How I Stopped Lying
Lying…. The most dangerous seed out of them though is the one we tell ourselves. The ones that have no legs. The ones that paralyse our dreams, mute our voice, and sabotage our freedom.
By definition, lying is known as false statements or concealing what one knows to be true.
I on the other hand like to look at it in form of energy. Lying is energy that remains in a position of ‘resting’ or ‘stagnant’.
If we look at the root words and their various formats, they very much point in a similar direction. Even when the meaning can differ in many contexts.
One of the meanings of ‘lies’ for instance means ‘to remain, or be kept specified’. “The park lies between a primary school and a church.”
And that is exactly what lying does. It keeps one stagnant in life and delays one's growth. Stuck. As the proverb says, a lie has no legs.
Lying is an epidemic- Why do we do it?
The motivator of any lie is fear. Fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of change, fear of loss. FEAR. Lying becomes the aspirin to peoples fear. A temporary fix.
Even governments lie to the public out of fear. They feel like it is the only to keep people under control, and that could lose their status if they are perceived as ‘weak’ or ‘unreliable’ or ‘untrustworthy’.
The ego cannot handle the truth which is the essence of light.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE- Your truth is your breakthrough.
I for a long time lied to myself. And others. I lived in two worlds. Two dimensions.
I had a life where I was able to be honest with specific groups of people, a world where I was able to be myself. But I also lived in another world where I had to lie about the most stupid things to fit in, to avoid arguments and cultural lectures that wasted a lot of my energy.
In the world where I was able to be honest, and truthful, I felt happier and freer. Whereas the other side, I felt stranded. I always had to keep things under control. A lot of mental maintenance was required. I did this to avoid being caught out. I had to tiptoe, hide, run, or appear with a mask.
Yes, although my intentions majority of the time behind lying was to keep everybody satisfied it turned against me in the long run.
Let me give you an example.
I was born into a North African family. One of their cultures (not all) but where my family are from, they have a thing against a woman/man sleeping over in their brother/sister's home when their spouse is there. So when I’d go and stay and spend the night or the day with my sister for example, my mum would ask me “was her husband there?” I would brush her off by saying no he was at work.
Then I would warn my siblings, don’t say that I came round last weekend. And btw I’m a grown woman who is responsible, married and I’m almost 30. I felt all I was doing was adding more conditioner on what they had already been conditioned to believe.
I couldn’t be bothered to speak my truth. I would rather please others than my soul. I didn’t know that with time, people who did not accept my values will eventually accept them whether they liked it or not by consistently telling the truth.
During my childhood at school, I felt like I was pressured to own certain things like a phone or an e-mail address. I didn’t. It was around the 2000s when children didn’t have easy access to phones or the internet. But the ones that did were the ‘cool’ ones.
This pressure during my school days made me reach out to lying as a tool to shut down those who were consistently sabotaging me with questions: ‘do you have this?” “Are you allowed to do this?”. Which then lead to unnecessary lying about other things, so that i could stand out. My subconscious mind resigetered, that the more I portrayed I was different, the more I would stand out.
Little did I know that saying the truth would have ended these questions, but lying made it worse. I had my peers reach out to my sister, intruding her lunch break asking her about the things I’ve said. I had to warn my sister if anyone asks you something about so and so just say yes.
This was very daunting, and I remember taking my sister on this horrible journey with me for so long.
THE FIRST BREAKTHROUGH
I broke this cycle of lying with peers and friends when I moved to Egypt. After years of suffering, I set the intention to start fresh in my coming years at school. And it worked wonders.
I no longer lied to fit in or to please others. I was loved and appreciated at school. I even became very popular. That is when my new world outside my home and family began. The true version of myself.
However, a huge part of my old world of lying remained with my family members and partners. It sabotaged my relationship with them because I was always seen as a liar. Trust issues arose and complicated things.
Lying had huge negative impact on my communication skills. I was terrible at confrontation because many times I tried to be honest, i was not given the benefit of the doubt.
Within that I lost myself. I ended up marrying a man my heart rejected through an arranged marriage. I’d accepted out of fear. I was 16. I did it because I thought I would face severe consequences if I’d said no.
Looking back, there were emotions of both excitement and fear. Back then, I couldn’t identify what I wanted.
This is not to say that everything in front of my family was a lie. But a huge part of it was especially on the religious side of things, the way I dressed. Or speaking my thought and feelings openly.
You see lying has so many layers. So many types and dimensions. Not all lies are committed via the tongue. Lying can be done through your body language and your actions. Even in your belief.
Lying is a dangerous seed. It teaches our brains to fear other people's judgment. This doesn’t make us bad people, it just makes our personalities weaker. It literally sabotages our growth, because we are constantly looking over our shoulder.
COMPLETELY FREED
After years of suffering. Losing myself. And others. I set the biggest intention. I said enough is enough. And it was when I met my amazing husband who supported me through this journey. At the time I was depressed, living alone. My home looked like a trap house. I was smoking almost two packs of cigarettes a day. The old version of me who have hid all of that. But I didn’t. I started my honesty journey with him. I learnt that my honesty made him appreciate me more, even if we didn’t share the same opinion or values. The old me would’ve nodded her head, and did what she wanted behind his back. I was blunt in my truth. I didn’t have to think twice to answer a question. I was freeeeeeee.
WHEN IS LYING OK?
This is a personal opinion. And I am speaking through experience. Lying should never be ok in any circumstance. However, remember when I said lying is energy? Exactly. I want you to imagine, that your sister came and vented out the negative things her partner did to her. Then you are in a gathering to make things better. Her partner mentions that he has been told that she is speaking badly of him. He puts you under the spotlight, and asks you to be honest, and says “she speaks a whole load of negative things about me, doesn’t she?”
In a scenario like this, being honest would look like saying “yes she does”. But the energy of healing a relationship between two people is more powerful in this circumstance than admitting the truth. Therefore, you can go ahead and say “no, I’ve only heard her speak nicely about you”.
Or if your life or someone else’s life is at risk. As you can imagine, this scenario is very rare, and you wouldn't necessarily be doing this every day.
LYING AND ITS CATEGORIES
I like to divide lying into two categories.
Protective and destructive lying . These two intertwine with one another.
In many cases, protective lying is the lead to destructive lying.
Protective lying is like the ones I mentioned earlier. You lie intentionally or unintentionally to protect your status, ego, safety, position, image, etc in front of yourself and/or others. This type of lying usually has more harm on you than it does on others.
Destructive lying can also be intentional and non-intentional.
These lies usually are targeted towards someone to destroy them
or to prove a specific agenda that leads to destroying someone’s life.
Yet even these sorts of lies are committed as a form of protecting my position.
For example, your colleague at work lies about witnessing you leak confidential information, when he is the one who did it. Or he lies and says he witnessed you do it but it wasn't him either. He just found the right opportunity to get you into trouble because he doesn't like you. These two cases, it is destructive lying.
THE SOLUTION- GET YOUR JOURNALS READY
The first step to the solution of any problem is acknowledging there is a problem. Denial is the enemy to any breakthrough. Acceptance is its key.
THE GUIDE
DON’T LABEL YOURSELF
Just because you tell so many lies, it doesn’t mean you are a liar. Or a bad person. I think what delays many people's growth in this area is that they’ve been labeled for so long, and have believed it subconsciously. Just because you lie, it doesn’t make you a liar.
Write down all the times you are/were honest.
When do you feel it is the easiest time, to tell the truth?
Who are you able to tell the full truth to?
AWARENESS
Awareness is 90 percent of your healing. If you are aware that you are lying to yourself, or others then you have admitted the truth which is the other side of lying. That alone opens so many doors of success for you.
STOP THE BLAMING AND ACCEPT YOU
Accept that the reason you lie is due to your fears. Many people like to blame their parents or their partners for why their lie. “They made me lie” or “it’s their fault why I did this”.
When we come to terms that nobody has control over our values and that they cannot be sabotaged, or manipulated we begin taking the lead in our own lives.
ACKNOWLEDGE THE SUFFERING LYING CAUSES YOU EVERY DAY
Write down all the negative consequences you’ve had because of lying. This could be:
loss of friendship
Being laughed at
Not being trusted
Having to move everything around in your life to make your life the forefront
People pleasing
constantly watching what you are saying so it correlates with all the other stories you’ve told
IDENTIFY WHAT YOUR LYING TYPE IS
Protective or Destructive?
You can find this out by observing why and when you lie.
when do you feel the need to lie?
Why do you lie? The reason behind why you lie.
What scares you from telling the truth?
What/whom are you protecting when you lie?
DO YOU LIE TO…
fit in
protect your physical state (abuse)
fear of judgment
protect someone else
gain something (eg: lying in your cv to get a job)
WHO WAS THE FIRST PERSON YOU WITNESSED LIE?
Reflecting on this will help identify where you picked this seed from and how its tree grew
EVALUATION
Evaluate how often you lie
How deep is the lie? How big?
FEAR OF GETTING OUT
I think one of the things that used to make me scared of becoming honest was that if I’d come out to reveal my parts of my inauthenticity that I would lose peoples trust in me, that i am drawing their attention to something they weren’t aware of. So it was easier to remain where I was, and continue entertaining the lies. However, coming out of this hole transformed my life.
Yes, depending on how deep and long you’ve been lying you could be attacked by those you’ve been lying to. Or judged. You may loose some of them. BUT…
You are not losing. You are healing a wound that has been causing you suffering. A person who is not willing to stick around and support you because they thought you were some saint only shows a persons true colours. They worshipped the angelic side of you. And are refusing to bow, accept to your human nature.
I am grateful to have had the support during this journey. I was loved me throughout it all. Through my low days to my blooming YIPPIE days. And you could too.
DARK TO LIGHT
compare the feeling of being caught lying vs the feeling of being proven telling the truth
Which feeling can you live feeling everyday?
what would my life look like if I could say the truth guaranteeing no negative consequences?
Confront yourself in front of a mirror, in a letter about something you lied about today.
Then Confront a person you trust
Write a letter of forgiveness to yourself: check out one of my blog posts The Art Of Forgiving
Start with the small lies. Stop the ones you do daily. And eventually, work your way up the ladder to bigger confrontations.
FURTHER SUPPORT
If you require further support or have any questions please e-mail us through our contact us page.
I wish you all the love, peace and blessings on this beautiful journey of authenticity.
