Cheryl Wright

A lie can ac­com­plish de­sired out­comes. It may cam­ou­flage emo­tion­al trau­ma, when the truth is too painful to bear. It may pro­vide com­fort in an un­easy sit­u­a­tion, con­fi­dence and courage in un­cer­tain­ty, a spe­cif­ic re­sponse from some­one, a wel­come op­por­tu­ni­ty.... How­ev­er we dress it up, colour it, mask it, change its name or de­scribe it, a lie is a lie. What­ev­er our rea­sons for telling a lie and how­ev­er vig­or­ous we strive to live with it or in spite of it, even­tu­al­ly, the day of reck­on­ing comes. If you are liv­ing with a lie or you are tempt­ed to deal with a cur­rent cir­cum­stance with a lie, con­sid­er the con­se­quences. Tell the truth, the whole truth and noth­ing but the truth, be­cause it will set you free:

To heal

Af­ter we in­tro­duce a lie in­to a sit­u­a­tion, we can't walk away emo­tion­al­ly un­scathed. In fact, our hearts are scarred and they be­come a bur­den we drag with us in­to all as­pects of our lives. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the lie hov­ers silent­ly over us in all our deal­ings. Then, when we least ex­pect it, it blows up, dis­rupts our lives and throws us in­to an emo­tion­al tail­spin. If the emo­tion­al bur­den of a lie you told still haunts you, reac­quaint your­self with the truth and seek a way to make things right. You will re­lieve your­self of the bur­den and be­gin to heal the emo­tion­al wounds.

To face re­al­i­ty

A lie clouds our per­spec­tive and pre­vents us from as­sess­ing a sit­u­a­tion ac­cu­rate­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it is an act of de­nial. We may see on­ly some­one else's cul­pa­bil­i­ty and not our own. We may con­jure up our own ver­sion of an event and em­brace it as pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive, to match what we want in­stead of re­al­i­ty. If you man­age your fears, rein in your anx­i­eties, har­ness your con­fi­dence and stick with the truth, you can face the re­al­i­ty of any sit­u­a­tion, head-on.

To gen­er­ate ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions

How do you find so­lu­tions to a prob­lem that is shroud­ed in a lie? How do you ap­ply a fair so­lu­tion to a fal­la­cious sit­u­a­tion? The first step to solv­ing a prob­lem is to lift the veil of false­hood to re­veal and ac­cept the truth. On­ly then can you gen­er­ate the ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tion.

To move for­ward

We de­ceive our­selves if we think that we can change and move for­ward, while liv­ing based on a lie. Our lies fol­low us and pre­vent us from achiev­ing and en­joy­ing the full breath of life. When de­cep­tion fea­tures in our per­son­al lives, our re­la­tion­ships and our ca­reers, we in­evitably reach a point where we must come clean be­fore mak­ing any nec­es­sary changes or progress. Do you want to make a change in your life but have hit a snag be­cause of a lie? Own up to the truth and if nec­es­sary, back­track and make amends to fa­cil­i­tate change and move for­ward.

To hope

To main­tain a lie is to man­gle hope for a mean­ing­ful life, for dreams that are a joy to pur­sue and achieve and for re­la­tion­ships built on trust. It is use­less to hold on to hope with one hand and a lie with the oth­er. If you re­lease the lie by ad­mit­ting the truth, you could throw your­self ful­ly in­to liv­ing with hope. The sto­ry be­hind our lies and the con­se­quences we live with may be dif­fer­ent. How­ev­er, the truth about the truth can be the same for each of us be­cause the truth sets us free to live with­out re­gret or fear and to live with grat­i­tude for and en­joy­ment of a full and pur­pose­ful life.