For many of us, lying is a daily occurrence. We tell the ‘little white lies’ that make life easier, that help to expedite projects, and that ‘let people down easy’. We justify to ourselves why this is OK… But once we set ourselves on the path of little white untruths, they can all too easily become big hairy audacious lies.
Living an honest life isn’t easy because there are so many subtle ways that we are encouraged to be less than truthful in the modern world. But honesty is the key to living a happy life and that’s why it’s the first tenet of my latest book The Credo. Seriously. It makes life easier. When you tell lies, you end up casting a bigger and bigger web of deceit which ends up being exhausting!
Beginning to live honestly and authentically is hard though. We think that we need to be ‘perfect’. We think that we need to go back and tell everyone that we were ever less-than-honest with, that we lied to them. I don’t think we need to do that, well not straight away at least. We all make mistakes and the key is to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them. I’m a big fan of doing what can be done, easily, and so, the easiest way to start to live with authenticity and honesty, is to start NOW. That means from this point on (right freakin’ now…no excuses) anything that comes out of your mouth is the straight-up truth.
I remember working with a client in the mind-body area of my clinical practice. We were working on this tenet of living authentically and living in honesty. She was incredibly scared of being 100% honest with those around her because she had suffered tremendous trauma and abuse through her life and to, all of a sudden, have that be out in the open, even to those she loved, was far too painful. It was a good reminder that our safety is critically important as we move into honesty.
We worked together to make sure that from that moment onward, anything that she put out into the world, from words through to actions, was honest and authentic. The rest of the ‘stuff’ from her past was left up to her. As she began to feel safer and more secure in herself and began to develop a true sense of empowered self-worth, she was able to open up to those people closest to her and talk about some of the untruths that she had used in the past to protect herself.
Remember that you are in control. If you feel unsafe, there is powerful action in inaction. You need not shout from the rooftops all of your past foibles and missteps…BUT from this moment on, you can live in truth.
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