to you.
And you tried to find an explanation.
At age three is everything is about you.
- There is a storm. and it’s about you.
- Or your mother cries. and that is about you too.
- Your parents get divorced. and of course that is about you too.
- Your mother gives birth to another child, and it is about you…
And of course you don’t know you are lying. You say to yourself the best truth that you have available at the time.
But then you build a life on the top of that first lie. and of course you have to lie again, and again, and again.
Each lie comes naturally. because the original lie is never unconcealed, never revealed as a lie. And lies have a nature: they want more of themselves.
I have noticed that the more a client knows they are lying the faster they can start telling the truth, and the better their life becomes.
And the more the lies are unconscious and never seen as lies, the less they can grow. If they had cancer before and it’s healed. it returns again and again and again. until they start seeing the lies.
Unless you see you are lying, you can’t even begin telling the truth. You can’t.
How do you know that a lawyer is lying? His mouth is moving.
That lawyer knows he is lying. You don’t. or mostly don’t.
One moment you are cock-sure, the other moment you are second-guessing yourself. You take one step forward and two steps backward. And, of course, you are plagued with self-doubt. You are plagued with overwhelm.
So what can you do?
Start telling the truth.
One by one. or said differently: one at a time.
This is not a rote ‘I have to do this‘ kind of assignment. this won’t work unless you do it willingly, with the anticipation of freedom and joy on the other side.
Because context is decisive.
Unless you do whatever you do, including finding your lies, and telling the truth, you do it inside an empowering context, it backfires and adds to your lack of integrity and self-hate.
Start with completionAnother word for integrity, the price of self-love, is completion.
When you are complete, you tell the truth. Tell the truth about what you have been lying, consciously of unconsciously.
It is a miraculous process. But you have to tell the truth. So it is not necessarily pleasant as a process, but what comes out of it is wonderful. Self-love.
