The Lies We Tell

“The truth. It may not lead you to where you thought you were going. But it will always lead you somewhere better. When ignored, it will eventually show itself. The closest of your relationships is directly proportional to the degree to which you have revealed the truth about yourself. It can be painful But I’ll add, it’s so worth it,” author unknown.

Bonjour, and welcome to The French Kiss Life Podcast, where personal development meets style. I’m Tonya Leigh, certified master life coach and the hostess of this party, where we explore how to live artfully and well. Each week, I’ll be sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and timeless wisdom on how to elevate the quality of your everyday and celebrate along the way. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Today, we are talking about a very exciting topic, which is the lies we tell ourselves. I found a piece of writing that I wrote years and years ago. And it just reminded me of the work that I continue to do on myself. Because I still catch myself in lies; the lies that I tell myself.

You see, with our brain, we can justify just about anything to avoid facing the truth. It’s like all of those years that I would go to bed at night and I would promise myself, “Tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I’m going to start my diet.” And the moment I told myself that, I knew I was lying to myself. But in the moment, it felt so much better to lie to myself than to face the truth.

And the truth for me at that moment was I wasn’t planning on starting tomorrow. But I just needed relief from the pain of my weight struggles. And so, by lying to myself every night, I have a little bit of relief, a little bit of hope.

But when I started to get really honest with myself, that’s when my life began to change. And honestly, I still find myself lying to myself. And one of the practices that I’ve been working on is just telling myself and others the truth; the truth of how I’m feeling, the truth of what I’m thinking.

I want to live in a world free of lies. And so, in this episode, I’m going to read you the piece of writing that I’ve been practicing for years. And I continue to do it right alongside you.

So, I want you to ask yourself, where in your life are you lying to yourself? Now, I want to dare you to get honest. The truth shall set you free. My grandmother used to tell me this when I was a little girl and she knew I was lying about something.

Sure enough, after I lied about stealing the cookie, picking the flower, or hitting my brother, I’d come clean and there was something so heavenly and liberating about telling the truth. Initially, owning up to my doings was not easy. In fact, it was quite painful to face what I had done.

But the lie was even more painful. Within minutes of my confession, however, I was able to move on and start again, feeling renewed and refreshed. Staying in the lie kept me stuck in the shame and the guilt. Thank goodness my grandmother demanded the truth. She knew that it would set me free. Years later, I would remind myself of her wisdom. Lies and darkness.

As much as I value honesty, I was a fulltime liar. I lied to myself. I lied to cover up my lies, and lied to other to cover up the lies I’d told to myself that I had lied to cover up the original lie. It was exhausting and it kept me stuck in the very place I didn’t want to be.

Denying and avoiding the truth, or creating non-truths about my situation, such as pretending that I only ate one cookie even though 12 were missing kept me in a perpetual state of stuckness. The moment I got honest, I started moving towards my sweet spot.

I learned that when you open your eyes, you are no longer in the dark. And when there’s light, there’s direction. It’s time to wake up, look around, and get honest. Where are you? How did you end up here? What keeps you here?

When you begin to answer these questions, you’ll be able to find your sweet spot. The lies I told. I thought that if I told the truth, it would mess up the law of attraction, that I shouldn’t look at what was painful because I wanted to attract the good stuff.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that you cannot genuinely feel good if you’re lying to yourself. You must be honest to feel good. Lies create anxiety, which cannot coexist with peace, health, and happiness.

I don’t know about the lies you’ve told or you’re currently telling yourself. But I certainly know mine. My personal lies extended not only to my relationship with food, but also to money.

I’ve lied about relationships. I’ve avoided the truth in so many areas of my life because I was afraid to face the truth. And I have an inkling that you and I may share similar stories and have lived in similar dark places. So, I’m going to share some of the lies that I told for years.

I pretended that I was a wine lover and I drank a whole bottle of wine instead of just a glass. And I justified it. If you love wine, shouldn’t you drink a lot of it? I changed the setting on my scale to show that I was 10 pounds lighter than I really was. Because at least then, I could avoid looking at why I’d gained 10 pounds. “I’ll start tomorrow.” This was a lie that I knew was a lie every time that I said it, and yet, it was my excuse to not deal with what was going on in my life and to overeat.

I didn’t look at my finances, hoping that a miracle would come along and save me. It never did. I had to save myself. I told myself that I would pay off the debt eventually as I continued to spend more money than I had. I pretended that I had more money than I did in order to impress others because buying things felt good. But when the credit card bill arrived, it was not impressive and it certainly didn’t feel good.

I didn’t want to look at my foods. I didn’t want to journal about it because I didn’t want to face what I was eating. It felt too bad, too dietish. When I did journal, I didn’t include the little bites here and there. In my delusional mind, if I didn’t write that down, it didn’t count. Well, the tight pants didn’t lie.

I pretended that I could get results by moving my body just a few minutes a day. You see, I like to think of myself as the queen of pleasure. And sweating it out didn’t feel like pleasure, so I tried to negotiate physical exercise. I’ve since learned that my thoughts about exercise were what needed to change in order to enjoy the benefits of daily movement. There’s nothing as pleasurable as a healthy and strong body.

I’ve lied in relationships. I’ve pretended that I really wanted to do something, when the truth was, I was doing it because I’m a people pleaser. So, let’s talk about why I avoided the truth. And it’s probably why you may be avoiding the truth.

There was a legitimate reason why I was avoiding the truth. I was afraid to face it. I had a lot of stinking thinking that kept me from looking at my situation with honest eyes.

Here’s some of the things that I thought, “I can’t handle it. The truth seems so much bigger than me. How could I handle my money? How could little old me deal with something as big as food or body image issues?”

Looking back on those dark dishonest days, I understand why that woman avoided telling the truth. She was scared. That was the honest truth. She was just scared.

I also thought I’ll attract more of the same. I thought that by being honest and looking at the ugly truth, I’d attract more of it into my life. Even now, I say what you focus on grows, which is true. However, denial of the truth is very different from focusing on abundance in your current reality.

For example, let’s say you weigh 180 pounds. That is the truth. The negative feelings that you may have around that number comes from what you make that number mean.

If you focus on your own power, your ability to change, your gratitude, you’ll have better thoughts, and therefore better feelings. But you must understand why you weigh that amount. Denying where you are is not acceptance. You must be honest with it and then you can figure out how to move towards your sweet spot.

I also told myself, it’s hopeless. At one point, I thought my situation was hopeless. So, I avoided it altogether, eating and spending more than I needed. However, I learned that nothing is hopeless. What’s created can be recreated. I told myself, it’s going to hurt.

Well, I wish I could tell you that it isn’t. But the fact is, most of my clients and myself go through some pain as they unravel their painful stories. However, the only way out is through. And I can attest to the beauty on the other side.

I told myself I don’t want to feel deprived. This was a big one for me, especially when it came to food. I told myself that I loved food, and then I abused it. I tried to trick myself into believing that excess was pleasure and moderation was deprivation.

The truth was, I was depriving myself of an amazing life filled with health, delicious foods without guild, a body I loved, money in the bank, and opportunities, among many other things. The truth was also, I was just too afraid to feel the discomfort of change.

By getting honest and facing the truth and doing that hard work, I have discovered a world of pleasure and abundance that did not exist in my world of lies. I also told myself, this is my fate. This is probably the worst of all because if you really believe that your fate does not allow for a life that lights you up with excitement and joy and passion, you’ll continue to live in your current reality of lies.

You’ll keep thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same ways, and creating the same results in your life, proving that this is your fate. I had to do a lot of thought work around this one, only to discover that I choose my fate. I choose the life I want to live. And if I can do it, well, so can you.

Here’s what I’ve discovered about the truth; avoiding it will keep you stuck and welcoming it will set you free. The truth in and of itself is never painful. It’s the stories we create, the power we give to numbers and the beliefs that we hang onto that create the pain.

This is where learning to manage your attention, create better thoughts, live with gratitude, feel the discomfort of change and take better actions are going to create fabulous results in your life. But it all starts with telling yourself the truth.

So, ask yourself, where are you avoiding telling the truth in your life? And why do you avoid it? And what is this denial and lying about your current circumstance costing you? What is your biggest fear about telling the truth and how will being honest in your life be rewarding?

So, I wrote this piece almost 10 years ago. And I think about my life then versus now and how being honest with myself has completely transformed my life.

Listen, in the moment, I get that it’s so much easier to lie to yourself. It gives you a little bit of relief. You don’t have to face the fear. You don’t have to face the demons. You don’t have to face all of those things that you’re going to have to face to transform your life.

And I’m not asking you to make some big move in your life. It really does start with being honest. For example, I was talking with a friend of mine who is in a relationship that she’s been wanting to leave for years. And she was telling me, she was like, “I can’t leave right now because…” and she had all of these reasons.

And I said, “You’re lying to yourself. Why aren’t you leaving right now? What is the truth of this?” And she said, “Honestly, I’m not leaving because I’m afraid I can’t do it on my own. I’m afraid that I can’t financially support myself.” That was her being honest instead of sugarcoating it with all of these excuses why she can’t leave.

Now, she doesn’t have to leave the relationship right now. But when you get raw and honest with your fears, your concerns, your worries, then you have something to work with. Then you can face your own truth and figure out how to navigate it. But you have to stop lying to yourself in your life.

You have to get honest about why you’re overspending. You have to get honest with why you’re not starting your business. You have to get honest about why you are overeating. You have to get honest about why you’d rather go to work than to spend time with your family. But if you keep avoiding the truth, that’s where all of the gold is. That’s where all of the stuff is that you need to create your life from. You have to unravel all of it.

But if we live in this fairytale world in our brains where we never allow ourselves to be truthful and honest with ourselves, what I’ve personally discovered is that life becomes sort of bland. I believe it’s why so many of us numb out with alcohol or food or work or whatever your drug of choice is.

We’re afraid to face the pain of the truth. But within that pain is where you grow. Within that pain is where you will be liberated.

So, what are the lies you’re telling yourself? And how would your life be different if you were bold and audacious enough to tell yourself the truth? Have a beautiful week, everyone. I will see you in the next episode. Cheers.

If you enjoyed this episode and you want to dive even deeper into the French Kiss Lifestyle, let’s start with a makeover; a mindset makeover. You can download my free training, The Three Mindset Makeovers Every Woman Needs, by visiting frenchkisslife.com/mindset. Because, after all, mindset is the new black.