Rigorous Honesty

One of the attributes needed for recovery is "rigorous honesty." I've been spending a lot of time thinking about honesty. I guess it means different things to different people. My definition certainly has changed over the last year.

Not too long ago, I discovered someone once very close to me is complusive liar. It's so ironic that I was so close to someone so deceitful while I considered myself a truth seeker. Now, that's God and Its sense of humor. I knew this person told lies. Most of the time it really wasn't worth confronting her about them.

Hell, we all tell lies from time to time, right? Wrong! Not to the extent of this person. To know her, you would never think she was so dishonest and deceitful. It's pretty sad because on the outside she appears to have it all together while on the inside she is a very dark and sick person.

To this day, I am still baffled at all the elaborate lies she told. It takes a lot of energy, creativity, intelligent, and pain to create all those lies -- and for so long. She probably became so accustomed to lying that it became difficult for her to tell the difference between truth and fiction. It just goes to show you how powerful the mind and dis-ease can be. A friend said the difference between someone like her and a mental patient is that the mental patient got caught.

Anyhow, I was thinking about honesty and denial. I don't ever want to be in that space where I cannot tell the difference between the truth and a lie. I've lived in denial long enough. I understand dis-ease can be "cunning, baffling, and powerful." This is why it is important to practice rigorous honesty.

Today when I pulled out my driver's license, I was reminded that I have been in denial (and lying) about something for quite some time -- my weight. I'm sure the people who work at the DMV joke about this all the time. There was a time I weighed over 100 pounds of the weight listed on my driver's license. Right now, I weigh about 25 pounds more. Not bad but still not good. It's not the truth.

My license expires next year. When the time comes, no matter how much I weigh, I'm putting down the correct weight.