Anna

Something I wonder about are the times when we 'have' to lie to not hurt someone.

Let me give you an example. I met a member here, who became so rigorously honest that she would never, ever lie. There was a birthday party for her in which her 10 year old neice gave her a goofy present (I forget the details, but something she didn't like at all). She told the child that she didn't like the gift. I can't do that. I see no reason to purposely hurt someone.

allport

I used to work with a woman who prided herself on her rigourous honest lol

She was genuinely unpleasant to spend time with.

Dee74

I agree with Keen2, Anna and Allport - sometimes too much honesty can be another form of self centredness and ego gratification, I think.

Like so many other things now, it's all about the balance....

D

Boleo

I have come to appreciate that there are 3 separate layers of honesty;

1. Honest with ourselves
2. Honest with God
3. Honest with another human being

IMO getting honest with myself was the kind most beneficial to me as an addict. As long as I suffer from self-deception my disease still has control of some part of me and might cause me to drink again.

As far as " How do you know you're not lying to yourself" goes, I like find the following dialog useful:

Student: "What part of human thing is delusional?"

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: "100%"

Alive

I got shocked at how one can be so honest with other people and not honest with oneself. How we run away from reality, lie to ourselves and run away from life.

I was "married" to a compulsive liar. I managed to understand sometimes honesty can be worked at. I was really mad at times, until i understood it's an escape. And if i lied to myself i guess i could try to understand someone would also be dishonest. It's part of mankind's gifts for one to struggle with their existence. I still believe it requires counseling for it's a mental process. There needs to be an internal dialogue to stop lying or running away, and that is a hard thing to achieve for any person.

Of course honesty can't be brutal, but true honesty isn't, because it's a giving situation, for the rise of reality, and after honesty hurts it will allow building a new safer foundation.

thanks for this thread Matt

Tazman53

I work very hard at being brutally honest with myself and politely honest with all others.

I still catch myself trying to lie to myself........ progress and not perfection!!!!! This saves me from beating myself up when I catch me lying to myself.

There are white lies that I do tell, an example is when a mother has a baby with her, I do not care how ugly that baby is, I will bend over backwards to find something "Cute" about that child to where I can say something like, "Wow she has long eyelashes!". I would never say to her "My God woman, what in the world is wrong with that kid, that is the ugliest baby I have ever seen!"

I try to keep my mouth simply shut if something I am about to say may hurt some one.

I really try and watch myself when some one asks my opinion on something, depending upon the person and what they are asking me about I will either give my honest opinion, or in a round about way I will say "Well if it was me in that situation I would/or would not........." Or I would once again depending upon what they were asking ask them if they have thought about what may happen if they do what they are asking me about.

Now I will say this, I no longer will buy into some ones BS, if I KNOW that what they are thinking about doing will harm them or some one else I will let them know.

The hardest thing I have to deal with is when my answer may be an embarrasement to me, but I am making progress on that as well, as I come more and more to the realization that I am far from being perfect I am able to pretty quickly say I was wrong.

One more thing I have found far easier to say is "I do not know.", I have found that trying to blow smoke up some ones rear end about something I do not know anything about makes me look VERY dumb.

matt88

Yea, alot of people think that being honest equates to being negative, judgmental, or having your glass constantly half empty. They're usually the types who think "they're telling it like it is". Or they think that realism must equal pessimism - which of course isn't the case.

stephnc

Thanks for this thread. I've had a similar revelation about myself and it's pretty shocking.

Mattcake

Thanks for the replies I've just spent all afternoon with a printout of the thread and several litres of Fanta, trying to make some sense out of this.

First and foremost, like Steam said, I'm being too harsh on myself; I think that I'll let myself off the hook -just a bit- because the dishonesty I've been practicing was unconscious. I was literally oblivious of what I was doing. This does not mean that I'm not willing to start cultivating more rigorous, thorough honesty in my life.

Part of the shock came from suddenly discovering that I've been telling myself a story about my life that is not necessarily true. It's not the events, but rather my portrayal of them that is inaccurate. To put it plainly, I've been telling myself what I want to hear. An internal dialogue, like Alive mentioned. And now it's like a a layer (of illusion?) has somewhy dissolved, and I look at this story and cannot believe in it... not in good faith, anyway.

Boleo used a term that seems pretty accurate: self-deception. Maybe that's what I was doing. Stoney, you wondered how you'd know if you were lying to yourself.. Up until yesterday, I had this... thing. If, in general, I know what I want, why am I moving in the opposite direction? I am investing a lot of work in moving towards a certain direction, so why isn't it paying off? Well, I had an outdated map. I didn't *really* want those things, even though my mind kept telling me that I did. O.o. Zencat nailed this one.

Fear.. Hevyn, Anna, Astro, Dee, Firehazard, Oddspot mentioned this. I agree with what they said. Whatever lies I might have consciously told stemmed from fear one fear or another. What Mike said really resonated with me - I've discovered that, deep down, I fear happiness. Something to work on, to say the least

Cliff, your response brought a smile to my face - that's great progress Maybe all it takes is to quiet down for a moment, and ask oneself: "What am I really feeling now?". And listen ;-)

What now? I'll hold on to Taz's line "Brutally honest with myself, politely honest with others". I also like Patrick's breaking down walls analogy.. Work in progress, unfolding process, balance. About "truth hurts". Well, I think that being oblivious to it hurts much more.

Hugs to all of you. Thank you

tigers13

I never realized how much I lied to myself and others until I got clean. I was so self righteous in telling people how much I hated lying. This really hit home after having several relapses, then finally getting clean and staying clean. I think it's a part of our addictive nature, to lie. I lied to myself that I didn't have a problem, I could control it, I wasn't hurting anyone, and my favorite...at least it's legal.

I was so sure that I could "control" it, that I would hide my bottles all over, telling myself that it was only because I didn't want others to jump on my case about it.

I think most people lie because of their own thoughts and expectations they have of themselves...and out of fear. Fear of being judged, fear of the unknown and fear that you may not have all the answers. I'm not sure why, but for me it's easier to tell the truth to others than it is to myself.

Mattcake

Yeah, I can relate to this... Lying and fear are the heart of addiction..