Relentless honesty as a spiritual practice
How to cultivate integrity and find your way back to your truest self, what my honesty experiment taught me, and how you can start your own
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I’m not a big liar. I pride myself on honesty.
Still, do I occasionally indulge in a white lie here and there?
Of course. We all do.
When you ask Ram Dass about his spiritual practice, he’ll sum it up in one sentence:
“Love everything and speak the truth.”
Having a spiritual practice doesn’t only mean sitting in meditation, praying to the gods, or manifesting your dream life. It can be much simpler than that.
It all starts with telling the truth.
A while ago I read a book that blew my mind and had a lasting impact in this regard. In “The Way of Integrity”, Martha Beck, Oprah’s go-to life coach, tells the story of her year-long vow to relentless honesty. She committed to always tell the truth, without exceptions, no matter how inconvenient. It changed her life—and she stuck with it. Martha argues that committing to honesty is the simplest and most effective way to find your path back to your “true self”.
So, today we’ll explore the cultural and personal context around lying and why speaking the truth can be so helpful to return to your Self. I also share what I learned from my very own integrity experiment.
We All Know Lying Is Bad, Yet We All Occasionally Do It
You embellish the truth to make your point. You tell your friend you didn’t see their message yet, although you did but ignored it and then forgot about it. You tell your boss you’re excited to take on more responsibility, but in reality, you were happy with the way things were. You cancel plans because “you’re not feeling well” when you’re just lazy and don’t feel like leaving the house.
Oftentimes, you tell white lies so you don’t hurt other people’s feelings. It’s how most of us go through life. White lies seem harmless and trivial enough.
Another way to go through life would be to tell your friend you forgot them because your mind was preoccupied with something else. To think twice about whether you actually want to take on the new work responsibilities despite your lack of excitement about it. To ask your friend for a raincheck because you need time to recharge.
Yes, feelings might get hurt. Also, though, people are more resilient than you realize. Not to mention, they care much less about what you do than you think. The reality is that most people, above all, care about themselves.
When You Lie, Whether Big or Small, You Distance Yourself from Your Truest Self
When a white lie slips across your lips, your intentions are often pure. It’s tempting to underestimate the impact on your life.
Yet, white lies create a small river between you and your true self. You still see what’s on the other side of the river, but you’re separated from it.
Every single time you choose someone else’s feelings over your own, you make a sacrifice. It’s not a matter of egoism. Being true to yourself is truly the most selfless thing you can do. The most authentic and aligned version of yourself will be the best friend, partner, employee, and citizen.
Then there are big lies. Big lies create mountains. The bigger the mountains, the more you lose sight of what’s hiding behind them.
You tell big lies when you feel that your truth is too shameful to share. You’re afraid people will judge or stop loving you for being mentally ill or queer or unfaithful or lonely.
Especially with big lies, you don’t just lie to others you also lie to yourself. You tell yourself you’re happy in the career you spent years working towards. You tell yourself you still love your high-school sweetheart and deny the fact that you know your know time has passed. You don’t speak honestly about how sick you are so you don’t scare others —but you also don’t remind yourself.
Lying is human. It’s a form of protection, for yourself and others. This doesn’t mean it’s effective or healthy.
Lying is always only a temporary fix. You protect others by sacrificing your integrity. You protect yourself from shame and confusion by denying yourself your own truth.
What would happen if you stopped lying altogether?
When a Rush To Conform Results in Internal Division
Humans often lie in a rush to conform. We’re social creatures, we want to belong. If that requires us to lie here and there, so be it.
In her book, Martha Beck talks about the problems this causes:
“In this rush to conform, we often end up ignoring or overruling our genuine feelings — even intense ones, like longing or anguish — to please our cultures. At that point, we’re divided against ourselves. (…) We abandon our true nature and become pawns of our culture: smiling politely, sitting attentively, wearing the “perfect” uncomfortable clothes.”
We still aim to become our best selves, but only to a degree that doesn’t challenge cultural norms too much.
As author Gary Bobroff, who summarized Carl Jung’s work, noted:
“There’s a tension between our drive to individuate and our (tribal) drive to conform and belong.”
If the internal division becomes too charged, it will eventually eat you up from the inside. Humans are resilient. We can muster minor internal divisions here and there. If we overdo it, however, we will sacrifice our happiness and, perhaps, our sanity. When the tension accumulates over a prolonged period of time, you may experience a full-blown existential crisis or sink into the depths of mental illness.
Being internally divided is not a healthy, long-term strategy.
I learned this the hard way. For years, I told myself I was an unemotional, rational being whose purpose it was to become really successful and make lots of money while being as skinny as possible. Deep down, however, I was a deeply sensitive empath that needed meaning and truth above all else. The price I paid for my internal division was a decade long-struggle with addiction and depression.
I never set out to intentionally ruin my mental health. I genuinely believed what I was doing was the right thing to do. I believed so because year after year, I told myself harmless, white lies that eventually imprisoned me. After a decade, my truth was buried. Opening up about my mental health journey was the first time I tasted integrity. I began shoveling. The truths I uncovered would go on to save my life.
What I Learned From My 3-Month Honesty Experiment
Later last year, after reading Martha’s book (and still being in my corporate job), I did my very own integrity experiment.
Overall, not lying at all was much more difficult than I’d anticipated. I naively assumed I’d be able to abstain completely and bear the consequences, but I didn’t.
I hate to say it but I still lied, even if rarely.
I still learned a ton though from this experience, though.
A few things happened:
My e-mails became unfriendlier: In order to comply with my intention, I began removing pleasantries from work-related e-mails. No longer could I write that I’m “looking forward to a meeting” if I didn’t.
I sometimes let friends down: I’m a home girl, a full-blood introvert. I put myself out there, but often, it’s not where I want to be. So, sometimes I cancel or postpone plans. I started being frank and telling friends when I felt it was more important to recharge. I’m not sure they always understood.
I corrected my language a lot: I’m a storyteller. Sometimes, I make things more dramatic to prove my point. I became very aware of this habit and had to correct myself more often than I’d like to admit.
I sometimes still lied: One day, I had a work dinner the week before an Ayahuasca retreat, for which one has to follow a strict diet. I didn’t tell my team why I couldn’t eat what they ate. It didn’t feel appropriate to share my psychedelic endeavors with colleagues who likely would’ve made uninformed judgments.
There was a lot of discomfort: I still lied on occasion, but it felt awful. I felt so much guilt every single time. I was letting myself down, passing up a chance to be my truest self. Gone was the blissful ignorance with which I’d previously cruised through life. I began to view these incidents not as failures, but rather as learning opportunities (more on that shortly).
I made my life more inconvenient: Gone were also the days of tilting the truth to get something I wanted. No longer could I tell the cop I didn’t see that I’m not allowed to park somewhere to avoid getting a ticket. Or to exaggerate to influence someone’s opinion.
Here’s what I learned:
Every lie reveals an opportunity to realign: If I can’t share that I’m a passionate psychonaut with my co-workers who I see every day, something so deeply important to my heart, am I in the right job? Every lie (painfully) pointed out misalignment to me.
Living true to myself became more actionable: I learned so much about what it practically meant to realign. Yes, it meant quitting my job (something I was already acutely aware of before). It also meant speaking more openly about my mental health with family and friends. It meant having uncomfortable conversations with people who hurt me. It meant standing up for myself and setting boundaries.
I ended up doing more of what felt good: Saying no to things more frequently because if I didn’t want to do it, I couldn’t say yes, freed up quite some time. I dedicated more hours to the things that nourish my soul: reading, writing, journaling, time in nature. As a result, I felt more balanced and content.
The way of integrity has become my way of life: As you might guess, this didn’t end as a 3-month experiment. What I realized quite quickly was that this would become a daily spiritual practice. A simple but guiding intention to speak and live my truth, even if inconvenient.
The path to integrity is the path to freedom.
Freedom from the shoulds you’re prone to suffocate from.
Speaking your truth is like taking big, deep, breaths—every single day.
It’s invigorating.
Your Journey
Some questions for you to ponder this week:
Where in your life do you feel compelled to lie, big and small? What does that reveal to you?
If you’re eager to start your own integrity experiment, what’s a goal that you can set that’s realistic? Martha’s entire year felt way too intimidating to me. If my three months intimidate you, go for one month. Or even one week. Whatever makes you commit.
What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen?
If you feel like it, share your thoughts with the community and leave a comment.