Don’t believe everything you hear.
But, I saw it on the internet so it must be true.
Right, I wouldn’t lie to you!
And the best or I should say scariest lie to hear, “I’m from the government, I’m here to help!”
I did a post recently about being unapologetically authentic.
I believe that we need to be truthful in our interactions with others
And we need to be truthful in our discussions with ourselves.
You lie to yourself daily.
You tell yourself that you don’t have a problem with this that or the other thing
You tell yourself that everything is fine when you know it isn’t
You look at the world and believe that everyone only has good intentions or that everyone only has bad intentions.
That’s the thing.
The truth is almost always somewhere in the middle.
There is going to be backlash to any extreme views, but what happens when no one recognizes the extremes as extreme anymore?
What happens when you can’t recognize right from wrong?
What happens when you don’t know up from down, inside from outside, and are told that a circle is a square or vice versa?
What happens when philosophies of men are mingled with scripture and sold to you as “how it’s always been?”
What happens when you lie to yourself?
The answer is confusion, frustration, rose colored glasses, apathy, and a general feeling of unease.
In other words, you stop moving forward and are stuck.
You can’t move forward because you don’t know which way is forward.
How can you improve if you don’t know what is real and what is not?
How can you succeed if you don’t have goals based on a worthy ideal?
How can you develop the life you desire if you can’t visualize it?
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a mean and ugly place and will beat you down if you let it, according to Rocky.
At the same time, the world is a wonderful, amazing place full of good people, miracles and joy.
The question therefore is, how can you tell the difference? How can you see through the mess?
How can you find truth from fiction?
How can you be guided and know which guides to follow?
The world is kaput! But you can navigate through to the life you desire. That’s what we’re talking about today.
Welcome to toddtalks where I help you design your best life. Not the life I design for you but the life you desire.
Intuition, the holy spirit, revelation, sprit guide, call it what you will, but each of us are born with an innate sense of good and evil, right and wrong, and as we grow, we either develop the ability to listen to that guidance or we push it down until we don’t hear it anymore. We lose it through the things we were taught, or the things we are teaching the young.
Why do you think there was such an outcry about the Florida law called by many the “Don’t say gay” bill? The law didn’t say anything to that effect, instead it said that you couldn’t teach sex ed, or anything sexually oriented to children in schools grades kindergarten to 3rd grade. That’s ages 4-9 years old.
Why would that be controversial?
Shouldn’t be, but it became a thing. We as a society sacrifice ideas of good and evil, dumb down moral laws, abstain from judging anything in order to be inclusive or considered open and welcoming to all. I don’t have a problem with anybody, I don’t discriminate, heck I usually state that who am I to judge because your sins are different than mine.
Yet as a society, we have to have a moral code. There is such a thing as right and wrong. When you lose morality, you lose the ability to discern truth from lies. When you lose morality, you begin to lose that intuition that helps guide you to improve your life. Look at what happened with FTX, where Samuel bankman freed was able to allegedly bilk billions of dollars from his investors, get a slap on the wrist at first, and then post 100 million dollars in bail after stating publicly that he didn’t have 100, 000 to his name.
There are cases of truth being difficult to find all over the place. Lies seem to be something that comes naturally to people today. No one is immune.
I’ve shown some major scandals, but hitting closer to home, what lies do you tell yourself?
And how can you get to where you can see them for what they are and begin to live unapologetically honest and authentic?
First, there’s a great story that I’ve been rereading. It’s a self-help book written in story form and tells the story of a man hired as a manager at a company that thought he had it all. He thought he was the top dog. His marriage was failing, they never talked anymore other than in anger. He was swift to anger and call his coworkers to the table to find fault. He blamed everyone around him when things weren’t going right.
Sound even a bit familiar. Most of us tend to begin to blame those around us when things aren’t going the way we want them.
The point of the story is that he had to learn that he was in the box with his thinking. Being in the box meant that he exaggerated the negatives of those around him and emphasized and blew out of proportion his own good qualities. Therefore, in his interactions with others he couldn’t see that he shared much of the blame or was the cause of the problems when things would go wrong.
He was in the box.
He had to learn to recognize that he was in the box.
I’ve said it many times. The first step to fixing a problem, is recognizing there is a problem.
We have to recognize when we’re in the box, which for most of us right now, it’s all the time. We’re delusional if we think we aren’t in the box.
The first step to get out of the box and fix the problem, is to recognize that we are in the box.
The second step is to take a shortcut off the road we are on because we recognize that we are in the box.
The shortcut is accountability.
Once we assess that we are seeing things from a distorted view, we can take accountability of ourselves in an honest way.
When you know you’re in the box, you can recognize where you’re misjudging the situation…how, by allowing yourself to see things from the other person’s point of view.
Take a moment and think of a situation. Maybe you got in a fight with your spouse or a sibling, a friend, significant other, dog walker, boss, girlfriend, monkey tamer…doesn’t matter, just think of a situation. When you were angry and fighting. You saw the other person as unreasonable, hard-headed, stupid, careless, angry, mean, etc.
You didn’t understand how they could not see things your way and blah blah blah…you’re pointing fingers, lots of them. At the other person. And you’re probably seeing yourself as the sane one in the situation. The victim of their hostility. The golden knight with the right path or idea that they just won’t listen to. They must not like you…etc
When you’re in the box, you become a victim. Before you get in the box, did you think all the negative things about the other person? Probably not, unless it’s been going on a long time and you’re permanently in the box towards the other person.
You need to take a step out and consider the situation the way the other person may see it.
See things from a different point of view.
This may not change the situation, but it can allow you to get out of the victim mentality, out of the box and be able to see a better way of handling the situation.
The insights in the book are amazing about how to deal with others.
Because when you’re in the box…you’re delusional.
You see yourself as WAY more right and perfect than you actually are. And you see others as WAY more messed up and wrong than they actually are.
Therefore, you are in a state of self-delusion…otherwise known as lying to yourself.
And we are all in this state, a lot of the time.
Our perceptions color our view of the world. I’ve spoken about those numerous times.
As you begin to set your vision for 2023, get out of the box and get your vision right so that you can move forward with purpose and clarity. When you help other people grow, it helps you.
When you move forward, your vision improves.
When you take stock of who you are and who you want to be, your life can truly transform.
This is what I mean when I say to get out of the box
This is what I mean when I say to get your head right
This is what I mean when I say that you’re not perfect.
Neither am I but I am working on it.
If you want help, I am offering a 4-week intensive coaching practice to help you make the changes you need to make to decide, act and assess your life and where you want to be a year from now. Message me at the link below toddtalksllc@gmail.com, or sign up for a free 10 minute strategy call in the calendar link in the show notes.
If you take nothing away from this episode, take this message.
You’re lying to yourself. Others are lying to you. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and you need to get out of the box to see it.
I can help!
This is toddtalks where I help you design the life you desire. Toddtalks are available on Apple, Spotify, everywhere you listen to podcasts.
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And as always, have a blessed day!