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Truth or Dare – How To Know The Truth Before You Take The Dare

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So, my dog ate a ten dollar bill in the prosperity corner of my house the other day- and I will get to the relevance of this somewhat inconsequential travesty in a minute but first, my question for this post: How do I know if someone is telling the truth?!

Distinguishing Between The Truth And A Lie

It’s all well and good to ask something you just met an important question, like ‘Are you married?’ or ‘Do you have an STD?’ but if they lie about the answer, it’ll render your fact-finding mission null and void! The short answer is—you really can’t—so my nutshell advice is: don’t sleep with them until you find out for sure! And even then, there are thirteen or so other questions you need to know before you even consider entering into that sacred contract and dropping your drawers! That’s right. It should be much more of a process than we often make it out to be.

So back to the dog: So I see this crumpled up thing—it’s green. Does not resemble regular puppy paraphernalia from a distance. I hone in and as I get closer I realize it looks suspiciously like money. I lean down to reclaim what turns out to be a tattered half of a ten dollar bill. I look round for the rest and find a few other scraps that match and now I am on a mission to reconstruct this note—to no avail, I am afraid. (Fortunately, my 17-year-old walked in and informed me casually that as long as I have 52% or more of it the bill, I could take it to the bank and get the full value in exchange.) Suddenly am left to ponder why dogs seem to have so little discrimination— I ended up telling myself, “She’s a dog, that’s what they do” and left it at that. Number one, because I couldn’t ask her, and number two, it wasn’t something I cared enough about to waste any more time over.

So what does this have to do with the earlier question which is, how will you know when someone is telling you the truth? Well, unlike my dog, the person you are interviewing as a potential partner can speak (although sometimes you may wonder if they, in fact, can 🙂 — but unlike my dog, you cannot come to conclusions about who they are and why they do things as easily – at least not without potentially putting yourself in harm’s way.

If my dog COULD speak, and I asked her why she ate the money, being a dog she would probably say ‘cause it was there. As for your interviewees, they have brains that have well-developed behavior patterns and strong personality tendencies to go with them, and it is your job to take care to research whether or not what this person does and says match. THIS is how you can not only determine if they’re telling the truth, but determine what type of people they are: trustworthy, honest, liars, sneaky, etc.

Would You Rather Dare?

In real life when it comes to human beings, you will have to take this kind of vigilance and commitment over time—and bottom line, that’s what it takes to know if people are who they say they are! You must train yourself to watch what people say and what they do and make sure they match (before you drop your drawers). The good news is, we all have a few basic abilities that make us able to do this:

1). Our intuition, that gut feeling, whatever you want to call it, when you know or suspect or guess, deep down, something is or isn’t right.

2). We have the abilities to be logical and reasonable and we must use these skills to determine what our next steps will be with a potential partner.

The bad news is, too many of us have pushed these skills, intuition and reason down, down, down until we’re not used to listening to and trusting ourselves. And that makes it hard to determine if we should trust somebody else!

Show Me You Love Me

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“I love you” is more than words.

We all know this. Words are easy to say – actions are more difficult to, well, put into action. And commitment … that can be an entirely different story altogether! Just ask any of the reality stars who’ve looked for so-called love and ended up with egg on their face when the relationship ended days, weeks, or months later.

It All Begins With Number One

This all sounds basic, but it’s something we need to keep in mind and know the difference between (action vs. words) BEFORE you drop your drawers. No matter how good he or she makes you feel—and, like we both know, chemistry feels soooooo good! We need to stop, slow down and pay attention to what people DO and what they SAY and SEE if they match. Or we have only ourselves to blame.

So here is some real tough love! You want a great relationship? It’s not about someone saying the right words, and it doesn’t start with someone doing all the right things. Finding love begins with loving ourselves and understanding that love is NOT a competition; and getting that special girl or guy is not a reward for being sexy, beautiful or better than someone else. Sex is a sacred act. Our bodies are sacred temples and we get into trouble when we don’t recognize or respect ourselves accordingly.

Love is not negotiable; it doesn’t disappear in the presence of someone cuter; love isn’t confused or bored. The truth is love is a decision we make in our hearts and souls, coupled with a deep resonance; mentally, physically, and spiritually. NOT a chemical reaction – what some people call “chemistry” (which I don’t believe actually exists as a real thing). That is lust, our lower instinctive nature, fleeting and honestly not necessarily part of a great relationship.

Love Is Truly An Action

So forget chemistry or whatever you want to call it – when you have strong feelings for someone and are deciding if you want to spend more time with them—share your life, heart and soul—you want to make sure this person will be the best, most capable person for the job, which is evidenced by building trust over time. Watch what they say and make sure it matches what they do in ALL areas of their life, with their family, co-workers, the waiters and waitresses, strangers and especially their ex-partners!

What I am saying (and, I know, in long, run-on, busy sentences) is that love is not a feeling. It’s not some mythical version of a chemical connection. It’s not feeling the same thing over and over for different people. Love is an action. It’s a state of being. It doesn’t choose one person over another and it does NOT have a shelf life. I have said, like our bachelor, “I love you,” many times. And depending on where I was at in my life it meant different things. It meant “I need you, I am glad you care about me, please love me back, let’s have sex, don’t ever leave me,” and on and on. Until I grew up, which is a choice I get to make every day, by the way. To be mature and responsible. And practice the art of loving. Starting with me.

Is There Such Thing As TOO MUCH Self-Help?

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My answer to this question is: “yes.” I came to this conclusion in my mid-30s after asking myself this very thing over and over. At the time I was well, I guess what you could call obsessed with self-esteem-building, spirit-lifting, relationship-advising, co-dependent, neurotic, feminist, esoteric, astrological, paleontological, philosophical paradigms and relief. There was enough of it in my personal library to diagnose and heal several galaxies.

Looking For Self-Help?

I had it all – from the esoteric to Far East philosophies to New Age modalities and even the dead: Kierkegaard, Swedenborg, Kant, Borges. And I didn’t stop there: I devoured books on sex, business, the inner workings of the mind and ecstatic dance. If it was nonfiction and said “help” ANYWHERE in or on the book, I READ IT! I was on a path (with frequent intermissions) to find out EXACTLY how to be free and NOT suffer unless absolutely necessary. Spoiler alert: I ended up finding what I was looking for, but not in the way I thought I would. As you might imagine, I was over-loaded, and this form of my quest came to an abrupt halt at 33. I had crossed a line.

And funnily enough, just prior to that I had asked myself—or rather, I heard that still small voice that I hear and know as the Great Divine inside of me say… “Maryanne…dear. Can it be, after so many years of relentless pursuit of the internal fortress you seek, that the answer does not lie somewhere in even one of these books?”

When Self-Help Lies Within Yourself

I was actually embarrassed, because in all this time it was like that notion had been too simple to even cross my mind. Yet in that moment, I realized how truly profound it was. When you come down to it, awakening and staying awake is not a new concept. Yes, we are complicated beings, but many great people have devoted their lives to taking on the complex material of spiritual laws and have done a really tremendous job of breaking it down for us. Yet there I was, face-to-face with a question that led me across the abyss of awareness – KNOWING all the stuff that was in all those books didn’t really help me at all! – to transformation.

It was time, at last, to take all “I knew” and actually create a practice. You see, I had become addicted to the buzz. A self-help junkie. And why not? I am pretty sure that of all my addictions this one actually paid off! But like all things the time had come for me to fish or cut bait. Change or die—well, I wanted to die, anyway.

Don’t Force It – It Will Come Naturally!

SO – I woke up! Yup. Just like that. For me it took what it took, and, like all of us on a path, it takes what it takes – we can’t force it, and we can’t expect it. It just happens.. So could it be that had I read one book fewer I would have had my awakening, being delivered from suffering? Would I not have found that which I had sought my entire life? I can never know, it seems.

What I do know is that when asked the question: “What do you want? And what are you willing to do about it?” The answer for me was simple. I wanted true freedom of being and freedom from suffering. I said a prayer. “God, please show me the way!” And I woke up. But not before I had spent almost twenty years trying everything else!

Don’t Lose Yourself To Get Love

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Far too many people have the notion that in order to find and keep love in our lives, we must first abandon our authentic selves to become some version of whatever the other person wants us to be. Most of us, at some point, learned this was a good idea – maybe from our parents, from our friends, as kids, or even later in our adult lives. However it happened, most of us are imprinted with the belief that love has to be earned—or, at minimum, looks a certain way. (IE. I do this or that and then you’ll love me.) Dr. Helen Fisher, whom I greatly esteem, calls this your love map.

What Is A Love Map?

And I strongly recommend you learn what your love map looks like – Intimately! Otherwise you end up falling victim to the unconscious loop that most of us repeat over and over, and NOT in a good way. Here are some fateful patterns I’ve seen far too often: you always attract people who cheat, are narcissists, are abusive, have no drive, are alcoholic or addicted to pornography, or perhaps they just can’t seem to tell the truth about anything (especially when it comes to where they have been and who with); and the list literally goes on and on.

Making the distinction between who I am being (my persona or inauthentic self) and my true self (or authentic self) is the first step in the process of awakening, which leads to the eventual shift from unconsciously and reflexively choosing the same type of relationship over and over again.

Over the last 25 years of working in the personal development industry I have learned some amazing things, some absolutely life-altering truths that have become creed because they were ultimately irrefutable (true whether or not I believed them).

What Is NOT Love?

Few rival my understanding of what love is NOT:

Chemistry is not love. Chemistry is…well…chemistry.

Desire is not love. Hmmm, yeah, it’s more like being addicted to the feeling of wanting something you can’t have, so you set yourself up again and again to feel it!

Longing is also not love!

Feeling lovesick isn’t love either. Confusing this with love most likely can be traced back to a love map laced with abandonment issues.

Infatuation, often confused with love, is a strong psychological projection onto the love object.

Lust, hmmm, a biological function designed to procreate. (Period.)

Abuse, definitely NOT. Usually a direct connection to our low- or no-self-esteem!

Neglect, no, not love either. There’s always time for some loving exchange!

Indifference. Ouch. Nope. Not likely. More likely booty call, or they’re just not into you at all!

Making Better Choices

For me, making this/these distinctions saved me a whole hellavalotta heart ache. I learned to make better choices and found that I respected myself even more when I focused on what was real and authentic about myself, rather than focusing on trying to figure out who you wanted or needed me to be. At first, like with many things, I had a tough time believing this was true and still find I can get caught in that trap. But overall, this awareness makes it possible for us to attract and create a healthy, loving relationship rather than one based on deserve and reward.

Great Relationships Begin Within!

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Consider all we attend to each day, and most of us simply find it hard to invest in a good relationship, let alone carve out the hours necessary to mend or tend a difficult one. If you’re day is anything like mine, it may go a little something like this:

Dropping kids off after school, work deadlines, pressure to keep your job. pressure to compete (especially now), pressure to be original, friends calling in real crisis and friends in perpetual crisis, staying fit and young and sexy and time to re-do the kitchen, send the kid to college, get your parents in to an extended care home (if they don’t kill you first), and … RELAX! why don’t you (with all that extra time).

And what if you have to factor in something like this:

Go home, climb in the shower and get ready for my date tonight!!!

And You Thought You Had A Challenging Relationship….

WHEW! I’m exhausted just typing that! I heard a great story years ago about a kid whose mom asked him to make her some eggs. She instructed him to scramble one and fry the other. Being a good kid, he did just that, the stood and beamed proudly before his mother, presenting her with what he understood to be the answer to her heart’s (or stomach’s, if you will) desire; eggs, one scrambled, the other perfectly fried! “Oh. NO” she protested. “I wanted that one scrambled and the other one fried!” pointing ruthlessly at his obedient offering.

For me, this kind of crazy-making relationship is, at minimum, challenging, not to mention arduous.
One point to make here is that most of our lives are full. So how do we go from overwhelmed (or, at least, I am bloody tired and I really want a relationship) to gracefully finding that one special person who actually does make your load feel lighter?

How NOT To Find A Good Partner

Maybe you do a version of one of these options:

a) Meet someone you’re attracted to and have sex right away since you think chemistry is the best indicator of a great choice of partner.
b) Sign up on every online dating service, line up endless dates and then, like a total maniac, unleash your inner daemons and hope one date finds this attractive?
c) Drink alcohol and or take a few sedatives, anti-whatever ( because, hey, everyone else does). Go to a bar or nightclub and get your groove going and then just see what happens, because you’re reasoning is in no way impaired…if anything, being high brings out your real self, and tons of people meet their soul mates in bars!
d) Stop…drop and roll?
e) Or maybe STOP, drop in with yourself and see first where you might be leaking some valuable life-force energy. (Hopefully you chose E, in an ideal world, anyway.

Loving Yourself Is The First Step

So here’s a little relationship heads up (in case you didn’t choose “E” or in case – like most of us – you have a hard time choosing “E” all the time!):
If we don’t have time for ourselves…neither will they.
If we don’t MAKE time for ourselves…neither will they.
If we don’t know how to manage our own lives well…neither will they.
If we do find someone to “take us away from all this,” one or the other gets tired of the burden and eventually the relationship dies. Check the statistics; people who have the fewest relational tools are most likely to have dissatisfying and destructive relationships. Period.

Great Relationship Shortcuts

Give yourself what you want from a partner and you’re exponentially more likely to attract a really good one!
And last, having tools and skills are pointless if we don’t use them so~

Surround yourself with supportive people and you are more likely to stay on your path of growth and good self-care, and leave what isn’t that behind!