"I Can Not Tell a Lie"

No one likes to admit that they lie. If you admit to lying it seems to make you some sort of horrible person. After all, don’t we all have etched in our brains George Washington’s supposedly famous statement “ I can not tell a lie” as he confessed his horrible act of cutting down the cherry tree! At least with that story we just learn it is better to tell the truth. But what about the story of the boy that cried wolf? Here we learn that to lie is mean and naughty.  Anyway, lying is what others do, not us, not me.

But, really? Don’t we all lie sometimes. We lie for many reasons. We lie to seek approval, we lie to control the situation, we lie so that someone wont be mad, we lie to make ourselves look a little better, we lie because we believe it to be kinder than telling the truth to someone, we lie so that we aren’t uncomfortable, and often if we are really honest, we lie to get what we want. We lie so that whatever situation we are experiencing remains comfortable for ME.

Other names for lying: exaggerating, stretching the truth, dramatizing, embellishing, and omitting. These names make us feel a little bit better.

I am writing this blog post because there has been so much lying going on in the lead-up to this presidential election. During this political season it seems as if the truth has flown out the window. Ok, that was a lie. A half-truth…, which is a lie.  More honestly, I found myself telling a lie to a dear friend today. Well, actually it was an omission of a detail in a story…but a significant detail. Does that count? Of course it does!! And it was this act that led me to sit down, contemplate my actions, feel the feelings that arose, apologize to her and ultimately to write this post. There I said it. Whew.

Here is the thing that we all know about lying…it is the ultimate gift that keeps giving. When you lie, even these “smaller lies” (not one of the huge ones like having an affair), you then have to file this information away. You have to remember the lie or the omission because our lives are not discontinuous events. Our lives flow and each interaction leads to the next interaction. Each thought leads to the next thought. So now you are working to get information loaded in the hippocampus part of the brain, ready to be activated on short notice if the subject comes up again with the person you lied to in the first place. And, now you also have to decide if you tell the lie again to others that the original person knows, because, well, what if they should talk. You can’t have conflicting stories out there. This is a lot of hard work for our brains. And, what if you are someone who tells lots of “small lies” throughout the day. Think how much brainpower this requires just to keep the puzzle of life straight. It’s exhausting. And, it leads people to not feel so great about themselves.

If you are reading this and it is resonating with you, first, take some comfort that you are definitely not alone. But, you may be wanting to know what to do about this. Once we come out of denial and begin to really see how many of the statements that come out of our mouths are true, somewhat true, kind of true or not true at all we begin to also notice the discomfort that goes along with lying. That is usually when we want to change this behavior.

What often goes unnoticed is the subtle shifts that occur internally when we lie. We are not actually good at fooling ourselves, even when we try to rationalize our behaviors. When we do something that either harms others or ourselves, our sense of who we are takes a hit. It can be very subtle but it happens. Over the years this builds up and we start to notice that we don’t trust others as much. This can be as small as not trusting someone to tell you what he or she really thinks about something or it can be as devastating as not believing that your spouse is trustworthy in marriage and or life.

Bottom line, as much as we don’t want this to be true, our speech matters. It impacts us and follows us. Even when others don’t know that we are lying, we do, and that has an impact. Ok…enough. Now I am sounding like I am lecturing which I do not want to. What I am trying to convey is the significance of our speech in how we feel in our everyday lives.

Enter Buddhist Psychology and the ethic of Right Speech. Some of you may be familiar with the eightfold path. If followed, the eightfold path is said to be the way to the end of our human suffering. Or, in the 21st century, it is an awesome way to end our reactivity to all of the stressors that we experience in our everyday lives. For a quick overview: Buddha Bits

Right Speech along with right action and right livelihood are the three aspects of the eightfold path that focus on ethical living. Ethical living is understood as the best way possible to keep us content in our lives, kind and compassionate in our interactions, and peaceful internally.

Right speech has 4 components and can best be thought about through asking ourselves the following questions:

Is what I am about to say…

Honest?

Timely?

Kind?

Necessary?

Think about how much this would cut down on gossip, judgmental speech, criticism, shaming, and yes…lying.

Imagine if all human beings just committed to this practice. Wow! But, since we have no control over what others do, we can begin with a commitment to our own intentional right speech. Waking up in this way takes time, patience, and yes..compassion. It takes compassion because we will stumble and we will make mistakes, and frankly we wont get right speech right all the time. But we can set our intentions each morning.

Wake up and before your feet hit the ground, reiterate to yourself this intention for today. “For today, may I practice right speech. May I be honest in each interaction. If something is necessary to be said, may I say it in a timely manner and may I be kind.”

Pay attention to how you feel as you set these intentions and how you feel as your interactions with others begin to change. May you and all those you interact with benefit from your efforts.