Are You Being Completely Honest with Yourself?

Journaling allows you to get to the bottom of things

Lying to yourself starts very young. The stories you tell yourself is how you survived your childhood. These are not malicious lies, they are lies that kept you safe.

Lies like:

• I need to be small and quiet so that I don’t upset or burden anyone

• I need to be perfect so that I can earn love

• If I make sure everyone else is okay first, then I will have purpose in life

• I’m too fat/thin/short/tall/loud/quiet, etc. I need to be someone other than me so that other people will like me

And so on. You don’t tell yourself these lies to intentionally mislead yourself, but often take these ideas with you from childhood to adulthood. So many people continue to live by these lies, even when they don’t need to anymore. You’ve already survived your childhood, you are in charge now. You’ve got this.

How do you know you are lying to yourself?

Here’s the tricky part: you don’t always realize that you are lying to yourself. It’s like background noise that you don’t even notice. Understanding your stories takes a bit of investigation and setting down your unskillful coping strategies, as I like to call them.

As children we develop coping strategies to keep us physically and/or emotionally safe when parents aren’t able to do that for us. Usually these coping strategies are unskillful, based on survival rather than logical thinking. No child has a fully developed brain, so they do the best they can with the tools they have.

You did the best you could with the tools you had.

Your ability to read the room and disappear when necessary, your ability to stay quiet and small so as not to rock the boat, your ability to get straight As so as not to disappoint your parents are all things you did to survive. Perfectionism and people pleasing are also coping strategies that might have been necessary at the time but don’t serve you in the long run.

Right now, your brain is fully developed, and has been for some time. So why do you still believe the lies you told yourself as a child? Why do you still believe that you’re not enough/too much?

How Do You Know When You Reach Enough?

Do you:

• still fall into perfectionist patterns?

• hem and haw over an email, an essay, or a project and not let it go until it’s perfect?

• procrastinate, unable to get started because you worry you can’t make it perfect?

• take care of everyone else before you take care of yourself?

• avoid speaking up about your needs?

These behaviors are due to the lies you are telling yourself about your worthiness. Which ones ring true for you?

What is the truth?

Here’s the truth: You do not need to be perfect to be lovable. There is no perfect, it doesn’t exist. You can try your best and that is enough. You are enough just as you are.

When you show up as yourself, you will find your tribe. You might lose a few people along the way, but your people will love you just as you are. Set down needing to be anything other than you. Be weird, follow your own path, even if other people don’t understand it. Other people’s opinions of you are none of your business.

This is also the truth: it takes some work to believe the truth about yourself. You’ve spent your whole life believing your lies, finding out what is actually true takes time, and even more time to believe it. I find first you believe it intellectually, but the heart might need more convincing.

Breathe, notice, then write

Breathing, meditation, and journaling are a powerful combination to help you get to the truth hidden behind your stories.

Sit comfortably with your hips higher than your knees, and with your knees supported. You can sit on a chair, a rolled blanket or towel, or a meditation cushion if you have one. Place rolled towels or yoga blocks under your knees so they don’t hang.

Breath in, expanding your belly like a balloon, then exhale slowly through your nose. Repeat this 3-5 times, taking deep slow breaths, relaxing your body a little more with every exhale.

Then return to normal breathing and just sit quietly. Notice the sensations in your body without attachment or creating stories about them. Give them space to exist. Get curious about the sensations, see what wisdom they might offer you. You might receive words, images, other sensations, or nothing at all. Be with whatever comes up.

When you feel ready to do so, gently open your eyes and start writing. Don’t think, just write. You can ask a question of yourself, or of the sensation you experienced, like “Dear Sensation, what are you trying to tell me?” or “what do you need me to know?”

It is amazing the amount of wisdom that can arise from a single question. This wisdom already exists inside you, you only need to let it out.

You can also write “The story that I’m telling myself about____ is…” and then choose an event in your life, a personal relationship, or a personal quality or behavior of yours, and find out what is actually true. Think about a time when you reacted in a way that wasn’t in line with who you are; those times are always filled with stories.

To read more about journaling, check out this previous post:

The Magic of Journaling to Understand Yourself

I also recommend

Katie Bean

‘s substack Write to Heal. She interviewed me recently (post coming out Sunday Sept. 8) and she and I have a lot in common in terms of how we’ve learned to heal ourselves, through yoga, meditation, breath, and journaling. She gives wonderful journal prompts for self exploration.

Journaling Support

Sangha Sundays is a monthly online community where we discuss various life and living challenges through the lens of yoga principles. We explore topics such as self-love and worthiness, perfectionism, being kinder to ourselves with our words and actions, and more. I offer a journal prompt each month to help you to explore the monthly topic. To learn more, click the button below. Our next meeting is Sunday, September 22 at 6:30pm ET.