Insights from my crumbling desire to continue to lie

[kieranperez]

Lying of course is a very big problem and issue for most human beings. However, I’ve been noticing over the last year just how much my suffering, victimhood to the circumstances of my life (internal as well as external), judging, my unhealthy relationships with old friends and my family members is caused by my own lying. I’ve recognized I’ve had a real problem with lying over the last decade or so as a lot of that was projected by my dad whenever I got caught lying as how lying is a part of my identity and is an inherent immoral trait of myself as a person. However, I’ve really been paying more attention to just how much my lying is really a compulsive problem. Like, there’s guys who have tried maybe heroine once in their life but that was it. Then there are the guys who once had their life together in some shape or form and then try this substance and in a short number of years or maybe even months are so attached to this substance that it’s like a lifeline. It’s like a baby and the umbilical cord attached to the mother in order to survive. The 2nd heroine example is like me with lying. When I started really looking into actual honesty with some books both in more emotional sects of self help and also consciousness work and of course through Leo’s video on lying, I really saw the importance of honesty. However, as I started watching just how much I lie and how compulsive it is for me, even more so than other people it seems like, it started shocking me just how much of a quick reflex this is for me. It’s like a conditioned behavior. The more I paid attention to it the more I’m like “every motivation, everything I say to myself and to other people, every gesture and vibe I give off, everything is just a lie. I’m not REALLY telling the truth.” My work became a good place for me to see this at play when I would talk with customers and I’d notice sometimes that when I get tired and more lazy, my character goes on autopilot as I like to put it. I’ll then be talking to a customer and start lying about stuff that’s never happened, I’ll exaggerate, I’ll give off a certain image that isn’t an authentic expression to what’s true, etc. This wasn’t some cool “ah-ha” moment. This was a very emotional upheaving of frustration. It’s like realizing just how much the devil has me a puppet and is totally running the show. I also noticed this, particularly this morning when I finally got to a real breaking point in this whole game, when I forgot I was covering someone else’s shift and and didn’t realize this until my managers texted me. I then jumped to try and find my wallet which I couldn’t find for 15 minutes. Immediately I was pissed off and my mind was running to the races of saying things like ‘why don’t they just give me the shifts I end up having to keep covering?! That way I could just look at the printed out schedule and there wouldn’t be any confusion!’ Then I immediately realized to the bone ‘no. They checked with me if I wanted this shift. I could’ve made a notification in my phone. That’s on me. That’s not their responsibility.’ When I realized that it was like my mind was jerking around for more excuses. I started to get mad at myself, ‘why the fuck do I keep doing this?!’ Then I picked up my phone and was going to text back my manager and noticed all the different ways I was trying to manipulate them by lying. ‘Hey sorry, I was at the bus stop and the bus kept driving. I’m about to catch the next bus. Sorry about all of this. Can’t stand the bus system here.’ All such example raced through at this point I’ve put too much of the puzzle together and then all of a sudden I had the funny insight “I can just stop doing this.” So I picked up my phone and texted them, “Sorry. I forgot I took someone’s shift. I didn’t leave a notification in my phone. I’m going to take maybe an hour to get there but am getting on the bus now.”

The big I things I’ve learned are:

• How much the compulsive need to lie and come up with lying causes suffering just from trying to cover up your own tracks
• How I truly am creating this and I can get off this boat any point I choose to.
• How much harder life become by serving lying than the truth
• How much of a healthier and also empowering cost it is to serve honesty than the unhealthy cheap low grade cost of just serving yourself
• You can’t change yourself through lying. The moment I had that insight with texting my boss the more I realized just how much more possible change is by honesty. 
• Your entire character as well as my own is made up of lies. Unconsciousness is the glue that holds this fassade together. And man that’s a really sticky glue. This is why daily mindfulness is so critical. You got to have the mindfulness throughout the day to see when you start to go on autopilot and the character that’s to stay alive tries to be sneaky and come back in without you noticing. 
• Self deception is the threshold guardian to change. 
• The truth is so easy to serve that we make it impossibly hard to actually do so. When I realize I’m causing all of a sudden like a lightening bolt to the head just how much I resist something so fucking simple. It really is counterintuitive and a real mindfuck when I realized just how much I make it hard for myself. 
• All suffering is the “punishment” of not serving the truth and instead serving yourself.

Edited December 17, 2018 by kieranperez

[Joseph Maynor]

 

[ajasatya]

@kieranperez amazing stuff. thanks for elaborating