Telling Ourselves the Truth

                Have you ever been to a masquerade party?  There is that one person whose identity you simply cannot guess.  When the identity becomes known, you are completely astounded because your conjecture was totally off base but you say to those around you that you recognized them from the very beginning.  It is a small white lie that no one truly cares about but in the end, it makes you feel less ridiculous. Perhaps, you are the person that smiles and greets people ever so kindly then turns to the person you are with and spreads the worst gossip but you say you are being kind for business reasons.  Maybe you say you love mushroom spinach quiche because your friend just spent three hours baking it for a lunch date and you merely do not wish to hurt your feelings.  They are white lies we tell others and at the time, they do not seem so outrageous given the present circumstances.  They are all masks we hide behind to avoid dealing with unpleasantness.  They seem harmless and with time we even convince ourselves they are the truth.  The problem is that in time, every lie becomes easier to tell, especially the ones we tell ourselves.  The masks we wear every day, even with the people we love, become easier to accept as truth.   Life becomes an ongoing masquerade for some. 

          I have always heard people say truth is the easiest. I am not sure I think that is accurate.  Please, do not misread this statement. I value honesty.  However I think at times iy is more gray than people would believe and far harder to impart, even harder to heed, and far worse to comprehend. There are times we all contact people about issues and we know in our minds what we want to hear, failing to hear those things we are angry.  One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is “they just do not understand”.  They understand most of the time, they just do not see it the way we do and we needed the empathy.  Our ability to hear and discern the truth from other people is directly related in some ways to whether or not people are willing to hear us when we tell it.   I have a friend that had been going through a difficult time in her life.  I have tried to help her through it but in the end, she surrounds herself with people that will tell her what she wants them to say.  At first, I was very upset with her that she would not listen and refused to my aid. I took it very personally. However, the truth is completely gray.  She heard me, she believed I meant well, but ultimately, she was still in denial about the ugliness of it all. Denial is an extremely powerful tool. The truth cannot exist in land of denial, the only thing that thrives there is false hope. Therefore, I began to keep my advice and my thoughts to myself.  I realized that she will share her ugliness and more than likely, my advice is disregarded.

          The other night one of my many “adopted” kids had a troubling status on her Facebook page.  In it, Lindsay proclaimed that she hated that people did not trust her to handle difficult truths because they lied to her.  My reply to her was that we often lie to others not because we do not trust them but because when we are attempting to lie to ourselves, it is easiest to be convincing if we lie to others. For instance, when I am feeling totally out of control, emotional, and/or disharmonious with the world, I tell everyone I am fine.  It is not exactly a life because for me fine means f=freaked out, i=insecure, n=neurotic, e=emotional.  Since I feel those, it is not a lie right?  Wrong, it is a deception to keep everyone from asking me to share.  In my world sharing the wrong things brought about a diatribe of emotional abuse and verbal harassment about how worthless and weak I was.  When I became a single mother, I realized my children and others around me were looking for me to be the strong person they all see in me and so I bottled it all up. Occasionally, when it gets too big for my head and it affects my ability to be a reasonable, rational adult with a good filter then I share.  It is truly not a great habit. My really good friends, realize fine is not a good thing in my world and they will seek the truth.  They make it easier for me to talk it out but that is years in the making. 

I do not negate the possibility that lying to others can be about not trusting them.  I think it is entirely the possibility but the question we have to ask at that point is why they do not trust us to handle the truth.  A very common denominator in trust issues is past baggage.  The past was a great teacher but it is the gift that keeps on giving.  Sometimes those gifts are fatal to our present day growth. The immortal lie “I am over it” is another that we popularly tell ourselves.  If we were over it, if we gained a lesson from it, if we moved on, then we would all realize our present is not our past. We would pack the box store it away and move on, taking with us only a good that would feed our lives. We do not do that though.  We get it out and we talk about how it happened, we look at new friends or partners with a judgment about them as if they were the past person.  We judge others by the mistakes of those that are no longer there.  To grow and to move means you have to forgive and forget the past. The future is about something new. Remember the lessons and adopt your life to make better decisions but the rest is just unimportant baggage. 

“This time is going to be different” is another of the widely spread lies we tell ourselves.   A leopard very seldom changes its spots.  Change comes about by necessity of life that was brought on by some hardship, a terrible pain, or a personal disaster. Someone who has cheated and left but wishes to return should have to prove their desire to come back. If you enable them to come and go multiple times, then the truth is simply that they will continue it. With help, sometimes the solution may require professional assistance.  Addicts and abusers do not just change on their own no matter what they say.  It will require therapy and help.  We can change and grow.  We can adapt but usually that is the person that suffers not so much the person that has the upper hand.  Mean people usually just stay mean people. There has to be a mutual desire to fix a situation and outward action for it to change.  If only one person tries, then the outcome will be the same. Do not look for unseen benefits without effort.

How many times have you made excuses for the people you love when they hurt you? “They did not mean it”.  While not everything is on purpose, everything does involve a choice. Sometimes, unintentional outcomes may cause unexpected grief and havoc that is a fact. Nevertheless, this lie negates your own right to your own feelings.   In the end, you have just enabled the other person to have an infinite free pass to hurt you because you said in a roundabout way that your feelings do not matter.  So what if it is unintentional, it matters if it matters to you. You have to communicate your needs and feelings.  Your feelings are important.  Even those of us suffering from low self-esteem are entitled to basic human decency.  So speak up and say so and the people around you will treat you better.

How many times a day do you use the phrase “I cannot”?  That feeling of hopeless or inability stems from your poor self-esteem and fear.  To say “I cannot” somehow lets us off the hook from trying. It is much easier than charging head long into potential disaster and heartache.  No one wants to be embarrassed by his or her inabilities.  Truth is you never know until you try then try again several more times.  Being unable is one thing but as the cliché goes cannot never did try. If life were meant to be easy then there were be many more satisfied people.  It is meant to be full of trials so that we learn to balance.  When you use you the “can’t” phrase, it shifts the balance to a negative.  In order to find the positive, you have to risk.  It is in the risk we learn so much about ourselves.

My favorite (saying this sarcastically) is “they should apologize first or make the first effort”. This is the fib we use with ourselves to sustain our anger and indignation.  What difference does it make who initiates the bonding process as long as in the end we each say our piece, make amends, and grow together. Although, anger makes us say things we cannot take back and do things to hurt people. In the end they are actions and words, we cannot undo.  We all get angry. Why not just say this makes me angry.  Agree to disagree or to set it aside until you are calmer and can talk it out.  Even an ending should be thought about before acting up on it. Communication is the answer not the problem.  Who starts is irrelevant to fixing the issue.

I am the queen of procrastination.  Every day I start out saying, “I will get that done or I am going to finally going to use that something new I bought a year ago”. As much as I love to write and as much as I feel I have something to contribute, I always think there is a perfect time for it and I wait.  The fear of failure or feeling good about something keeps me paralyzed to thought that if I wait, there will be more perfect words or times.  I buy things that fill up the empty time that I have, because I am procrastinating about doing the one thing that makes me feel good about my day and about myself.  Emptiness only creates more emptiness not all the things in the world will fill it up.  Time and people are precious.  Treat them like the treasure.  It will come back to you tenfold.

I saved the whopper for the last.  They say you should save the best for last.  “I do not need anyone else, I am a rock, I can do it all by myself, I love being alone all the time” BS.  We say that because we are lonely and saying we are all good with ourselves makes it seem less as if we are lonely and less likely that people will treat us like we are desperate spinsters.  If we were meant to be all alone, we would never need more than one bedroom houses or apartments.  Get over you the melodrama; there are millions of people all over the world tonight that want mates or partners.  Go out find one, risk your heart, you will find someone. Maybe it will not last or maybe it will last the rest of your life time but you never know until you try with a positive attitude that you will find love.  It is out there waiting but the looking is up to you. 

I know that I could probably write the rest of the week and not cover all the lies we tell ourselves. These are just some the really big ones that I felt needed to be brought to light. Sometimes the truth is hard. I certainly do not want to say, I am scared, I need help, I want to be loved, I feel alone, I am angry.  They are hard whether I say them to myself or to my friends. The title of the Tyler Perry movie comes to mind, I Can Do Bad All By Myself.  It is very easy to do but often to find success and caring it takes the encouragement of others.  It starts by telling yourself the truth. It may be hard but in dealing with the REAL TRUTH, you have freed your spirit to soar to new heights.  The bad will be smaller than the good.  So be good to yourself. Look in the mirror and have a talk about the truth.  It is the first step to healing.