How honest are we?
Src: Kristina Flour Unsplash
This reflection is part of Thought Echoes, a bi/monthly newsletter.Subscribe ➚
Are you claustrophobic? A tall Millennial technician towers over me. No.
Metal in your body? Only a tiny nose stud.
He covers me in warm blankets. Has your BP been high? Not at home.
The van-sized MRI machine sucks in the sled I lay on as the Millennial stuffs foam blocks around my head.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The clicking begins, sounding like some alien species trying to communicate with me, complete with pauses as if waiting for a response.
After a bit, the metallic clicking shifts to whirring, a vibrating pulse echoing around my brain. I see myself as an astronaut, like Sandra Bullock in Gravity, alone in a foreign landscape, floating through space and time, on the outskirts of the universe.
I wonder what reality the sliced images of my brain will communicate to the machine, in an otherwise deserted basement, on a late Sunday night, feeling more like an abandoned space station than a hospital.
What is honesty? How honest are we — with ourselves and others?
what is honesty?
After this month’s podcast interview for Thought Echoes with Robin Gabbert, I became a bit obsessed with the topic of honesty. In her book, Somehow, I Didn’t Drown, Robin shared how writing becomes a way to process the moments we don't always choose but can't ignore.
“In order to make the poetry what I wanted it to be, I had to be completely honest and say that I was okay with that.”
Since it’s National Poetry Month, I wanted to dig in a bit about what poetry meant to her. Robin spoke of the therapeutic aspect of writing. She was surprised that when she would sit down to write, it would just take over her. Fragments were lurking somewhere in her subconscious, and she would have to write about them.
Robin’s work invites us to slow down, pause a moment, and make meaning from inside the ecosystems of our lives. Appreciating the undercurrent of honesty running alongside us and finding a way to share what we discover with others in a compelling way.
Over the last few weeks, my conversation with Robin lingered as I researched honesty — articles on lying kept popping up. When I found an article on a list of 15 Types Of Lies and Their Characteristics my eyebrows raised. Who knew there’d be that many? I wanted to dig deeper and understand more, especially why we lie.
Starting as early as 2-years-old and through adolescence there’s a trial-and-error period to learn how words shape out reality. Anyone spending time with a 4-year-old can identify with — Did you wash your hands after you went to the bathroom? Yes. When you watched them skip out of the bathroom right past the sink.
Turns out lying has an evolutionary purpose, with 3 broad motivational categories:
Self-protection: avoiding punishment, criticism, or embarrassment
Other-protection: sparing someone else, maintaining harmony or balance in relationships
Self-enhancement: appearing more capable, worthy, or desirable than we currently feel
As I scanned the list, they started at one end of the spectrum: white lies and lies of omission, before moving to more serious deceptions: lies of manipulation and provoked lies under pressure.
Turns out every lie can be traced to an unmet need:
for safety (defensive lies)
for connection (social lies)
for self-worth (exaggerating lies)
to avoid unbearable vulnerability (self-deceptive lies)
That last one struck me - lies of self-deception – in the stories we tell ourselves. Many psychologists consider this the most consequential.
Coincidentally, as I worked on this article about honesty, I ended up in the hospital. Plenty of time to think about how honest I was being with myself about my hypertension, despite decades of optimism and hard work on lifestyle changes.
Two weeks ago, my story was — I’m healthy. I’m active. I exercise 4-5 times a week. I’m vegan for Pete’s sake. Although I do like my wine, but so do many of my friends. And I don’t take any meds, just a few supplements like a multivitamin, B-12, and calcium.
Psychoanalytic theory suggests self-deception is a defense mechanism — ranging from repression and rationalization to denial and projection; all as a way of protecting us. My self-deception lies were a reaction to protect myself that I didn’t realize I was slipping into. Like my BP isn’t high. See, I can get it down to a reasonable level. At home. Ignoring my chiding inside voice — but it takes more time now: breathing, meditating, visualizing the ocean and Joshua Tree and your laughing granddaughters,to coax your BP to come down and then you jump right back into whatever you were doing.
What if we looked at lying, not as what did someone do – but as what need did it serve? Understanding why people lie is an invitation to interact with others with more compassion. And to realize the most important lies we tell — maybe aren’t with other people, but with ourselves.
how can we protect ours?
Before I get a chance to finish this newsletter, on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning at home, ten hours before the MRI, I’m standing in the dining room in my white robe. My husband’s off on a bagel run. I decide not to make smoothies. It would take too long. So, I start gathering plates and bagel toppings.
A wave of tingling shivers through my body as if my limbs were waking up after falling asleep from lack of circulation. I freeze. This isn’t good. Memories of my stroke events from almost 20 years ago flood me. Don’t move.
All the tingling moves to my left arm and leg, like magnets to steel. Sit down. Keep talking. One. Two. Three…
My mind had gotten ahead of my skies, planning and incrementally becoming agitated with each to-do item I wanted to complete last week. My body tries to keep my ecosystem in balance. Until it can’t anymore. It was like my body pinches blood vessels in my brain to get my attention — right side this time so I could still talk.
My body stands with her hands on her hips saying - You aren’t listening. Take a break. All that doesn’t have to be done today. Enjoy your Sunday.
But my mind shoos her away, like I’ve got this, while rearranging what she’d do next after this event is over. My body pinches the blood vessel harder. Until I feel the dead weight of my leg and arm. About two minutes later it stops. But my body and brain got my attention. When my husband returns home, we leave for the ER, where I have another event. So they admit me.
While we wait for the MRI, I answer a flurry of questions. During a brief lull, my husband asks. Can I say something, if you promise not to get mad? I can’t promise that. His eyes grow bigger. My mouth is dry. I coax myself to be genuine and look him in the eyes. I’m trying to be honest.
You’ve been telling people your blood pressure isn’t high when it’s taking you longer to lower it to a reasonable level at home. He’s right. I stew a bit, still trembling and pissed from being asked if I used a walker at home. I’m 68, not 86.
People know you don’t want to be here. You seem irritated with everyone. Even me. Pause.
Only when you talk. We both laugh.
I didn’t like having to do neuro tests every four hours, day and night. To read the words on a card over and over: Mama, Fifty-Fifty. He talked on the radio last night. When they ask me to raise my legs I do both at once. Why not at least get a little core activity into the exercises? I know they need to ask, but I hate it. My cheeks turn red from embarrassment. And going home with meds feels like a failure after working 3 years to get off them almost 20 years ago. My optimism got a gut punch.
Late that night, I finally receive my MRI, and learn the next morning there was no evidence of a stroke. Yeah! Only 2 TIAs or warnings strokes, since all the symptoms disappeared. About 24 hours after arriving at the hospital, scared and shaking a bit while going through metal detectors — I walked out still a little shaky and scared. But relieved. No permanent damage. No restrictions. Just meds and rest. Like the last time, only different.
It’s hard, re-learning to be honest with myself and listen to my body before my mind spins off into over-performing mode from some inner drive I’m still processing. I’ve been asking — how do you want to model getting back up, again, for your daughters and granddaughters?And how can you be honest with them if you’re not being honest with yourself?
If this reflection resonated, I’d love to hear your thoughts below.
And if you’d like to continue exploring the nature of our thoughts, you can subscribe to Thought Echoes➚ migrating to a bi-monthly newsletter.