Honesty is the best Policy:

I decided to investigate another one of my values more closely. Honesty- I believe in brutal honesty with yourself and others. I re-connected with this value because I was journaling on some of my fears. I fear snakes, the dark and the devil. All of these represents deception in some way. As I am highly intuitive and most often let my emotions guide me, I can easily pick up on lies and when I a

m being deceived.

Deception defined: concealing or misrepresenting the truth, something that is false or incorrect.

Honesty defined: Being free of deceit, being truthful and sincere- no pretenses stemming from genuine feelings.

I am also quite a symbolic person and a Jesus-follower, so to me it made sense to investigate the spiritual and biblical versions of deception and honesty symbolically. The bible tells us that the devil is the father of lies, it also describes Jesus as the way, the truth and the light. To me what this means is that as a Christian you can’t be lying or deceiving people or keeping secrets that could hurt someone. If you do, you are no longer following Jesus. Yet many Christians walk the walk and talk the talk of their faith, but they are still being deceptive.

Why is honesty good for us?

· Honesty builds trust in relationships

· Honesty enables us to communicate our feelings. Nobody can read anyone’s minds, no matter how intuitive they may be.

· When people don’t know the truth they will make assumptions, which could lead to false image representations and even rumors

· I get hurt more by the lie or concealment of the truth than by the truth someone would think they are protecting me from

· Lies normally don’t just come in one lie at a time, a small lie turns into more and more and even bigger lies. Creating a culture of deception and distrust.

How to spot lies or deception:

· People that lie describe events without talking about themselves often.

· People that lie will usually try to avoid answering your questions by responding with a question of their own, turning the table on you.

· People who lie don’t include details and disguises themselves as reserved in order not to get caught out.

· Most people speak in sentences of 10 to 15 words, when people lie, they speak sentences that are longer or shorter

· People who lie also mix in truthful answers in between lies, thus increasing your belief that they are being honest, making it harder to identify when they lie.

· When someone is angry at a question you raised or a situation it is an indication of guilt.

· Beware of an inappropriate level of concern for a situation

To be honest also means to have integrity, although integrity also refers to morality which is to distinguish between right and wrong. Some people, like me, can be very honest and sincere or deep without applying distinction between right and wrong. – for me people will generally decide on the right actions without much more prompting than sincere honesty. I personally value honesty so much that I cannot have close relationships with people who are deceptive. Thus, I recommend setting clear boundaries with deceptive people and if necessary remove yourself from dangerous situations that put you in deceptions way.

Keep Improving

The Ameliorate Team

#honesty; #lying; #deception; #detection; #SelfDevelopment