The truth has hurt me but more importantly, it’s help me grow.
We are all guilty of stretching things, sugar coating, avoiding, changing the subject…call it what you want. Everyone has their reasons for why we don’t tell the truth. I am going to tell you my reason and I’m also going to tell you why it does more harm then good.
**Keep in mind that this is aimed towards your inner circle, the people you trust your life with, your family, your closest of friends. There are people in this world that will use your truths against you, they will take advantage of and exploit your vulnerabilities. Please learn who these people are early!**
I think I’ve said it before, about 6 years ago I decided that when a certain time arose in my life I was just going to tell the truth. Well, that time came very abruptly and I did just that, I told the truth. Telling the truth definitely stirred up a whole bunch of other feelings but lying would’ve hurt me and caused more damage down the road to everyone else. Since then, I have been truthful about almost everything with almost everyone. I say “almost” because there is one person whose feelings I am still trying to protect.
I “dodge the topic” when I don’t want to tell the truth for one main reason now. I do it now to protect one person in particular.
I am becoming more and more aware of the harm I’m causing trying to protect one person’s feelings. This one person is not getting engaged in conversations that is vital to building a better relationship. It’s becoming more of a crutch, something they would rather not deal with. I am told things like: “Just let it go, I hope it goes away.” “I just tense up and don’t want to be involved.” Protecting this person’s feelings is validating their fear of shame, sorrow, sadness, depression, and dysfunction. Even though those are very real and valid fears, they are not present in this situation and if I didn’t hide stuff to protect this person, they would see that. It would force this person to see that not everything is as you think it is or as you think it should be. It would show this person that everything is ok, if not great, even though it’s not how this person would write the story.
Telling the truth is not always an easy thing to do, it’s not always the popular thing to do. I’ve lost some pretty fantastic people in my life because I told the truth. I’ve also lost some pretty amazing people because I didn’t.
Here is a truth about me that bothers me. I lost one very important, truly genuine, person in my life recently because I couldn’t handle the truth! I think about this daily and don’t know if i can repair this or not…has it been too long? What do I say? Will this person even be willing to talk again?
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