I have a bit of thing about honesty.
Recently, my little nine year-old declared to one of his friends, “No, Mummy wouldn’t do that - my Mummy never lies.” And I don’t. I tell the truth. Sometimes I think to my own detriment. I tell it how it is. I’m pretty blunt, though I’ve tried to soften this side of me as I’ve gotten older. But quite apart from anything else, I can’t lie. My face immediately tells you exactly what is going on in my head - happy, sad, angry, confused or a random combination of them all - it’s like a picture flashing across my face, you just can’t miss it. (And yes, I’m crap at strip poker!)
Recently I stood up in front of 120+ health and fitness professionals at the Women’s Health & Fitness Summit 2016 in Melbourne to set the record straight. You see, whilst I utterly and morally cannot cope with lying I spent about three years of life living the biggest lie imaginable. I’m not going into the backstory now - you can read all about it on my blog or check out the video from the Summit here. But the WHFS presentation was all about being brave and owning your story - it was my opportunity to set the record straight. To tell the truth in all its raw messiness. And it was pretty messy.
The truth is messy. It’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies. - Holly Black
So I’ve been doing a fair bit of soul-searching lately about the thorny subject of honesty. The truth is a funny business. You see, you can think that you are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (so help you). And then in some weird ‘sliding-doors’ moment, become aware that you’re telling the absolute truth - to yourself, let alone to other people. Owning the brutal reality of life, or even the what the reality of that truth really looks and feels like, may sometimes be just too hard to face up to.
And let’s be honest here, in this space, right now. It’s actually pretty easy to lie to ourselves. We are expert liars when we need to be. I think I can convince myself of pretty much anything. On any given day, or even in any given minute within any given day I could probably either convince myself that I deserve to sit down with a very large glass of something, a bowl of chips and watch a marathon session of Outlander, or punish myself for not being or doing enough by withholding all of those self-same things depending on the story I’m trying to sell to myself.
The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. - Brené Brown
We protect our hearts by telling little lies about our relationships -
“It’s not really cheating if...”
“Sending flirtatious messages, texts, emails, photos in this increasingly interconnected social-media driven world isn’t cheating is it?”
“Surely if nothing actually happened in real-life, then it’s just a minor transgression?”
Or worse still, “everyone is doing it so it’s not really even anything to get your knickers in a twist about - it’s just normal modern-day life isn’t it?”
Normal.
What on earth is that these days? When we are repeatedly hearing and receiving the message ‘if it feels good, then it must be good’.
If I’m honest, my big issue with this is two-fold:
- where is our integrity when we approach life like this?
- what happens when other people get hurt, as they inevitably do, with this approach to life?
Fundamentally, it takes a whole lot of bravery, constant refocusing and reevaluating our own internal BS radar. This requires a truly grown-up level of self-awareness, and also a fair amount of checking and balancing to make sure that you’re still walking the path of truth. And that’s all pretty tiring.
Because being truthful - properly and honestly truthful is hard. It takes bravery. It takes balls. I figure you’re as likely to upset people as not. It’s tough to tell it how it is and people are often shocked when you don’t tell them what they are expecting to hear. And that age-old phrase and the biggest lie of them all in my book - “I just didn’t want to hurt you.”
Here is the truth about truth: it hurts. So we lie. - Grey’s Anatomy
Well, reality is you’re going to hurt them a whole lot more in the long-run. Shakespeare’s Launcelot Gobbo in the Merchant of Venice may have been a comedic fool, but he spoke wise words when he said, “The truth will out”.
And I think it’s all the more pertinent when looking inwardly - not want to face up to the real emotions and feelings towards a person or a situation - isn’t that the root of our lies? Because facing the reality is harder, more painful, and just one more challenge too far?
I think we can do better. We are capable of so much more if we just trust ourselves and those around us. Yes, it’s a big ask sometimes - oftentimes - but it’s how we grow, it’s how we become better.
So that’s my focus as we plunge into the new year. No resolutions. No goals. Just to tell the raw, authentic truth - to myself and the people around me.