Honesty and The Opposite of That

My thoughts have been on honesty lately....obviously because the lack of it has played a huge role in recent developments in my life.

I wonder if there is anyone out there who can say that they have never lied. I think everyone does it, to a certain degree. I remember lying as a child to get out of punishment or to get something I wanted. I lied as a teen to make myself more acceptable to my peers and to fool my parents. As an adult, I have lied to cover up things I have done that I am ashamed of.

There are many levels of lying, from intentional omission to straight out telling of fiction. Think of all the little untruths that pepper our days....we say we are 'fine' when asked, we tell our spouse that they don't look fat in that outfit, or that we are not mad when we are. We tell our kids why we need to leave the park before they are ready to go or that mommy and daddy are not fighting. We tell our boss or our client why we were late or absent.

Of course, some of us do this more than others, for various reasons. But some people do it all the time, for NO apparent reason. Compulsive lying is a whole different animal, and if you've ever known someone who does this you know exactly what I mean. One thing I have noticed....if someone is liberal in the use of certain words or phrases in their conversation it usually means something. Saying 'quite honestly', 'truthfully', 'frankly', 'to be honest', 'I really mean it', 'this is the truth'.....why is that necessary? Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?

I've known at least a couple of these people in my life, most recently my ex partner. It took me a while to figure this out, but once I did I was dismayed and somewhat fascinated to discover that this guy really did lie about absolutely everything! Things that there was no possible reason or advantage to lie about. From the classic size of the fish he caught to things that he had done in his life....everything was suspect. At a certain point in our relationship I caught him in some very big and very damaging lies, and he seemed at that point to realize that he had a problem with it. It was good opportunity for me to practice forgiveness and faith. I made a decision to believe his conviction to change was sincere, and to offer him my trust again.

I was never able to FULLY trust him, I always had my small doubts but would communicate these to him in the hopes that it would keep him on track. I think all this accomplished in the long run was to make him better at covering up his tracks. He continued to lie, and one of his more frequently used untruths was to tell me he was not lying!

Now that I have some distance from the situation and from him, I realize that people like him need people like me..people who are willing to give them a chance and who are trusting by nature. And obviously on some level we need that experience in our lives too, to validate whatever beliefs we hold about how we are to be treated by others.

I have compassion for him, and for anyone else who is trapped in this web of their own making. What must it be like, to find yourself so completely unacceptable that you must make yourself up? Loving and accepting ourselves is hard enough as it is, without adding that to the mix.

There are many parts of myself that I do not like. It is so much easier to accept the things about me that I have labeled as 'good'. How do we go about embracing those qualities that we have decided are 'bad'? I want to be able to fully accept myself as I am right now, to forgive myself for being so hard on myself, and to lovingly release that which no longer serves me.

One of those things that no longer serve me is the presence in my life of this kind of constant dishonesty. I prefer to surround myself now with people who seek and speak the truth.

Honestly.