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Do you have lies that you feed?

  It seems virtually impossible to extricate yourself from the fantasy that you have created and walk away feeling whole and respected by the people that you initially lied to.

  You don’t need to worry about being respected by those people. The only person who matters in this scenario is you and your respect for yourself.

  It is not the end of the world to admit fault to the individuals that you shared a deceitful narrative with. Taking accountability and ownership for your behavior and your actions is all that is necessary in this process. Going into this action of accountability is incredibly courageous because there will always be people who will seek to judge and blame. There will always be people who will find fault and use your narrative against you.

  Do it anyway.

  Take your power back.

  Stop feeding those little lie-gremlins that you created from a fear-based thinking mindset.

  The judgment that you receive from others is irrelevant to your healing.

  I understand your lies may have caused others pain and confusion. It is your responsibility to accept this as part of your healing and growth. Taking ownership for the insult and injury you have caused through your own trauma-induced behaviors is critical to your wellness. Their judgment of you through their pain is not going to kill you.

  Accept this with love and compassion and kindness for yourself, as well as for those you have harmed.

  This process will eradicate the buildup of deceit and betrayal in the lives that you have been investing your energy into. This energy can now be freed up to be focused into a love-based mindset geared towards, not only healing of yourself, but encouraging and inspiring others to do the same.

  Naturally, of course, this process does not occur overnight, but your thought process can change quickly. Once you realize there is a mess to be cleaned up you will feel freer and will start acting in a love-based growth mindset. You will learn to expect and accept the judgment and you will learn to be OK with that. You will learn that anyone who harbors negative feedback or judgment and blame for you, is doing so out of their own pain or their projection of pain toward you. Remember to always accept only what you need to as a measure of accountability and to enforce healthy boundaries against that which you do not.

  Dealing with liars

  Do you tolerate being lied to?

  Do you hesitate calling people out when you know they are feeding you a line?

  When you know you’re being lied to, how does it make you feel?

  When you discover someone has been lying to you, how do you handle it?

  Why do you think people lie to you?

  The first year I was on active duty in the Air Force, I met this guy who really made me feel special. I was 21 and still heartbroken from the breakup prior to my enlistment. I never thought that I would ever feel a connection that strongly ever again as most youngsters do. He was unfailingly charismatic, an amazing dancer, and kept me laughing all the time. I once even mentioned how I was saving up money to buy a bicycle. The next day, he shows up to my dorm room with a brand new 10 speed. We spent countless nights doing what young adults do when given privacy and alone time. It was thrilling. I felt beautiful and loved and whole. One day while he was at work, I went to his dorm room to surprise him when he returned from his shift. I was getting ready to go on leave for two weeks for my sister’s wedding and wanted to spend as much time as possible with him before my departure. While waiting for him, I started to snoop through his wall locker and found a receipt from a jewelry store for a diamond ring. Not sure why I started snooping to begin with. I was completely shocked. I knew that I wanted to marry this guy, but I had no idea that our relationship was moving that fast. I made sure to put the receipt back exactly where I found it and took measures to calm myself down. He returned from work that day, quite unceremoniously, considering what I had recently discovered. In fact, he seemed somewhat “off”. He took me to the airport the following day and promised to take care of my car for me while I was gone. Upon my return two weeks later, he met me at the airport in my vehicle, which he had personally detailed inside and out, and presented me with a bouquet of roses and a bottle of wine. We picked up immediately where we had left off two weeks prior. He didn’t leave any clues or indications that he was thinking about marriage. While it was driving me nuts, I certainly did not feel entitled to address the issue or to ask him what was going on. I just assumed I would sit and wait for him to ask me. Looking back, I am certain that I assumed his demeanor was due to his nervousness in asking me to marry him and nothing more. He and I did the same work, but, because our relationship was well known, flight leadership was determined to keep us separate during our workday. On this one, particular, day I knew where he had been working and what the phone number was. Each time I attempted to call him, his coworker would tell me that he was busy and would call me back, which he never did. At the end of our shift, we were picked up in a van and taken back to the armory to turn in our firearms. On this day, the van was noticeably late in picking us up. I asked my flight Sergeant why they were so late picking us up. He said he would talk to me later about it. My frustration was rising. We arrive to the armory and, as I get downstairs, I can see my boyfriend all the way at the end of the hallway. I yelled out to him, but he ignored me and went out the side door. I attempted to follow him, but my flight sergeant reached out and stopped me and stated that he needed to talk to me. I told my flight sergeant I would talk to him later and that I need to catch up with my boyfriend. He continued to block my egress and stated, “That’s why I need to talk to you.” Again, so much confusion. My flight chief walked me out of the armory and, as we were walking tried to explain to me my boyfriend was going to talk to me later and he wanted to make sure that I was up for a very deep conversation. I tried to press him to get more details, but he refused to budge and stated only that my boyfriend would have to give me those details. I immediately made my way to my boyfriend’s dorm room. I pounded heavily on his door while yelling “I know you’re in there! What is going on?!” He answered the door and had clearly been crying.

  His entire dorm room was covered with used tissues. I was horrified and my mind was racing. Something is definitely wrong. I sat down beside him on his bed and put my arm around him. I wanted to comfort him, as he was clearly in profound distress. I reassured him, “what is it? What is going on? I can help you. I love you.” He simply looked up at me with his tear stained eyes and runny nose and said, “She’s pregnant.” “Who’s pregnant?” “My ex.”

  Over the next couple of hours, he proceeded to spin a tail that encompassed terms such as “delayed pregnancy”. He tried to convince me he had not actually cheated on me during my trip for my sister’s wedding but, instead, wanted me to believe that a sexual encounter he had with her before we get together resulted in a “delayed pregnancy”. Unbelievable. He was spinning out of control with his deceit.

  “I thought you were going to propose to me.” I blurted this out without thinking. My mind was racing and everything was a blur. He just stared at me blankly. “Why did you think that?” I explained to him that I had been snooping and found the receipt from the jewelry store in his wall locker before I had traveled back home for the wedding.

  Then it hit me. He wasn’t cheating on me. He hadn’t been cheating on me at all. He was cheating on her with me. The ring was never meant for me. It was for her. She was his high school sweetheart and he’d told me many times they were over. This came up several times, as she routinely requested entry onto the air force base to visit him. She had even, innocently enough, approached me requesting a visitor pass. At the time, I actually felt sorry for her. I felt like a fool. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  I stood up and walked out of his room without any words. I had been rattled to my core. It’s the numbness I remember now. I had actually been able to step out of my emotional headspace and I pushed tha
t piece of pain so deep, I didn’t address it for many years. I avoided him from that point on, at all cost. It was difficult as we lived in the same dormitory and, from time to time, we would pass each other, either in our cars driving in opposite directions, or we’d see each other from afar. He tried to wave at me a couple of times. I pretended not to notice even though I would go to my room and cry afterwards. One day, I realized that he wasn’t in the dorms anymore. Friends and co-workers told me that he’d married her and that they just had a baby. Good riddance.

  His deceit and betrayal affected me deeply and still resonates with me today. However, I understand now his need to lie had absolutely nothing to do with me but, instead, came from a deeply rooted sense of pain and lack of worthiness on his part.

  Not that I would have ever considered committing that level of betrayal in a relationship, I can attest that this experience and the pain that it left me with certainly inoculated me from ever lying to a potential partner.

  Has anyone ever lied to you and hurt you so deeply it changed the way you think?

  Do you maintain relationships and or contact with people that you know are dishonest?

  Do you have family members that lie regularly to you and to other people, but because they are relatives you tolerate this behavior?

  It is completely up to you to determine your sense of value when it comes to honesty. It is important, as a part of your own wellness and your own evolution to your spiritual growth, to identify what is important to you with regards to honesty. There is no black-and-white, right or wrong template to determine how to move forward in these dynamics with yourself and others. It is, however, critical to explore consciously where your values are and to align yourself with those values as a measure of healing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Humility

  The key to making positive and permanent change in our lives is to accept our weaknesses as part of our authentic selves, willfully and honestly, with kindness and compassion.

  Humility is the root word of humiliation, however, the two are vastly different concepts.

  Humility is the opposite of pride.

  What does it mean to you to have humility?

  How do you demonstrate humility in your day-to-day activities?

  Do you find it difficult to express humility?

  Do you feel that when you are humble that you are overly vulnerable to attack and judgment from others?

  The practice of mindfulness cultivates love-based emotional responses. When we respond to our environment from a place of love, then it is only natural for us to respond with humility. When we are humble, we respond to others and to interactions within our environment in a way that is open and accepting, without judgment or blame.

  Bear in mind, transitioning from fear-based thinking and prideful behavior is difficult when it is your automatic response. Anyone who has been groomed to feel attacked or placed in a position of unworthiness will naturally respond to this dynamic with unease and trepidation. It is important to realize that just because a person lacks humility, does not indicate a lack of character or low personal morals and ethics. It is an indication of someone who has been groomed to believe that they must respond to their environment with fear-based thinking. Nothing more. It’s worth stating, as well, that individuals who regularly function without humility could very well be doing it only because they have never been demonstrated positive and affirming ways of interaction with others. This can absolutely tie into cultural influences in determining how a person should or should not interact with other people. The lesson here is that when we know better, we do better. If cultural influences have dictated that a person should value another group of people less than themselves, then that is a thinking error that should be remedied. We are all products of our environment, good and bad alike.

  Are you a humble person?

  Do you struggle with prideful behavior and lack of humility?

  Do you think that being humble equals being weak?

  If lack of humility is something you are struggling with, what are the reasons for this struggle? Are they cultural? Do you have toxic influences in your life that bear judgment and blame projected at you for trying to make positive changes in your life and in how you think and feel?

  Remember, each day that you are afforded here on this planet is an opportunity to start anew.

  Are you who you want to be? If not, why?

  You deserve the inspiration to grow and change and evolve just as much as you hold the responsibility to be humble and vulnerable to your environment.

  This is all true simply because your worth is intangible and implicit, all because you are here. Your humility is an extension of our mutual consciousness and collective humanity, directed in love at yourself, as well as others. Humility is strength, not weakness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Forgiveness

  Most of us have been told, at one point or another, that forgiveness is essential to living a full and happy life. We may understand this logically, but forgiveness itself is difficult to come by when we are still hurting.

  When I was an adolescent, I began to keep a diary. It was a book that did not have a lock, or any kind of security affixed to it, but merely a hardback cover with a series of blank lined pages. I believe I was around 14 years old when I started to document my feelings. Occasionally, the entries would involve some petty misunderstanding with a friend or two. Often, it was the normal dramatic interactions of young teenage girls. However, there were passages in my diary that were filled with anger and darkness directed at my father. Looking back on these pages, I see a child starving for affection and approval and validation. Looking through the pages of this old diary through my wiser clinical lens, I can remember clearly the grip of addiction that my father had to come to. I know now that he suffered immeasurable emotional pain throughout his entire life up until his death. This pain created a need for a numbing agent. He used a variety of substances to satiate his agony. Understandably, anyone who is under the influence of a substance is not going to have the capacity to provide the nurturing love towards their children. I see that now. I can even express compassion for him and what he was dealing with. I can say without hesitation I am quite proud of my own emotional growth and evolution and being able to recognize logically the reasons behind my father’s neglect as well as his regular sadistic abuse of me and my siblings.

  “I wish he would die. I would go to his funeral and put a dead daisy on top of his casket. I would flip him the bird and walk out,” wrote a then angry 15-year-old version of myself. While I do not remember what it was that caused me to make that entry, I can safely assume that he had angrily beat me with a leather strap for some benign excuse. I wasn’t a bad kid. I was a normal kid who got into normal things. I most certainly never deserved any of the physical abuse that I received. Neither did my siblings. Having been a parent myself, I am all-too familiar of being angry at my child while sober. I never physically abused my children, but I do recall the unrelenting frustration of not being able to adequately correct their behavior. As far as my father was concerned, I assume, that in his inebriated state, his rage fueled by his own trauma was the catalyst that justified his abuse, in his mind, at least.

  For me, it has taken many years for me to remove my emotional response from my abuse and to be able to articulate my experiences, without judgment, in a logical frame of mind. The truth is, while I did not deserve any of his mal-treatment, I also recognize I did not receive this abuse as a merit of my own character. I was simply there, and therefore, a target.

  As time moved on and as I grew into adulthood and moved away, my experiences and my relationships with others were colored by my trauma. While at times my own anger became a crutch, I can look back and be grateful for the growth and understanding I achieved through these painful experiences.

  As I attempted to maintain and or reconnect with my parents,
it became apparent that my father’s addiction and my mother’s willful and blind adoration and delusion was simply too toxic for me to allow. My father had his single engine pilot’s license and, while high on opiates, would operate an aircraft. He took my young son and flew him across several states lines many years ago, unbeknownst to me until after their arrival and subsequent phone call. I attempted to resolve this issue and achieve a sense of boundaries, but was unsuccessful, as my father was simply unwilling to abide by any rules that were not his own. Therefore, I chose to disconnect all contact from my father. He would respond to my efforts by preventing my mother from interacting with me. I received an enormous amount of backlash from family and friends, who could not understand how I could cut my parents out of my life. I didn’t understand why they didn’t support me. In fact, the only people who truly understood what I have been dealing with and respected my decision was but a small handful of close friends, as well as my then husband.

  Disconnecting from my parents was one of the most difficult and, yet, most empowering decisions I have ever made. I simply refused to allow their toxic behavior to be a negative influence. I refused to maintain any contact due to their unwillingness to be respectful of my wishes. It is not something that I would ever wish for anyone to have to go through. However, we simply cannot control the actions of other people. We can only control our response to their actions.

  Regardless of what they may have thought of me at the time, I genuinely always wanted the best for them. In fact, for many years after our estrangement, I often wished that both of my parents would seek therapy and would understand and respect my feelings. I was hopeful that my father would find some help with his addiction and that my mother would be able to be honest with herself.

  I began to dig in and do some real introspective work on myself with a therapist. I learned a lot about how I had been responding to others as a result of my own trauma. At one point, I felt comfortable enough to send a message to my mother on Facebook, indicating to her that I had forgiven her as well as my father. Her response to me was “we can’t accept your forgiveness if we haven’t done anything wrong.”