The Lies We Believe To Be True

Sometimes the hardest truth is realizing that people may believe the stories they’re telling.

On this walk, I reflect on lying, memory, shame, and the unsettling space between deliberate deception and distorted recall. Moving through examples from media, relationships, and personal experience, I explore how people can come to believe their own version of events—and how that blurring of reality shapes conflict, false accusation, and gaslighting. A thoughtful episode about truth, perception, and finding peace when realities no longer fully align.

Walk with me.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Embodied Wisdom. It's a walk and a talk.

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Dr.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Brock. Hi from my neighborhood. It is a very, very lovely day. So it's nice to be out on a walk with all of you. Well, today the topic of lying has come up for me. Lying, liars, lying to uh yourself, believing what you want to believe, remembering things the way you remember them, which may not be completely whole. Um so I just had this experience where um I don't, I don't I don't want to talk about the political landscape at all, really. I um in order to get this example across. So I think I'm gonna just like neutralize um the material, because otherwise it could get um, I think, too convoluted. But I think that if I wanted to use the land the political landscape or the media landscape, um, because I sit and I do what I do, um it's very I to me it's very important that I remain remain um centralized because people bring me all kinds of viewpoints. And in this political landscape, each side thinks the other side is lying. And then there's proof, but you don't know if the proof is proof that people are lying. Are people just believing the truths they want to believe? You know, it's very, very, very difficult to uh in today's world understand what the truth is, especially in the political landscape. Um, I guess that's what we all share. But I want to talk about this on a larger level. So the reality is that, you know, I who knows who's lying. So I'm even gonna start with that. But what what came up for me is that someone had told a story to me was a very feasible story of something that of a way that Trump was violated, you know, violating. Easy story to believe. Both people, I think, would believe it. But but when I was discussing it with my husband, hi, um, he said, this is completely implausible. And I, and but this is the point. I didn't remember that. We'd seen a documentary, we came out of the documentary and we were in complete disagreement, and that is not usually what happens. Now, that being said, I wasn't like completely convinced of anything. Like, I wasn't like, oh, her story is right, his story is wrong. I wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't like that for me. But the point is, is that when I went, is that when I heard this, I had completely forgotten that we had had that conversation. He reminded me. And I'm I'm disturbed. I'm disturbed that I didn't remember that part of the conversation. I remembered my processing, but I didn't remember that that I'd come to the conclusion that I had actually believed her story over his story. I had remembered myself being more value neutral. And I was like, oh my god, like wait a second. So if I had defended myself in that moment, I didn't, because I remembered when he brought it back to me. But if I had defended myself in that moment, it would have been a lot like I feel when I say to someone, that's not what I said. And I I think it's interesting because people can come to my office, or they could be my kid, or they could be anybody, and they will take in what I said through a certain lens, and that lens defines your reality. So it's scary that I know other people say this is, you know, I've like another way to look at this is wow, that's interesting. What self did that? What self didn't remember? But I believe that this is potentially phenomenological, you know, for all of us. It's a human experience. Like what another example I could give is like leaving a cabinet door open, and then coming home being like later, did I leave that cabinet door open? I mean, I am known for this. Leaving a cabinet door open, a draw open, and and um, and not and not and like just coming back and be like, who did that? And and and and it and it gets me nervous, but I think the reason why it gets me nervous is probably more of this phenomenon that I'm talking about here, that I didn't remember that part of the story on recall. I remembered it on recognition. Now, the difference between recall and recognition is when you pull it up yourself. This is why tests can be so hard, you know. Like, I'm such an in the end, like I spent so much time in school, so my school analogies will come up a lot, but it's sort of like recall is when like you remember it on your own, like an open-ended question where you have to write everything out. It takes a lot more studying, right? Than a rec a recognition when you do the multiple choice. So I think that's interesting because that's that's where we talk about like polarized realities versus um integrated shared realities. We've talked about this before. Um, so if you're coming to this um, you know, you're just listening to this one, but you haven't listened to what has come before it, what what I say about that is that I'll talk about the structure of gaslighting and the gaslit. And what I would say is people who gaslight others as a structural phenomenon means that you they can only have their own reality. Um and the gaslit must go along with that reality, otherwise, you know, you um you can't get by, right? So I always love the gaslit people. I hang out with the gaslit people, I treat the gaslit people, and I distance myself from these very difficult gaslighters. But I'm always trying to understand everybody and everything, just because that's the nature of who I am or what I'm here to do. And so, so finally, finally, finally, after a lot of grounding, after a lot of work, I don't have to be defensive that I couldn't recall that. I can sit with it now and I could be like, hmm. So would I have been lying? Oh god, this is this is a big one. Would I have been lying to my husband if I said I never said that? Would I be lying? No. So disturbing. Because I would have believed that I never said that. And I had a recent unexpected experience with my mother, where my mother asked me, we're talking about many, many years of trying to navigate a difficult relationship with one another, and she asked me, you know, what do you need from me? I mean 52 years old. What do you need from me? And I'm like, mom. I said, if you're gonna ask me what really bothers me, what bothers me is I I tell you, I I've shared this with you, I've told, and then you tell me I've I never said that. And that's really what bothers me. And here it is. I can't live in a reality where you're the only one with the instead of you wondering if maybe you didn't remember that. But I would see it like I I guess I didn't see it as a lie, but if you look at it in the context of lying, I I would I would like, I could see like, well, she believes her own lie. Because I don't know, I haven't really I could look up the etymology of la lying, lie, you know, why people lie. And here we are, she's lying to herself, and she was able to say to me in that moment, God bless her, that she knew on a level, but she was too ashamed. She was too ashamed to admit what she had forgotten. Oh, what she couldn't digest. And this is what would happen to me. I have a lot of trouble actually believing that people would make up a reality and stand by it. Now, maybe what I did is I forgot a reality and I was gonna stand by it. So, what's the real difference? What's the real difference? It's it's sort of like why would I not remember that? Well, probably because I would have been ashamed. Ashamed I was wrong, ashamed I could be wrong. I don't even know if I was wrong. We don't know in this environment. I mean, maybe this has always been true. Like, I don't know. So if you're willing to get down with what I'm saying, then instead we can just explore wherever it is we find ourselves, whatever complicated ways we feel. And we can actually like maybe learn from within ourselves to not just go, oh my god, you're lying, it's a lie. And instead, we can work with this sort of phenomenon. So I've always tried to temper, like, why do certain people, you know, be the ones who have to get on board with one person's reality? Like, why do some people become more the gaslit, the passive, and why other people become more the gaslighter? And I say I think it's personality, I think it's heritage, I think it's DNA, I think it's many different factors. Hi, good morning. But what if what if it's all the same? What if it's like it's it's like puzzle pieces and one piece fits into the other piece, but everybody sort of dealing with the same phenomenon, and the phenomenon is shame. So if you grow up in a reality where your feelings, this is a big one I've been seeing for people, were shamed. You're not allowed to feel upset, angry, um, you're not allowed to be frustrated if your reality is not, if it's someone doesn't remember, not allowed. And then you grow up in this phenomenon where you can't trust yourself anymore. You can't trust how you feel. And if someone challenges that, especially as you get older, this is what I believe is a major, major massive trigger for people who are. Don't tell me what my reality is. I know. I'm not I'm not gonna have a conversation about this. I know. I know I said it. I know I said it. I know I said it. I know I saw it. Except in this example, I didn't know. I didn't know. And wow, I was like, hmm. And then I have to take it apart a little bit, and I have to look into why why don't I not why don't I want to remember that? Now we all delete, distort, and generalize information. I've said this before: delete, distort, generalize information, and I'm gonna take a picture. This is talk about transitioning. Perfect, perfect timing, right? Perfect timing for because I think what I'm talking about is about transitioning, integrating, deeper levels of understanding. Okay, and let me best be clear right now. This is no, I am not giving anyone an excuse. Not me, not the jerk, asshole, gaslighter. No one gets a pass. We are all accountable to what we do and don't do. So when I describe these things, if you have someone in your life who's a predator or just an absolute meanie, this is not meant to be, oh, oh, they're like me. No, they're not like you if you're not a meanie. I'm explaining a phenomenon for those who listen and those who are looking to evolve. But there are plenty of people they don't want to know anything about this, and that means that they can be dangerous to you. So don't, this is not meant for any extra level of analysis if you're really upset with someone's behavior and they have really hurt you. Just an FYI on that. It's almost like I should have done a disclaimer in the beginning. This does not excuse your behavior and it does not excuse others' behavior. Just period. Okay. All right. So the fact that I was like, oh my god, I was so ready to defend myself. I mean, I was ready. Ready, ready, ready, ready, ready. And when I got this information, I wanted to give it to my husband, and I gave it to him, and he and I saw what went on with him. Why did I believe that one side and he believed the other? Because he was being like, well, that wasn't plausible to me. That doesn't seem whether you agree with his MO or not. Trump's MO, it doesn't seem like that. Now people hear his name and they're like, he's on his side. I'm not on anyone's side. Okay. But he just goes, that's he's not on anyone's side either, actually. He goes, Well, that doesn't seem like his MO. You know, what she accused him of. It doesn't seem like that. And that was that simple for him. And then I was in this whole thing about shared real you know, realities and him being at a gas and all of these different things. But in the end, that's the information he used. So I started to wonder, okay, let me move to his side for a second. What could have motivated her to lie about this? What motivates people to flat out lie? I think it's all different things. Now, you know, this could have been about money, sure. Some way paid her to lie. This could be about um emotional coercion. Someone was coercing her to lie, you know, you like you don't know. We don't know. And I'm not even saying she lied. The other side could, but what motivates anyone to lie? And I think there are outside motivators, and I think there are internal motivators. And so let's say someone's like, well, you know what? I'm gonna lie because it's for a good cause. I'm gonna lie. Um, so the the maybe the the thing I'm talking about here, which I probably come back to this over and over again, is about consciousness, and that's the concern. What information are we missing in our consciousness? Where are we making our decisions from? Where are we operating from? Are we operating from a defensive posture all the time? So we're leaving out anything that doesn't go along with what we saw. Because we can't possibly believe it. Like I I have this naivete around me, about me. I think it's because of my Piscean way. And it's an and I have a I have it, I have it. I it makes me want to cry. Like I just sometimes I just don't believe people would lie for that reason. Like lie because they're politically motivated. I mean, it's so it's it sounds so naive to say it out loud, but I mean I guess lie about maybe it's maybe I have to think more about it, but it might be like lie about someone hurting them when they didn't hurt them. It's a false I don't I hate false accusation. That's it. I can I I have this trouble with believing that people falsely accuse people of things. I do. That's it. I guess got to it. Thanks everybody for being here with me to witness it. You know, there are just some things I say to people. It's like that's my thing. I don't, I can't digest. I don't expect that to generalize. But yes, you know, I wouldn't say that that's uh not uh really upsetting to people to either be falsely accused, but I I never really think about what is the false accuser. God, I hate to be on this side of things. What is the false accuser motivated by? And I always think it's an externalization of blame. And maybe it is, but in the end, it's it's it's really about shame. Shame that that whatever was going on in their reality wasn't the other side's reality. You know, and that's and I think that's it's like shame that you're that what you're seeing isn't true, what your feelings are aren't true, or what so let's even say, God, depending on the motivation, that a gaslighter or a false accuser, I don't know if a false accuser and a gaslighter can be aligned. I don't let's say I hate false accusers and I hate gaslighters, so maybe they're just getting lumped together. But if a false accuser is motivated because they are like, this person deserves this, this is what came up today, because they're such a horrendous human being. So I'm gonna do this for a greater good, they believe that. They believe it, and I'm going, how can that ever be for the greater good? How could falsely accusing someone ever be for the greater good? Well, it's a tactic, right? It's like a it's a tactic, so um, you know, there's like I'm I'm I'm thinking about I'm thinking back to a movie now, so I won't use any of the because who knows what's right and who's wrong, thinking back to the firm. And and they planted uh, you know, Tom Cruise is this lawyer that's sort of uncovering all the corruption in this large law firm, and they planted a woman there. I believe this is referred to as honey potting, um, or that's a way to refer it. And they planted this woman there to seduce him, and he gave in. So now he's now they have that against him. Now they could tell that I'm gonna go tell your wife. And meanwhile, this is like a it's uh indiscretion in his marriage. I'm not excusing it again, but it it wasn't something he was seeking out, it's something that sought out him and he got caught up. But it was by design. It was a coercion, it was a corruption, it was by design. Again, I am not excusing anyone's behavior. I'm just in a just the best I can in a descriptive mode because we're in like a really, really dark. This is to me a very, very, very dark area. And I please, I am very, very sensitive. If anything I'm saying upsets anybody that's listening, I'm I'm sorry. Um, because this is a very sensitive area, and I hope that uh you can hear that. I'm it's very sensitive for me too. So anyway, so so I'm not giving credit where credit is not due, negatively andor positively. Okay, so it's just a different circumstance that if someone went to a bar and decided they're they're good, you know what I'm saying, they're gonna go after somebody. It's different, it's just different. So anyway, if these tactics are motivated, right, and then they use these things against somebody, and then those people start lying for them, right? They start, they join in, they start lying. Um now they're doing that to for self-protection. And fine, this is like, you know, I'm I'm sort of like raising a landscape of maybe something that happens on top or is can be seen in a political sense. But when we're talking about like just the normal people walking around on the planet, there's there's a way to look at this where you're just you're around someone who doesn't remember what happened. They don't remember, they remember it the way they remember it, they see it the way they see it. So is the false accuser, unless they are, you know, basically unduly motivated by uh this these emotionally, you know, and they're just coming from within themselves, and they're well, they actually think that you wrong them in their mind. That is what they choose to remember, unconsciously choose the least distort, generalized information, and that's why the lens we see life through becomes so important, because otherwise we start to create these self-fulfilling prophecies, you know, I mean, for ourselves, where we look through a certain lens, and then we create that reality from that lens. And this could be the same thing as you know, the false accuser could create such problems that they they end a relationship that was important to them because they have to stand in the right. And then the the other side, the defender, has to be like, that's not what happened, that's not what happened, that's not what happened. So the shame of one side meets the shame of the other side, opposed to navigating from even just a personal reconciliation. Like, I don't believe that every, you know, if you're dealing with a very difficult, it can't be reconciled, but what about reconciling your own truth with yourself? Like, this is a big moment of reconciliation for me because I do understand now, if I give myself a minute, not that I would ever, I don't know, I'm not the externalizer type. I tend to turn against myself, but like that's an interplay, then, right? I'm turning against the false, I'm I'm starting to believe. Is that how that happened? Is it how it happened? Is what he said potentially true? Because I don't think I've ever given myself the opportunity to see it from this perspective. Is there a truth? And maybe there is, and maybe there's not, and it could be about perception, but it doesn't mean that the liar isn't lying. There's my crow friend. Doesn't mean the liar's not lying. I'm not I'm looking at motivations to lie, or motivations for lying, or what lie a lying as a phenomenon really is according to, let's say, my model. And it doesn't change how painful it is either. So great, now I'm right. Or he's right. Or now I can look at this and be like, wow. Wow, like, wow, I really don't believe that people could do this and be motivated to do this purposefully. I think everything, you know, this unconscious thing. So I think if I bring it full circle, I'm talking about a bunch of different things here. Like, is someone lying because they're motivated to lie because someone's giving them money to lie, but they believe, but it's still, they still believe their actions are justified. Right? They believe it. And some people are like, look, lying is never justified, except they don't know when they're lying. Because in their consciousness, they're not lying, but they could have denied something to themselves, and then inadvertently I could have lied and been like that never happened, right? This that's like a lie. But then I could like say, well, you know, I'm not lying because I didn't remember it that way. And if someone brought it to me, I would reconcile it. Well, maybe, maybe not. Because maybe I would stand by what I remembered. And maybe I'm remembering it right, and maybe I'm not. So I don't know. I don't know if this is what this radical level of compassion's about, probably. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, maybe. Um, you know, like there's the idea about like, you know, you know, the like real radical compassion is like, I would say like the idea of of loving your enemy. Okay. Or or this idea, like, you know, in spirituality, that like your enemy is your is really your spiritual friend because your enemy is bringing to you the things that you need to work on. So if you befriend your enemies, you befriend your enemy, you know, the enemy within yourself, and it becomes easier to navigate um your circumstances because you own the darkness within, and you can work with it better. Again, though, that doesn't mean that I'm ever gonna want to be around difficult gaslighting jerks or treat them because it's well known that the gas-lit people, the people who internalize this, are easier to treat. Well, anyway, because um, and this is because of something called, or I'll say it this way, it's people who um are the gaslit, they experience something that's called ego, it's ego dystonic to them. Like, like what I'm talking about here, see today, it's it's the troubling to me. But when you're dealing with some of these other people who externalize the blame, it's not troubling to them, right? Because it's your fault, and so that's called egosyntonic. Or this is like back in the day, I don't even know if they use this terminology anymore. But ego dystonic, not in line with you, not working for you, very upsetting to you. Like, very upsetting to me that I don't remember this. But if you're talking about a different personality structure that externalizes, they'd just be like, Well, you're wrong. You're wrong. So, and that and that and that protects them. So that makes them more difficult to treat. But in in the end, I actually think they're they're sort of their constitution doesn't allow for it, which could uh see them as a weaker, weaker. Um, and maybe that's even a little bit of a mm-mm, you know, because when you've been hurt by people like that, you kind of just want to hurt them back, you know. Uh natural form of just I don't know, uh humanness uh to want to hurt people back that have hurt you. Um can see my enthusiasm about this today. It's went by real fast. So I hope, you know, so in the end, I I don't know, there's not a really a reconciliation that I can offer around this. I think it's like it's a life process, and the more you can come to terms with how that process lives in you, um, the easier your reality becomes to navigate when things get difficult in this way and realities become blurred or unshared or moored or foggy. Um and it's about coming, it's really about being at peace. Being at peace. So remember to close your cabinets, close your drawers, be simple in your in your movements, and you slow things down, maybe be able to see things from a different perspective. And thanks as always for walking with me. Um, I very much enjoyed walking with you today and walk with me again soon. Thanks.