Truth is Bravery
My Dad was a suave motherfucker.
Dead Dads and Cheating Lovers
I learned some hard and powerful lessons while my dad was dying.
While my dad was dying, my boyfriend was cheating on me and a colleague at work was trying to get me fired. It was a trying time in my life, but alchemy often needs fire for transformation... if anyone has learned how to heal through joy - please contact me.
I want to know what you know.
The Gut Check
The body wisdom is in your belly. Trust that.
During this time I got better at reading people. Or at least better at believing what I was feeling.
I was dating Karl for 2 years and although I had been having weird gut feelings about him and his behaviour since 2 months into the relationship - I didn't have any proof, none of my suspicions were for sure and everything shady had an explanation.
Finally, I found out he'd had a whole other relationship for a year! Every single gut wiggle and 'wtf' came back to remind me that truth had been available all along.
I just didn't trust it... and I didn't want for it to be true.
I lacked trust in my own gut truth - my intuition and psychic sense was bang on the fucking money, but I distrusted myself and lacking any concrete truth, I "went along" with Karl's fiction.
That’s my boy.
Even now I will have stray memories pop up that are like puzzle pieces that fit into place about that situation.
I'm still learning how right I was about everything.
A work colleague had become a close friend and confidante during this same stressful and highly emotional time. On the surface she was an empathetic, caring ear.
Behind my back, she would take very personal details of my confidence and tell them all to my staff with a twist to paint me in the worst possible light - flighty, unreliable, immature, deviant, stupid, lazy and useless.
She encouraged the staff to talk negatively about me and to not fulfill their duties in an attempt to get me in trouble with my superiors. At one point she actively encouraged the staff to quit together and to complain to my bosses about my supposed poor performance.
I found out.
She was given the opportunity to air her grievances to our HR. She was asked to become a team player or leave.
She left.
Bitches and Cowards
I struggled for months with these lies and couldn't let them go. I didn't understand what I was missing and how I could still be bothered by them. They lied, they betrayed - some people suck... move on.
It wasn't working.
I didn't get it until I listened to a podcast about Cathal Morrow and his Year Without Lying.
Cathal found out that it's hard to tell the truth.
BANG! Connection made!
Calling them "liars" and "deceitful", didn't adequately cover how betrayed and disgusted I was at their behaviour. Now, I understood that what really bothered me was the COWARDICE required to act so shitty.
They were petty cowards.
FINALLY, I had the fullness of understanding that I had been missing.
Let's Learn
There's a lot of interesting research about lies:
children learn to lie as early as age 2
lying is associated with cognitive function and development
learning to lie is part of creativity, imagination and impulse control
the more manipulative you are - the more likely you are to lie
on the Machiavellian scale I scored 36/100 - you try
liars are overly concerned about what others think of them - they are "impression management" people
responsible people are less likely to tell self-serving lies
people with high quality same-sex relationships (platonic or romantic/sexual) told less self-serving lies
women told other women more kind-hearted lies
when men were involved, either as targets of lies or as liars themselves - self-serving lies doubled or were 8x more likely than kind-hearted lies
Lying is Cowardice
Most of us learn at a fairly young age that lies that hurt are wrong... hurting people is wrong - so hurting people with fiction is wrong.
It's weak and it's pathetic.
It's an attempt to mold our world to our liking without regard to others. Lying is an attempt to get our needs met through manipulation.
Lies also prevent others from making truthful decisions about their own lives because they are interacting with our lies instead of our truth.
Lies trigger my justice and fairness buttons.
Some say that life isn't fair - I think it is, but we'll come back to that.
Lying is taking advantage - it's stacking the deck. Fundamentally - I don't empathize with liars, but I didn't get that for a long time.
My empathy barometer
For years I empathized with people and situations on emotion alone - I empathized and understood some and didn't with others, but didn't really understand why not. I knew I felt different about some people and situations, but I couldn't really figure it out.
I heard a podcast of Brene Brown discussing empathy and she framed it around the question:
Ah ha! YES... this made so much sense in regards to my empathy.
In most situations people ARE doing the best that they can. Parents, friends, lovers, clients, customers - they may not be doing what you or I will do, but they are STILL doing the best that they can with what they have to work with.
"There by the grace of god go I" and all that.
I can understand and empathize that given their life circumstances and experience, I would probably do the same. There is a connection made, empathy is stepping into another's shoes that softens judgement and leads to understanding.
We do NOT do the best we can when we lie and deceive.
If we lie to, about, misrepresent, withhold information - all forms of lying - we are not doing our best. We're just fucking not and any excuse for lies is an attempt to rationalize the continuation of being deceptive.
Deceit saves US at the expense of another. It's a purposely selfish and cowardly choice to throw someone else under the bus to make it easier on ourselves.
Wants, Desires, Needs & the Fairness of Life
At the heart of us, I believe, is a knowingness that we are all equal. Regardless of esteem, confidence issues, talents, skills, race, class, gender or social standing - there is a fundamental equality to life.
Everyone has the right to live their life the way that they want - without hurting others. Everyone has a right to get their needs met. EVERYONE has that right - I feel that on a cellular level.
I'm not clear on what my colleague wanted - I'm not sure if she wanted what I had or just resented what I had because she felt that she was more deserving.
I'm not sure what she needed because she never asked for things to be different. She never made any indication that the way things were was unacceptable.
Here's where we get into life being fair.
Life isn't fair because it's set up fair - it's fair because we get exactly what we're willing to ask for , speak up for and advocate for ourselves.
Being sad or upset because life doesn't automatically hand out equal portions to everyone is like me being upset that my plants died after I didn't water them.
My colleague was actively deceiving me by pretending to be someone I could trust and confide in. I think now that her pleasure may have been in telling my secrets to everyone and trying to get everyone to resent me as much as she did.
It's like she thought I was garbage and wanted everyone else to agree with her - so she lied and spun the truth to encourage people to see me her way.
She complained about me all the time to our co-workers, but never once attempted to discuss with me or our HR department any issues she had about my management.
It was less about wanting to change her work environment and more about having someone she could bitch about.
To maintain integrity what she should have done was speak up to me or HR regarding anything she felt was making her work experience intolerable.
She had a right to a workplace, bosses and coworkers that fulfilled her work needs. If she wanted things differently she had the right to speak her truth to those that could change her situation.
If she wasn't willing to do that she would have been better to seek other opportunities with a management that was a better fit instead of being a coward and just talking shit behind my back like a little bitch.
Life IS fair because we get the life that we're willing to advocate for.
Own whatever the fuck kind of lifestyle you want
Karl wanted to have a long-term, stable, committed relationship AND he wanted to fuck a lot of different women.
FINE.
I don't give a shit what kind of lifestyle you want - more power to you, but OWN that shit and don't be a wimpy little bitch about it.
He tried to make that happen for himself by being a cowardly little bitch liar.
There are a lot of different kinds of people and relationships in the world.
Look at this. There’s a POLYAMORY PARADE. Advocate for what you want, don’t LIE about it.
Karl was NOT trying hard enough. If he had been honest and owned his need and been brave about his preferences he likely would have been able to have the kind of lifestyle he wanted and been able to do it with honour and integrity.
I'm not into polyamory.
I don't want that and given the option would have said "No thanks" to the polyamory - but I wasn't given that courtesy. I wasn't told what he actually needed.
Instead, Karl was a liar who used deceit to try and get what he wanted like a weak little bitch.
I see you.