Building Up or Letting Go
I once heard a seminar speaker say that everything we’d been told that limited us were lies. If we didn’t believe we could overcome our limitations, we just need to fake it ’til we make it. After all, we were told lies about our limitations, so we can tell lies about our capabilities until we believe them, too.
There’s just one problem with this. It says that everything we do, that we are, is based upon a lie. If we want to improve our life, we need to lie more.
The mind is very good at lying to itself. The heart isn’t. When the mind and heart contradict each other, life goes out of wack. The body starts storing that conflict, in knots, ulcers, heart issues, and so on. Life starts showing us the truth the heart sees, despite the mind’s best attempts. Family situations arise that bring these incongruities to the foreground. We don’t get the promotion we thought we should. Homophobic and family-values politicians are caught acting in ways they publicly decry.
Each lie we carry is a burden. Because it is a lie, the information is out there to show us the truth. When we believe a lie to be true, we put a tremendous amount of energy into maintaining that fiction, keeping ourselves from seeing the truth. If we add another lie to contradict the original one, we don’t decrease the burden. We add more to the burden.
Contradicting “I’m worthless” with “I’m great” doesn’t actually remove the original belief. The fundamental beliefs we hold true are emotional. When we were told as a child that we were good-for-nothing, for example, we didn’t just hear the words. We felt the condemnation from our parents. And we felt our own hurt and shame. The words “good-for-nothing” become wired into our emotions.
When we try to say, “No, actually, I’m worth something!” it doesn’t erase the emotional bond to “good-for-nothing.” Either we say the words while still feeling worthless, or we get to a point where we swing the pendulum the other way, and feel that we must be meaningful to those around us. We become proud of everything, hiding the feelings of worthlessness and anything that we aren’t proud of behind a facade.
Letting go
The key to unraveling this knot is to let go of the lie. Rather than combatting “you’re a good-for-nothing” with “I’m worth something,” it means letting go of “you’re a good-for-nothing.” Because the lie has been embedded emotionally, it is typically an emotional process to release it. We have invested a lot of time and energy into maintaining the lie, so it can be scary to allow that cost to be known.
Typically this process starts with the desire to let go. Rather than, “I want to make myself into something!” it starts with “I don’t want to do this anymore.” It may start with a loved one gently calling us out on the lie and showing us its cost, and us recognizing the cost and not wanting to pay it anymore.
Frequently it takes seeing another person act without that lie for us to recognize it’s possible. We internally exclaim, “You can do that?” and try to emulate them. If we are lucky, we will see them act enough in that way without permanent damage, and that will gently encourage us to act likewise.
If we are extremely lucky, then rather than encouraging us to do what they do, to mimic them and create another mask that looks like theirs, they encourage us to stop holding back our own natural expression of truth, and encourage us to be more like ourselves without the lie.
What letting go looks like
When we finally let go of a lie we’ve held onto for a long time, it looks very different from adding another lie atop the original. Adding a lie requires a statement of resolve. “I won’t let that happen again.” “I’m going to be a new man.” “I can do that.” This is because we are trying to convince ourselves. Our minds already believe the opposite of our resolve, and so we are fighting against ourselves.
When we are letting go of a lie, it looks very different. Fundamentally, it looks like, “You mean I don’t need to do that anymore?” A bubble bursts. We are released.
My favorite expression of this comes in the ending scene of the Jim Henson movie The Labyrinth from 1986. When Jennifer Connelly realizes that the Goblin King has no power over her, she doesn’t scream it in defiance. She states it wonderingly, as if by startled realization of a simple truth.
When we let go of a lie, a dam bursts. We may feel elated, overwhelmed with joy at our freedom. We may feel bereft, as we realize the costs we incurred holding onto that lie. We may feel wondrous or in awe, as another door opens in our lives and fresh air comes into our hearts and minds, clearing out cobwebs.
But one thing is certain. We will never feel the same again.