“You become uneasy with people in direct proportion to how many lies you have to keep track of in their presence.”
~ Spider Robinson, “Satan’s Children”
I would add that you become uneasy with yourself in direct proportion to the number of lies you have to keep track of, period.
Let’s talk about what “uneasy” means.
Do you have any tension in your body?
Do you have a clenching feeling in your gut? Or in the heart area?
Your shoulders? Neck? Back?
We all do.
This tension is largely the result of the lies we are holding. Lies are stressful and tension-producing. Yes, there may be some physical causes included, but even those I would question.
For example, let’s say you had a car wreck. Immediately after the wreck, your body may still be responding to the trauma of the impact as if it is still happening. Your posture may be tense and stooped, crouching to ward off the blow. Your breathing may be shallow. You may startle more easily than before.
Animals shake it out, let it go and relax after the trauma far more often that humans do, according to my chiropractor, Dr. Lance Wright. See Flow for his wonderful process for releasing physical tension and trauma. You can search YouTube and see some videos of his talks on the process.
These physical tensions can come from any trauma that we clench our bodies about, including incest, physical abuse, hating to go to school, and not wanting to eat your broccoli. These really add up. Most of us are carrying around more lies than one could possibly count. These lies/thoughts tense us like steel.
The wreck is over. The abuser isn’t in the room. You don’t have to go to school today. And there is no broccoli in front of you.
So why the tension?
Because somewhere in our minds we are lying.
“It’s gonna hurt.”
“I’m not safe.”
Lies also include thoughts like:
“He or should (or should not) fill in the blank.”
Byron Katie says, “If it hurts, you are lying.”
Yeah, pretty much. Her books, Loving What Is, and I Need Your Love – Is That True? go into the details of exploring our own thoughts to find the truth.
What does Katie mean, “If it hurts?“
She means emotional pain and its accompanying physical stress, tension and pain. Sure, if you cut yourself, you hurt. That’s a completely different animal. She is talking about the pain of the lies we are holding onto, clinging to for dear life, while they drain our energy and slowly kill us.
What to do?
Question your thoughts.
The Work of Byron Katie is an excellent way to do this.
How do you know when you are lying? Check your body. Say the thought to yourself or out loud and check your body. Is there any tightness, heaviness or contraction anywhere?
Yes?
You’re lying.
I have written a couple of blogs on secrecy, confidentiality and privacy. This is somewhat a continuation of those.
Have you ever known anyone who insisted on an extreme amount of privacy? Wouldn’t let you talk to their friends? Wanted all kinds of agreements about what you could and could not say to people?
I had a roommate once who had a screaming fit about my sitting down at my own desk where they had opened their laptop. Why did she do that? I found out later that she was hiding some unethical information on her computer and was afraid I would see it. I thought we had a pretty open communication until then, but her reaction was so out of proportion to the situation that I just didn’t know what to make of it. The information about what she was hiding didn’t come out until a couple of years later.
People with unusually stringent privacy needs are likely to be hiding something – and lying to you. If you question them, they will insist this isn’t true. If you talk to them about truth they may question whether there is any such thing and argue with you about what truth is, rather than coming clean.
Let’s go back to Spider Robinson’s statement at the beginning of this blog. The whole paragraph says this:
“Even those of us who pay only lip service to the truth know what it is, deep down in our hearts. And we all believe in it, and know it when we see it. Even the best rationalization can fool only the surface mind that manufactures it; there is something beneath, call it the heart or the conscience, that knows better. It tenses up like a stiff neck muscle when you lie, in proportion to the size of the lie, and if it stiffens enough it can kill you for revenge. Ask Richard Corey. Most people seem to me, in my cynical moments, to keep things stabilized at about the discomfort of a dislocated shoulder or a tooth about to abscess. They trade honesty off in small chunks for pleasure, and wonder that their lives hold so little joy. Joy is incompatible with tensed shoulders and a stiff neck. You become uneasy with people in direct proportion to how many lies you have to keep track of in their presence.”
What is the remedy for this lying?
Truth. The Whole Truth. And nothing but the truth.
Later in that story, Spider writes:
“It’s the truth that’s addictive. Every one of those people came back for, like, three-four hits, and then they stopped coming by. I checked up on the ones I was in a position to. They had just simply rearranged their lives on solid principles of truth and honesty and begun to live that way all the time. They didn’t need the drug anymore. Every damn one of them thanked me. One of them fucked me, sweetly and lovingly—at my age.”
~ Spider Robinson, Satan’s Children
You want to relax? Feel good in your body? See your life work? Your relationships work?
Do you want to feel joy?
Tell the Whole Truth Faster. That’s what Sondra Ray said in her book, Loving Relationships.
Ken Keyes put it this way in his 12 Pathways:
“I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to fully communicate my deepest feelings, since hiding in any degree keep me stuck in my illusion of separateness from other people.”
~ Ken Keyes
I can give you quotes about the beneficial effects of truth all day long. I haven’t included a single quote from the 12 Step programs and that is all about truth-telling and the life-changing effects that has.
But quotes won’t do it.
I remind myself often: It’s THE WORK of Byron Katie, not the “read” of Byron Katie. Reading about something isn’t what helps. Working through our own thoughts, our lies and finding what’s true works.
Love, Ann
“Truth exists.”
~ Jed McKenna
Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing
