How to practice not lying

Hi Matt,

This is a great question and I appreciate that you have taken the risk to raise the issue.  It is a brave thing to do to admit that you have a problem, that you see that is affecting your relationships and that you have an opportunity to change your behavior.   This stuff may be hard to think about and talk about but it sounds like you want to do so and that you would feel better if things were different.

Often our thoughts influence or create our feelings and then that results in behaviors.  This model is something that I focus on a lot with clients and is part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  There is a good app that you can take a look at that has helped many of my clients called Bloom with these kinds of things.

If I were talking with you, which I would be happy to do if you decide that makes sense, I would want to know the following in no specific order.

1.  Does this behavior happen in certain situations, with specific people, for how long?

2. What is happening in your conversations with people who you are lying to before you are lying?

3. Are you lying or distorting the truth?

4.  How come you are doing this?

5. What do you think would happen if you stopped?

6. What has been the consequence in your relationships of your lying?

7. Did you have similar kind of behavior with authorities like parents or teachers when you were a child?

8. Why do you think this would be a good thing to change?

As I said above it can be challenging to change behavior but the most important piece is that you are taking responsibility for wanting to make a change.  Sometimes when a person is afraid of how the people in their life will respond to them, the consequence is never as bad as the fear.

Please let me know when you would like to schedule a time to meet if that would be the direction you want to go.

Best regards,

Debby