You know you're truly in control of your life, when you no longer feel the pressure to lie to people.
You just stop lying.
You stop texting, “I’m only five minutes away” when you haven’t even left home.
You stop leaving a, “My daughter got sick” message when you simply changed your mind about attending an event.
You no longer respond with, “I love the Ankara design” when you actually hate it.
As your confidence grows in your own choices, your compulsion to lie fades; and you gradually stop placing another person’s impression of you above your perception of yourself.
You feel less need to give people a false statement about how you prefer to spend your time, what you like to do and even about who you are!
… And because you’re honestly saying what truly aligns with your spirit, you tell that truth, and it brings you peace.
Sometimes telling the truth is difficult but you prefer to embrace the temporary discomfort than face the self-betrayal of painting a picture of yourself which isn’t true.
In time, it becomes easier for you to tell the truth than to tell a lie.
That’s where I am these days, I think.
And my spouse helped me get here. confident I feel and the more battles I win, the I make it a habit to tell people how much they mean to me so I recently thanked him “for making me feel safe enough to always tell the truth.”
Perplexed at the unexplained statement, he looked at me like “what’s this one taking about?”
...And men think we’re the odd ones.
As it stands right now, I seem to have retired that compulsion we all develop early in life, to make up a quick ‘white lie’…
BUT not before I’d taken stock of some of the lies I’m ashamed of. ..
The crazy thing is that majority of these lies we did not even need to tell at all. We just do it out of habit.
..Check this out: To avoid an awkward situation, I once told a family friend I had attended and left her party before she’d arrived when I could have simply told her I’d slept off on my couch while getting dressed.
The lie was so silly, and my commitment to it so disturbing that it took me months to find the courage to admit to her that I was so tired, I’d simply nodded off. Oh wait, there’s more. When she asked for my opinion about her new boyfriend who soon tore her heart to pieces, I told a mentee, “I agree he’s good for you”, when I knew the instant I heard the words out of his mouth that dude was a walking billboard of flashing red flags. I could have just said instead, “I see why you like him.” and left it at that.
To prevent discomfort, avoid embarrassment and to fulfill a desire to maintain control, sometimes we lie with such ease and so repeatedly that we begin to believe our own lie.
Like many of you, as a teenager, I've told some tales I'm not even ready to publicly speak about. Self preservation or not, using a lie as a tool for soothing ones self, is a toxic habit that can take more from you, than it actually gives...
From this day, whenever you catch yourself in a ‘little’ lie, know that the issue runs deeper than that one lie.
..Take that lie as a marker that something about the situation caused you to feel insecure or unsafe. Then minimize your exposure to that thing.Why?Because one signal which affirms that you’ve gained control of your own life, is when you no longer feel the need to paint a picture of it which does not fully represent you. This, I think, is one of the most transformative revelations I’ve had in my 40s. I appreciate the woman I’m becoming. ..
I want to hear from you. 1. Which part of my experience resonates with you?2. What is ONE THING you’ve learned about yourself recently?
