“Love is how you become Real”
John Green – Turtles All The Way Down
Dear Grandchild,
What do you do when someone has told a lie about you? This is one of the toughest questions and even tougher quandaries to solve as it WILL happen to you as has happened to everyone. Your first flood of emotions will consist of anger, confusion, hurt, disbelief, but most of all, anger. Your natural reaction will arise with the urgent need to defend yourself, justify your intentions, correct their false assertions in an attempt to reverse time and take away the pain of the lie. You’ll want them to say, “Oh, I understand now. That’s bad on me for saying something that wasn’t true. I’m sorry.”
That won’t happen. The lie has been told and more often than not, they will double down and back their misguided claim with even more torrid vehemence, because if they don’t, they have to admit they were wrong, their thinking was misguided. But humans are vested in their pride and therefore their lie must be true. After all, a lie is nothing more than a label that simplifies human engagement into convenient, manageable boxes. They put you in a box from their dark imagination – “the world, being full of liars, thinks everything is a lie” (quoted from “Victory City”) – because they yearn for what you are experiencing in reality, a life they want for themselves but is yet to be attained.
In the box, they don’t have to ask you questions, clarify truth from fiction, nor confront their personal inner conflicts that drove them to put you away from their view. Shut tight the lid! Shove you in a closet! And that is the essence of a lie. It reveals the conflicted, fearful, and lonely nature they can’t stand about themselves – not the truth about you.
People who lie don’t know how to laugh because people who lie, do not have love in their heart. Love and lies cannot co-exist. The professor of love, Leo Buscalglia proclaimed, “You can only give away what you have.” If not love, then what? A loving person wouldn’t stand for setting aside a fellow human being.
Who told the lie? If it’s a stranger, someone not of your circle, someone unknown to you, the best answer, in some ways, is the easiest – walk away. They’re going to believe what they believe and you will not change their mind. Brush the dust from your feet and live your life knowing you are just like everyone else – not universally liked or loved! This will be difficult because we have an “idealized” self that can’t believe the WHOLE WORLD doesn’t love us! Yet, this must be an accepted reality and move on.
If it’s someone you love and care about, you are appalled they would think such thoughts about you. You may attempt to have a conversation and offer an alternative point of view to their misinterpretations. They MAY see the error of their beliefs and accept the truth of what you present. More often it’ll be “huh . . . sure. Okay. Whatever you say” to your face and go on believing the lie, maybe even spreading it further to give them credence because, after all, who wants to admit they were wrong.
This will be your challenge – not to give them any power. After presenting your case and they do not believe you, are you willing to continue to live your life with integrity and truth? Your shadow self will want to lash out, make your own attempts to discredit them. But this will only lead you down THEIR path. As author and researcher of emotions, Brene Brown points out, “anger creates more anger.” They want you to conform to their darkness to validate their tragic experience. Will you stay in the light of your integrity and live as one who has walked the journey of self-discovery and, to the delight of philosopher Immanuel Kant, chosen the honesty of love over the charade of a lie?
To know yourself is not to be unhurt, but to remain unchanged.
Slay this dragon by living in love. Choose kindness and truth. Those who know you best will always find a way to stand by your side. Will you say with novelist Salman Rushdie, after an attempted assassination on his life, that he needed to “write the next chapter in the book of his life. The attack . . . was ugly, but it didn’t ruin the book. One could turn the page, and go on.”
Adjust what needs to be adjusted. Cast off what needs to be cast off from negative feelings and attitudes. Never set aside people who love you and hold fast to your inner compass that will always guide you to love, compassion, and trust. Always remember, while the lie and its intended pain may persist in the present, right here, right now – still – you will never be alone.
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