Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth
Most of us are familiar with the Golden Rule about treating others as you’d like to be treated. Equally golden is the rule about honesty being the best policy. And while I think people, in general, want to be - and believe that they are - faithful abiders of both rules, there are times when we fall short. I am among the guilty. Recently, though, I was on the receiving end of someone else’s dishonesty. I don’t have a pretty word to describe how it felt so I’ll just say that it sucked.
There’s no goodness in being lied to…except when you discover that said lie helps you see the truth you’d been keeping from yourself. This is what happened for me. I told my brother what transpired and without any judgment he asked, “were you surprised?”. I immediately answered “no”. I was surprised at how dark a lie I’d been told, but not about the lie itself. Over the course of time, I’d picked up that lying by omission was as much a part of this person’s personality structure as having blue eyes is a part of my genetic coding. So, I can’t say I turned a blind eye to the behavior, but I did turn a blind eye to being someone who could be hurt by it. Why did I do that? Because despite my intuition telling me I was playing with fire, something about that fire was compelling enough to push my awareness aside. I imagine anyone reading this can relate.
The anger and disappointment I felt are/were real and it’s also true that I set myself up for being stung by the very thing I knew posed a danger. This is the part of “the work” we humans don’t love to do because it requires humility and personal accountability. This is the part where we turn the finger of blame we’ve been pointing out to the world toward ourselves. In this particular example, this is where I say to myself, “you’re not responsible for how you were lied to, but you didn’t honor your gut’s knowing and that’s not okay”. Once I understood how my own passivity played a role, I felt relief; relief from continuing to participate in something I knew had holes in its foundation. The truth actually did set me free. I let that person go, unequivocally, and in so doing, created space for something new, better, and more honest to emerge.
What are you telling yourself that’s keeping you where you shouldn’t be? Ask yourself the questions you probably already know the answers to and be brave enough to act on what you know to be true. That’s what self-love looks like in action and I’ll tell you something: it feels really good.