Day 152 – Detecting Lies

For some reason I stumbled upon a blog article on how to detect when a person is lying. It was a fun read. There are many telling signs someone might be lying. These include – the story being told is short, fragmented and confusing with missing details, they avoid eye contact or exactly the opposite – too much eye contact, they have irregular breathing, their voice is unsteady, they blame a lot of outside forces or people, they touch their nose or part of their face a lot, they touch their neck or other vulnerable parts of their body, the rate of blinking in their eyes changes frequently, they have a fake smile or their laughter seems forced, and finally you have a plain instinct that what they are saying is not true.

I instantly applied this to myself. What I thought of – are there things that I am telling myself that are just not true? Am I lying to myself? Do I exhibit any of these signs when I am trying to talk myself into a course of action?

Overt lying is probably easy to correct over time, but lying to yourself – that is a whole other world of struggle. Since the 365 commitment is all about embracing the suck, I spent some time this morning as part of my commitment doing some inspection on what I might be lying to myself about.

Sure enough – I found a few things. Nothing earth shattering, but certainly a few ugly truths that I was deliberately avoiding. I am not going to share – way to deeply personal – but very revealing. Are you lying to yourself about something? Is their a cold hard truth staring you in the face that you are doing everything under your power to avoid?

The funny thing is – if that is the case – I bet you are exhibiting some of these signs. Blaming everyone and everything around you, irregular breathing, almost panic like symptoms when you get close to realizing the truth. The truth can be a very uncomfortable dragon to deal with, but honestly the dragon that you are facing is much less terrifying then the unseen beast down an unlit corridor that is breathing heavy and scratching claws along the floor.

I have also noticed that when you are facing the truth and speaking plainly about it to yourself and to others, you start to realize that it really is not that bad and there are a lot of people that are around to help you. Mom was right – covering a lie only makes it worse.

Guy Reams (152)
365 Member