Episode #126

Truth, Lies & CBT

Figuring out who you truly are and who you want to be can be challenging.

But the faster we can get to the truth, the faster we can make the changes we want to.

Are you lying to yourself to feel accepted or liked?

How can you know?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I take a deep dive into Mitch Albom’s inspiring new book, The Little Liar, and share the CBT tools that can help you find your truth.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, this is Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So thanks for being with me. I just wanted to start off with a short email I got from one of my listeners. As always, I always encourage you guys to reach out and ask questions and suggestions.

This was a question saying,

“Hi, Dr. Julie.

I wonder I'm sure you did online CBT as I am in England, but I really love the way you explain stuff on your podcast and would love to work with you. It's a great listen. I listen to it on my way to and back from work. Thank you. All the best to you.”

So thank you very much. I let them know that because they're in England, I can't work with them outside of the country with my license. But it's worth sharing over and over again with you guys if you're looking for a CBT therapist. I can work with people if you live in California, Colorado, South Carolina, and Washington State.

Those are the four places I'm licensed in. But what I tell everyone to look up is called feelinggoodinstitute.com, and you can find CBT-trained therapists all over the world. Again, it's Feeling Good Institute. It's also on my website under resources. My website is mycognitivebehaviouraltherapy.com. I have videos, I got newsletters, I got a blog that comes out every other week. So there's lots of good information on there as well, as well being able to get to my podcast if you want to share that with others. But I get a lot of people reaching out, which I'm really grateful and humbled, asking if I can work with them. I always give... That's the best referral that I have that is nice and easy to get to. It'll just say, looking for a therapist. You don't have to put any of your information in. It asks for a zip code or whatever that would be in whatever country. And then it'll come up with the therapist in your area. So it really is there's therapists all over the world that are trained, and That's the best place to go. So I think it's great. More and more of you are looking for a CBT therapist.

I hope that's because you've learned enough on the podcast and feel like you can relate to it and it'll help you. And there's lots of things to continue to learn. It's never-ending, right? We're always growing. We're always striving to be the best we can. So if you haven't been in therapy or you want to try a different therapy or you want some more direction, reaching out and seeing a professional is always a good thing to do. Keep sending in your emails. I always appreciate reading them. So today, my podcast is actually inspired by a book I just finished reading. And the book is called The Little Liar, and it's by Mitch Albaum. He's really, really well known for many books, but especially Tuesdays with Mori, if you guys have heard of that book. But he's definitely my favorite author. I love listening to him online, I listen a little bit, but reading his books, he always brings everything together at the end. And there's, for me at least, some spiritual connection, some lesson to be learned. And I just love him, love love them. And they're not super long. I can usually read it within a week or so, which is how I like to read my books, to get to the point and learn.

And I would really recommend any of his books, but this latest one is Little Liars. So what happened was, I didn't even know he wrote a new book, actually. And I was talking to my daughter. We're connected with the library here in the county I live in, and they had posted that he was going to be doing a talk about his new book. It was last minute, so it was just meant to be as far as I'm concerned. And so me and my husband ran over, and it was just phenomenal. Talked for like a half an hour, and the book was just really incredible. So why I wanted to talk about this on the podcast, because I actually address a lot of the issues that he wrote about in the book. And it's a little hard for me to describe. When you read it, you'd understand what I think, but The narrator of the book is truth. So he shares it as the angel of truth who's sharing the story and talking about all the different characters and their own truth and how their lies versus their truth affected their lives, intersected, and affected each other in all different ways.

And I think, and I believe, that That looking at our own truth is where we all really need to be and where we need to get to, to really make those changes that we're working to become the person that we want to be. Sometimes I know with my clients, luckily, they work with me, that I can be blunt and just say the truth. Like, this is really what's going on. Let's look at that. Just with my style, my clients usually can roll with it, and they may laugh a little bit or be like, whew. That was a little hard to hear. But the quicker we can get to the truth, the quicker we can really make the changes we want. All of us lie to each other. Maybe white lies. Hopefully, they're just little lies. People lie to each other, but most of all, I think we lie to ourselves. That lie has many different purposes. It's not all bad. I'm going to share how it related to my own experiences talking about lying to yourself just to cope. But when it becomes a problem, then it's a problem. I'm going to share some of the quotes from the book, specifically.

I want to give, again, Mitchell Balma all the credit here. But there were some things that really stood out to me, so I thought I would read some of those to you and then talk more about them and how the CBT tools can help. But as you're listening to this podcast, I hope your mind starts to go with, what is my truth? Maybe what There's some lies I have been telling myself that are getting in the way of me really being able to reach that potential or make the progress that I'm working on or working for as I'm doing this personal growth journey that we're all on. So one of the things he says in the book, one of the lines was that, Of all the lies we tell ourselves is if only I do this or that, I will be accepted. And I wrote That went down because I thought, I think if we really uncover and process the way we are thinking, what are our hot thoughts? A hot thought is that, If I do this or that, I will be accepted. That's one of the lies we tell ourselves. By telling ourselves that lie, we may make choices or do things that don't really align with who we are or living by our own values and our own truth.

That's going to cause anxiety, depression, unhappiness, frustration, just being uncomfortable. If I'm doing this because I think I'll be accepted, then I would say to you, who are these people that you're trying to be accepted by? Why do you have to lie to yourself about something for them to accept you? I mean, right then and there, I'm thinking, these are not the people for you. They're not the people, and it would not be for me. Because if I'm not accepted for just who I am, then I need to go find people that will accept me for who I am. If I'm lying to myself about that, then I'm not in a really good environment. Remember, with CBT, I teach all you guys, environment is one of the five factors with the whole theory of CBT. Just to review, it's always good to review, is that your thoughts create your moods, which affects your behaviors and your physical reactions, and then your environment. Environment It's work, home, school. Any environment that you're in, you want to look at that and say, Is this a good environment for me? And if it's not, what changes do I need to make?

Do I need to make set boundaries with people? Do I need to leave the environment? So I got a podcast on that. You can listen to, but that's what I'm talking about, that, again, if I'm lying to myself so that I think if I do this or that, I'll be accepted, that's a problem. That's a red flag. And as As humans, we do a great deal of things to be liked. Another thing that Mitch talks about in his book. We do so many things. We avoid, we lie to ourselves and others. We may do things we really don't want to do. We don't honor ourselves just so other people will like us, versus I'm just going to be myself, and whoever likes that will be part of my community, my support. But if I'm doing something, what's your motive? That's something to always ask yourself. If it doesn't come naturally or you're like, Am I really comfortable with that, or I'm not sure I want to do that, what's your motive if you do do it? Is it just a new experience maybe you want to try? Maybe you think you got to be a little more open.

That's great. Or am I doing it because, Oh, then they're going to like me, or they'll invite me back again? Am I just having... Normally, I would go out, maybe have one beer, but am I going to drink four or five because everybody else is drinking and they're saying, Come Come on, come on, have another beer. And it's like, Yeah, I don't really want to do this, but I want them to like me, not think I'm no fun. That's like an example right there. So of course, there's millions of examples, but these are things for you to think about. If you're doing things, if you have regrets about any behaviors or people you've hung out with or anything that you've done, what's going on that I'm making those choices and I'm not honoring myself and maybe I'm not even living within the values that I hold near and dear to my heart. And if I don't do that, I'm not going to be a happy person. I love this also in the book where it says, Truth is the mirror that holds your final reflection. I really related to that because I talk for myself and with Clients, your truth is...

You know your truth more than anybody else. People will judge you and make assumptions about what they see and how you live your life. Nobody knows your truth. And if your truth is good for you, and you can sleep a night and you feel good, and you can look at your reflection in the mirror and saying, I'm living my truth and what's best for me, regardless of what other people may judge or think isn't okay, then that's what matters. Because you can lie to yourself all day long, but your truth will always come to haunt you, I believe. It is what you're going to have to face at the end of the day on your last breath. What is my truth? How did I live my life? What person was I? Did I live amongst the values that I believed in? Did I follow them? Did I honor myself? I think that's for a lot of people, really feel depressed and anxious because they really are not being honest with themselves. They're lying to themselves of who they think they want to be or who they should be or living their life for someone else or what their parents' expectations were.

And it's not their truth, and they never really find that joy. And really loving yourself, really finding true love. In the book, he quoted that true love is when you don't lie to yourself. It's a loving act to be honest with yourself, to make the changes maybe you really need to make so that I can be honest with myself and live that life, the one that maybe I'm avoiding or I'm faking or not being myself just to hang out with people if I think they're important, or I'm going to get favors from them, or it's going to help me grow in the company. Those are the things I really need think about. Really loving myself is when I don't lie to myself. In the book, he talks, too, about that the more you confront the truth, the more upset you're likely to become. Why is that? The truth is tough. It is easy to avoid. It's easy to not deal with issues. It's easy to do little white lies. It's easy to avoid conflict. I mean, why do people do it? Because it's uncomfortable. It's easier sometimes, Oh, yeah. Okay, whatever. Oh, yeah. I'll do that.

Yeah, no problem. It's easier to say, I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not going to do that. I really don't want to hang out anymore. This friendship doesn't work for me. I'm moving on from this job. Those things are scary. It's scary to set healthy boundaries. It's scary to speak your truth, not just to yourself, but to others, because it goes back to what I've been talking about, right? Am I doing things so I'll be accepted, to be liked? People might not like with the choices that I make. They might not like or think that I'm not making good choices, and they're going to put their opinions on me. And now I got to deal with that conflict, right? So you really want to figure out, first of all, what is my truth? Is it something I need to share with others because I need to change things I'm doing in my life? And how do I get there and feel confident and stay in my truth and not take steps back when they start saying, Oh, come on. You really don't want to do that. That's really not what's best for you. Just come along.

Don't be a fuddy-duddy. Whatever people say, Okay, okay. It's a lot of peer pressure that we go on throughout our lives where we make choices like, I didn't really want to do that. Why did I do that? People thought it was cool. People thought this or that. We've all been there. We've all been there, but we don't have to stay there anymore. So the more you confront your truth, the more upset you're likely to become. So if you're upset, maybe that's a good sign, right? This discomfort means I'm addressing things I need to address, and I'm willing to maybe go forward. So one thing I thought of when I was wanting to talk about this today is I share with you on my Core Belief podcast, just my journey of when I was a little girl, I was eight years old, my parents I was divorced, and my mom moved away. I grew up with my dad. My mom was always in my life. I only saw her about once a year in the summers because she lived on the other side of the country. It was the most difficult thing I ever went through, was being abandoned by her leaving.

The lie I told myself was that I was okay. And that's what I'm saying. That lie at the time was okay for me. Nobody else told me I was okay, but I told myself I was okay because it helped me cope. I share a story in one of my podcasts about... I remember this. I was in fourth grade when my mom left, and my teacher, Mrs. Richards, took me in the hall and said, Oh, I heard your parents divorced. My dad had let our teachers know in case we were struggling or just wanting them to know what we were going through at home, which was super smart on my dad's part. I remember I was offended like, What? You think this is going to affect me? Oh, no, I'll be fine. I was just one of my memories I have very clear And I look back, now I chuckle about it, but that was my way of coping like, Oh, no, I'm going to be okay. And what was great about that is, overall, I was okay. I had still a really great childhood, so many great friends. My dad was fabulous. I had my brother and sister with me, which was super important.

And I had a lot of fun, a lot of good memories, until my lie caught up with me and started to hurt me. And that showed itself when I started dating and being in unhealthy relationships. And when I went to therapy, I tell my therapist, Oh, yeah, this is what I went through. But I was fine. I got through it. I'm always remember my therapist, Really? I don't know if that would be true, Julie. How would you be fine? Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. She kept bringing it up and bringing it. She was a good therapist. She kept bringing it up and bringing it up until I had that light bulb moment like, Oh, my God. Of course, I wasn't fine. I just couldn't deal with it. But now I need to because that lie doesn't serve me anymore because Now I'm making bad choices in my relationships, and I'm not living my values and who I want to be. I'm putting up with bad behavior and all these different things and picking people that weren't available emotionally and feeling hurt and sad, Which is really my grief I never dealt with. So that's where a lot of shades of gray, we're not talking black and white, that there's some lies that may serve us to cope, but at some point they're going to catch up, and that's when we need to be in our truth and say, no, it was actually the worst thing I ever went through in my life.

It completely affected who I am, and I need to do something about it, or I'm never going to find that happiness in my life. And that's when I really dug deep, did my therapy, did my work, and luckily was able to change the core beliefs about thinking I was bound to be abandoned and all the stuff that came from going through that trauma. So I thought, wow, this was a nice little light-bulb moment for me of like, what's the lies I've told myself? How have they affected me and how did I end up changing those? And this might be something I may continue to go through in my life. I have something else on me to say, wow, I really wasn't being honest with myself because it was so painful. So that's why we have coping mechanisms. Denial. There's a purpose in being in denial. I was in denial of the pain, and and the severe pain that I felt with my mom not being around. So that's why in therapy, I love therapy, right? I love being a therapist because it really helps you really uncover what sometimes is just too hard to see or too hard to face.

To have someone there with me and support me as I was going through that made all the difference because it was just so emotionally overwhelming at the time. I remember that for sure. I hope I'm getting you guys to start thinking. Maybe you've addressed this already and you've come to your truth, but be able to see like, Okay, that's how my lie to myself really serves me, but not anymore. Another line in the Book of the Little Liar was that, You cannot drown out noise with Silence. Truth needs a voice. So what that means is where it says, You cannot drown out noise with silence, which is avoiding. It didn't happen. I don't want to talk about it. It's too painful to go back there. I have a lot of clients that come in and are like, I don't want to talk about my childhood. I just want to focus on what's going on now. And I say, Hey, that's great. We can learn this thought record. Many CBT tools we can learn to help you right now. Although, who you are today has been affected by your environment and the things that you've gone through.

And as we work on the therapy, and I work with my clients, these past issues, any traumas you went through, any difficult situations, will start to come to the surface. And it's not about having to relive every moment, but just understanding and giving the noise, meaning your trauma, Difficult things, painful things you've gone through. A voice, which will be the truth. When I say noise, meaning you cannot drown out noise with silence. The noise is the difficult thing you went through. Being silent and avoiding and trying to forget or never talking about it. It doesn't allow you to really be authentic and be who you want to be. And your truth needs a voice, and you're the one to give it the voice. That's the gift that you can give yourself. One thing I thought about, too, as I was reading this book is, I know I've shared with you, I've been involved with 12 Step program through my husband and myself. I went to some groups. When we first met, he was in recovery and all of that. So one of the 12 Steps is doing a personal inventory. You write down others that you have hurt through your addiction or whatever.

It's not just It's addiction, 12 steps, almost for anything that we go through. But those that I have hurt, and if it's appropriate to go make an amends. So truth is yours to grapple with and deal with and work through, and not always to make an amends if it further hurts the other person. A good example of this is I've met people that have cheated on their spouse, and because of their guilt, they want to go and tell them what happened. We talk through that and saying, Okay, if you're going to share that, let's really talk about it. If it was a one-time thing, are you sharing because you feel guilty? Because how is it going to benefit going to that person? You might not even be together anymore and be like, Oh, this is something I did. So your truth is your truth. It doesn't mean you're going to share with everybody. That's just a side example. It just came in my head. But it's not that you're going to tell everybody, Oh, this is my truth. This is your stuff. This is your personal work. If it's good to make an amends to someone and say, This is my truth, and I lie to myself, I did have problems.

I did maybe steal money from you to go buy drugs or alcohol, or I lied to you about whatever it is that you did. That's your truth. Before you're making amends to somebody, You really want to say, Is it going to benefit them? It's not about benefiting me if it comes to feeling guilty, because that's an emotion many people grapple with. I think a lot of guilt may arise for you when you realize the lies you have been telling maybe to yourself and how that affected other people. And that's something that you can work through. And then being able to own your truth is what's, again, going to help you really grow. So it's a little side note there, but I was thinking about the 12 steps came In my mind when I was reading the book, when I think about truth and people to be in recovery have to be honest with themselves on a daily basis so that they won't relapse. So truth is a painful thing to look at and how we may have hurt people through our addictions, whatever that might be. When you can really be honest and truthful with yourself is when you can be in recovery and really grow.

So that's just another takeaway of looking at what we're talking about today. Do you know what? Also, it takes enormous courage to relive the worst things that have happened to you. This is also from the book. It takes enormous courage to relive the worst things that have happened to you. If you have turned out, quote, okay, you may think like, Why do I need to do that? Why do I need to look back? And hopefully, you have turned out okay. But if you really want to grow and say, You know what? Maybe that's something to explore. Maybe Maybe there are some things that I don't even see on how not dealing with my past and the worst things that have happened to me whenever that has been in your life. And how is that still affecting me today? So if I'm not dealing with something and not wanting to deal with that pain, is that affecting my current relationships? Does it affect my ability to create new relationships, my ability to trust others? Am I honoring myself? Am I being my true self? What are the choices that I've made in my life? And even if they worked out for me, was I happy along the way in the steps I took to get there?

So there's so much to uncover. There's so many different layers. It's such a personal journey that it's something to take some time and really think through. It's an opportunity to look and say, Am I living the life that I want to live? And if I'm not, what's getting in the way? Is it that I'm not being honest with myself? I'm not being truthful? Because it normally catches up with you somewhere along the way, especially when you don't expect it to. And then sometimes it's how to climb out of that when other people find out things that you haven't been honest about. They feel like they don't even know who you are as a person, possibly. And it can do a lot of damage. And I would love for you guys to be able to find the courage to really find your truth and be honest with yourself about things that are still affecting your life, big or small. A lot of my clients think they only have to do thought records when big things happen, and I'm like, Oh, no. It's like the everyday stuff. I do thought records every day, you guys. I got as many thoughts as you do, and I need to be aware of them.

And whenever I have a negative mood, what am I thinking about? Is it a hot thought? Let me challenge that. It's a continuous work in progress, being healthy. Healthy. It's something to always be thinking about, Am I living my truth? If I'm not, why aren't I? What do I need to do to get there? And that I believe that you all have the courage to do this, because I also believe, without even knowing all of you, that you probably have gone through some pretty difficult things in your life that you got through and you handled well. And most of us don't look back and say, Oh, I went through that, that, and I can handle this. We just say, Oh, this is the one thing I can't handle. I can't be honest about this one thing. It might just feel so enormous and scary because you don't know what the outcome is going to be. And that's where if you have a mentor or find a therapist or share with your therapist. I've had people say, You are the only person I've ever told this in my entire life to, which I feel quite honored.

But to be able to share that truth and get that off your chest and help someone help you in a healthy way walk through that and to figure out how to handle it or what changes you want to make, whatever it might look like, I know you have the courage because there's no one that hasn't gone through something difficult in life. You want to look at your past and say, You know what? I've gone through some difficult things. I can handle this. And that's going to give you the confidence that you can do it, even though it might seem really scary. And that's what courage is about, right? No one's courageous if they're scared or fearful about something. Otherwise, they would just do it. It would be easy. I really want you guys to give yourself enough credit that you can handle whatever comes your way, and you can handle any truths that need to be told to yourself, maybe to others. Like they say, the truth will set you free. It really is true, and that's just for yourself. It's going to set you free, where you can be authentic, be yourself, and really grow, and see that you are lovable and you are likable, and you do have people that are going to be there for you no matter what and be understanding.

I think if we need to share our truth with somebody and we explain why did we lie to ourselves, maybe even to them, what was the reason for that? It's much more understanding when people know your story, people can be much more forgiving. Again, I'd really recommend, Mitchell, Balms' new book, The Little Liar. It's just so excellent and explains the bad lies people tell and the reasons some people lie to survive in the world until they can share their truth and get the burden of being able to share their truth and how one lie can just affect so many people that you can't even imagine. Sometimes it just happens so fast. We just say something like, Why even say that? Why didn't I just tell the truth? Sometimes it's just automatic. Maybe We grew up in a home where there was a lot of fear, and we didn't know how our parents were going to react to us. There was a lot of violence or whatever might been going on, and we had to be on our toes. And now we're just lying even when we don't need to, and we don't want to. But I don't even know how to change.

I've been doing it for so long. So that's where we want to go and get some help and let go of those lies and find your truth so you can look in the mirror and see your reflection and feel good about who you are. And all the CBT tools that I've taught you guys in all the podcasts you go listen to about identifying what are my thoughts, identifying what are my core beliefs, where do they come from, how can I change them, how can I communicate with people better, how can I be a better listener. I have podcasts on all of those, how to Set Boundaries, Self Esteem, Self Confidence. It's all there. You can find it. I'm hoping this podcast maybe brings some things together for you and gives you some more direction. Sometimes living your truth and being honest This might be your last little step in your therapy to get to and be able to just breathe and find that comfort you've been seeking.

So that's it for today. I hope this was helpful. Please share with anyone you think could be helped by it as well.

You guys know where you can find me on my website; again, is mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

You can also find me on Instagram under MyCBTPodcast; and Dr. Julie Osborn on Facebook.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. I love hearing and getting your feedback. Please pass this along, again, to anyone that could benefit.

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And as always, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.