Lying. Part 4

Yesterday Lesli Johnson, MFT, sent me a photocopy of a page from the book Beyond Consequences: Logic and Control by Heather Forbes.

It says this:

I wish this had been stapled to my blanket when my parents had adopted me. 

 I think the advice encapsulates the way I needed (need) to be treated as a human in general:

Understand I am coming from a place of stress and that I need you to react to my behaviors with a state of all-encompassing love and acceptance, instead of with stress, confusion and anger.

I need you to be Gandhi! I need you to be Buddha! I need you to be Amma, the hugging saint! I need you to be Jesus! 

You can do it!!!!!! Eat right and exercise and meditate and take your medications!

(I will also work at treating you and myself in the same way.)

What if we backed waaaaaaay up and saw our lives for what they are: a millisecond of time on the wheel of the big picture? We have a millisecond to love. Now I know that real love is also a human, flesh thing, and buried in each yes is a no, just as buried in each inhale is an exhale, in each wave the ocean. Our wild hearts beat like they are trying to make up their minds, contract, expand, contract, expand. 

 We give names to things: open, closed, love, hate, me, you, but it’s really all just energy. I was watching a show yesterday and the narrator said that once we are told what a bird is we never see the bird again: we see our thoughts.

Once a parent adopts a child and attaches the word “mine” to the child, the parent never sees the child again, and one way the child copes with this is by lying, by hammering at the invisible shell that has been placed over him or her with ideas of alternate truths.

 There are many, many reasons to lie. But what if lying is not a problem? What if a lie is a call and what it really needs is a response? (If you have not read Pam Cordano’s book 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life and you do not know her teachings about call and response, get on it!) What if when I lie to you and your heart grips and your breath shortens and you see me as against you, the game is lost? What if lies are doorways to love? 

When I used to teach writing in schools, sometimes I would feel as if I were throwing a bunch of spaghetti on the wall, hoping some of it stuck. I feel that way about this post. 

I hope you enjoy your meal.