Go back to where you've always been

Keep doing what's right even when what's wrong continues to happen to you.  You can be a victor and not a victim. What does this mean? You aren't helpless. You're in charge of yourself.  There is nobody and no situation that can prevent you from moving forward if you make that choice.  Examine what you think you know and believe. Revise it. 

1) What hurts you so much inside that it drives you to feel you must hurt others to heal it?  All attack and criticism can be seen as a kind of defense to hide things.  What might you fear?  The illusion of superiority may make you feel bigger and better.  Yet, as time passes, you simply act worse, care less and less and look smaller and less significant to others.

2) Trust that if a person isn't friendly to you, then others will help fulfill your destiny. The 'right people' will come into your life so long as you detach from people who are discouraging or superficial.  Meaningful links will emerge. If you feel good about some people, listen to your soul. 

3) When you give up self-defeating beliefs or disadvantageous situations, life will improve. If you wish to alter your methods of perception and understanding, step away from your fallacies.

Just as you already have the dreams and goals in your heart, all you have to do is develop faith that you will help make these happen.  Our destiny is connected to other people we meet, or have known. Reach out to them.  What do they tell you about social constructions and mores?  What do they tell you about the accuracy of your observations and conclusions? Tell it like it is. Go back to where you've always been, retrieve that mindset to get on with it!

Go where you seek to go

In order to accept yourself, you benefit from asking yourself what is acceptable for you to live and for you to experience. In your mind, walk through what you think will happen to you if you continue living and thinking as you do now. Then, consider what you think to you need to do to be honest with yourself about how you are.  What would this include? How will you achieve it?

The good news is your brain can take you anywhere you’ve ever thought of going. Be bold! Daring! You simply need to explore what you have the potential to do. Cease to be the person you have been in order to become the person you have always aspired to be. Peel the layers back and discover if your choices are enabling you to be true to yourself.  Empty your mind of anything that might take your mind off a positive future. Take steps to define your new future.

Negative publicity or criticism is often better disregarded. Don’t permit the views of other people to dissuade you from what your heart tells you to do. If you haven’t yet learned to listen closely to yourself, away from other people, you can still learn to do this.  Consider what experiences have taught you meaningful lessons.  Why do you think certain choices haven't worked for you. What kinds of distractions get in the way? What can you do to pull up your socks? Remind yourself that the world is your oyster. You can go wherever you choose. Just go. 

Why do people choose to lie?

What is so difficult about admitting you made a mistake? How many people have you met who would prefer to lie rather than to swallow their pride and admit they miscalculated or were ignorant of certain facts? Do their dishonest tendencies rub off on or tempt you to do the same?  You don't have to follow this example.  If you do lie, it would be helpful to learn to understand when and why.  Only then you will you be able to see benefits of making different choices. 

Societies we live in promote excellence and encourge us to strive for perfection. Some people haven't yet grasped that learning involves falling down and figuring out how to get up again.  Making mistakes is an acceptable and effective way to learn.  Think back to when you become aware of the power of language and how you could use it.  During childhood, you may have learned to lie without bad intentions.  You may have aimd to test what or whom to manipulate. You may have learned to lie to avoid punishments or to strategically get things you wanted.

As you aged, you may have devised white lies to protect other’s feelings, and seen lies as harmless.  Yet, if you have evolved to lie with neither compassion nor conscience, that is more problematic.   Such individuals may be compulsive liars who lie to protect themselves, to look good, gain financially or socially and avoid judgment or reprimand.  Compulsive liars become transparent and gain a bad reputation.  People realize this tendency and come to pity the liar. Both the liar and observers recognize that lying is a choice, yet a person can only change himself.

Thos people who lie mainly for personal gain may be diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder, also known as being a sociopath, and often encounter repeated trouble with authorities.  Lying has been known to worsen with time. When you get away with a lie, you may continue your deceptions. Also, liars often feel it necessary to continue lying to to cover their past dishonesty. 

Why is it that we hold people to different standards when it comes to telling the truth?  We expect, for example, less integrity from politicians than from scientists.  We have a vision of purity for clergy, teachers, law enforcement, bosses, and we imagine politicians and other kinds of people will at least shade the truth for personal gain. Somehow, real accountability is lacking. What will it take to change ways we respond? Do you forgive, seek respite or act differently?  

Why do we dislike liars? It’s a matter of trust.  These people break an unspoken agreement to treat others with respect as we desire to be treated.  Serious deception may make it impossible for us to trust another person again. You may evolve to assume guilty until proven innocent rather than thinking a person is honest unless his behavior leads you to believe otherwise. Since trust is on the line, admitting lies as soon as possible is desireable.  If the truth only comes out once it is forced through confrontation, the repair of trust is less likely.

If you're a parent, teach your children to come clean about lying.  No matter how big a whopper they may have told, tell them you prefer to hear the truth from them, no matter how bad, than be deceived.  Show them nothing is more sacred in your relationship than your bond of trust.     Draw from stories to illustrate the long and short-term drawbacks of deception.

Which strategies help you to best detect whether you're being misled? There is no guaranteed way, but behavioural clues may give you reason to become suspicious:

Avoidance of eye contact: With a few cultural exceptions, and exteme shyness aside, people typically make eye contact at least half the time they speak with you.  If you see them avoiding eye contact or looking down during a specific part of a conversation, they may well be lying.

Curious voice variations: A variation of voice pitch or rate in speech can be a sign of lying. Note also lots of umms and ahhs. Where a person searches to explain an event, an absence or lack of information you would assume to be simple, the lag time may mean they have things to hide.

Body language. Turning your body away, fidgeting, covering your face or mouth with a hand, shaky hands or legs can indicate deception. Sucking on fingers and changing the subject from the task at hand are also often signs of more than observable nervousness. Guilt may be visible because a liar is unable to contain feeling uncomfortable or tempering a conscience.

Contradicting oneself. When a person makes assertions that just don’t hold together, you may have good reason to be suspicious.  Consider a person who invites you to join a club and then, tells you he never invited you in the first place, just after your role as treasurer enabled you to discover inaccurate financial books, well, listen to your instincts. When someone changes subjects, he may be trying to sway your attention from the crux of the dishonesty.

Recognize that if you lie a lot, even about what you think are unimportant things, you are likely to develop bigger problems that will eventually cause you real relationship, financial or legal troubles. Figuring out what is driving you to lie will help heal this self-destructive behavior. This may mean going into treatment with a therapist to discover why you feel the need to deceive. Ask yourself what you may hide from. Remind yourself all roads to self-discovery are beneficial.

Take the bull by the horns

If the time comes and you decide to take new responsibility for your life, a good place to begin with self-assessment is to zero in on your guiding principles and values.  These unspoken signposts actually influence how you see yourself, where you sense you are and where you wish to go.  How clear you are about who you are and what you feel determines what you would like to achieve in life as well as the ingenuity and resourefulness you would draw on to make it happen.

Taking the bull by the horns means facing a situation head on without refusing to be honest with yourself.  If you're unsure about your guiding principles, its vital to your future to isolate them.  Consider what issues you believe in or what ideas you would support.  If you asked people who know you, how would they describe you? What kind of character traits and qualities define you?  Would you consider these outside opinions to reflect who you truly believe you are inside?

Take self-assessment further:

• Who are your role models? Why do you admire them? How does this shape your values? 
• Who would you offer as examples of people who are incompatible with your values? Why?
• What do you like and dislike about yourself? How do these views influence your values?
• Where would you indicate 5 strengths and weaknesses? How do values evolve from both?
• How would you like to change yourself? What do these desires tell you about your values?

Nothing & everything to learn

"Once you answer most of the questions you've ever had about death, you'll have answered most of the questions you've ever had about life." -Neale Donald Walsch

Many people fear mystery in life as much as the unknowns they imagine about death and beyond.  If you seek to memorize supposed 'facts', then you're unconscious quest is to re-create the past.  Turn instead to the idea of your unlimited creative potential.  Consider that suffering and learning may be the required process to jog your memory about what you already know about your skills and talents.  Start to see new kinds of connections between what you've done and what you'll do.

What if increasing your sensitivity and self-awareness were the key to reminding you that you are always teachable?  As you reflect, you can learn to understand past experiences in the context of who you are today.  You can restore faith and confidence in yourself by deciding how you can benefit from lessons learned and apply this in the future.  Step back from what you thought you knew about yourself and the world and embrace what you have yet to become.