Lies Surround Us

I hear lies. They irritate my ears. I can—sometimes—see or feel, sense or know, when someone is lying.

But the only way I can do that is because I try to be exposed to lies as little as possible. And provide myself with some measure of the truth. Which is really, really tough in our society.

That smiling celebrity?

Go grab a magazine with a pic of a celebrity smiling on the cover or inside but big enough that their face dominates the page. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Okay, you’re back.

Remember, the person needs to be smiling.

Now, cover their smile with your hand and look at their eyes. Do you see the lie? Their eyes likely do not reflect any emotional state that we associate with a smile.

The next time you are standing in a check-out line at the grocery store or book store, or you are at the doctor or dentist office, do this with multiple images. Maybe you’ll find smiling eyes—maybe you’ll find lots of lying eyes. Try it.

Politicians

What about politicians? Lies, lies, and more lies. Or at least semi-truths and obfuscation. Even the politicians you like.

Once you get a feel for when you are hearing untruth, you will notice the—albeit, rare—times they speak the truth.

What about everyday, casual conversation? Many statements people make are not actually their truth in the moment.

How about those carefully worded answers you sometimes receive from various professional in response to your questions? There may be lies or obfuscation embedded in them.

How I discovered I could hear lies

Here’s how I discovered that I could hear lies: I was working at a company as a contractor (I was a technical writer) and I was put into an office next to a very loquacious sales person. He was on the phone most of the day. I couldn’t discern words but I could hear his voice. It irritated my ears. They practically itched. I took a lot of breaks. It was difficult to concentrate.

A few weeks later he disappeared and I heard that he had been hatching some sort of scheme involving stock options—the company’s stock was going to go public. All those irritating-to-my-ears conversations? They were likely him scheming to defraud the company.

After that, I took my occasionally itchy ears—or the sight of lying eyes—or just the general squirmy feeling I get when the muck is getting higher and higher—seriously.

Everyday lies

I’ve been blessed with family members who outright lie. Although it shocks me every time, I pay attention to how it looks and feels to me. How do I know the person is lying? Because, in one instance, they shared my experience as if it was theirs—almost word-for-word. And I heard them doing so in real time (to members of their church).

Once a neighbor brought a toddler outside and the toddler immediately, joyously, ran down their driveway, across the street, and almost all the way to me, standing on the other side. The mother swooped him up, held him close, and said, in a mock frightened voice, “You almost got hit by a car!” Then she winked at me.

There was no car.

The toddler looked frightened and confused. I don’t think he was old enough to know what almost getting hit by a car might mean, but the moment certainly marked the beginning of his indoctrination into lies.

The soup of lies we live in

Once you identify the soup of lies we live in, you can begin to titrate off that soup. You can begin to notice what feels like—or sounds like or looks like or seems like—lies. And you can also begin to notice what feels like the truth.

Your truth.

Because, of course, you can choose what you are exposed to, what you take in. And you can notice what resonates within you as something real and true and what does not resonate as real and true.

Your direct experience

Not that we will always be right. But we can notice what feels real and true within ourselves and learn to make our direct experience the better part of our point of reference.

Over time, we will surround ourselves with the connections to what feels true. We will surround ourselves with people who are more likely to speak the truth than not, and our environment will bring to our ears and hearts and minds more of what feels true, too.

The people and the media that we choose to be exposed to will resonate with us—or not. And we may just get better and better at discerning the truth—as well as the lies.

Want to fast forward your ability to discern lies? Let’s meet and talk. I may be able to assist you and speed up your ability to notice what resonates—and what does not.

I’m an empath. I literally feel you. You are likely an empath, too, so let’s resonate to the truth—together.

DM me. I bet we have a lot to talk about. https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/frangallaher/