Lying to Eachother; Lying to Ourselves

I’m writing this to a friend who is afraid to reach out. I’m writing this to the person who still has a choice. I’m writing this to the random blog reader who stumbled here for a cosmically created reason. I’m writing this to anyone who thinks they still have a chance to make things right.

Lying to another person is relatively calculated. We always have a choice to tell the truth, or a version close enough to it which either saves face or feelings. Sometimes we make bad choices and lie to other people for a cornucopia of reasons: intention to hurt, fear of consequences, desire to be liked.

Lying to ourselves is a surefire way to find disaster. Having done been a self-liar, I can tell you the consequences could have been worse. I was willing to blame my unhappiness on everything except for the one thing I didn’t want it to be, except for the one thing that I knew would be the hardest to fix. Every maxim and moral will tell you that the truth will prevail and when it’s an inner truth, it will come with such a thunder that it cannot help but to be heard.

We lie to ourselves because the truth scares us. We lie to ourselves because we don’t what to believe what we know in our hearts to be true. We lie to ourselves because we are afraid of change. We lie to ourselves because we are ashamed. We lie to ourselves because we feel guilty.

Sometimes it’s something huge, something which has the potential to destroy a part of us. Sometimes it’s something small, but even the small truths hidden away can eat at us, gnawing at our core until we are forced to acknowledge the pain of ignoring it.

If you know you’ve been lying to yourself, or you think you might be ignoring something really important that your heart is trying to tell you, but your mind won’t listen to, try for a second to just acknowledge within yourself that you feel something different. You don’t have to acknowledge what it is, but just that you have the capacity to feel. When you’re comfortable with that, entertain different notions, including the truth. Play with it. Say it out loud. Write it down. Tell someone.

Trust me. Please, I know. The sooner you recognize the truth, accept it, grasp onto it and deal with it, the sooner you will find peace in whatever it is that is causing you pain.