Danger, Lies, and Underhanded Deeds

Is There Real Danger In Our Lives?

 

What moves us to fear? Studies of our fear system have increased in past years, informing us of how fear is generated within our brain, affecting our body and affecting our behaviors.  When we react with a fear response, the brain system that is operating is the Limbic System.  This portion of the brain is above the Reptilian Brain, which functions through instincts and basal types of behaviors.  But the Limbic System serves us through managing elements of memory and recall, as well as functions to activate the fight, flight, or freeze responses. This system keeps us from danger and perceived danger.  When we sense danger, without control of our cognitive thinking brain, we resort to protective actions and behaviors to keep up safe, to keep us from harm, to keep us from dying.  What would a man, woman, or child be willing to do to preserve their life?

 

Most humans want to preserve their lives.  Some have actually experienced valid situations in which they have had to preserve their lives when another or others have wanted to bring harm to them.  Accidents involving vehicles or motorcycles, trains or planes, or Acts of God, such as weather events have caused situations of prospective death.  Violence in city streets, violence in the home, and violence between nations has created arenas where men, women, and children are experiencing fear of death, sometimes daily.  So, fear is purposeful.  It alerts us to impending danger; it sets physiological responses in the body on alarm mode in order to prepare us to fight for our lives.  But some situations only call for freezing, staying still and calm, in order to save us.  And others require us to flee, run for our lives.

 

 

Sometimes our memories that have caused us to be afraid, to be anxious, to be frightened as a child, stay imbedded in our brain circuitry and cause us to continue, as we get older, to react as though those events were still taking place.  We continue to be anxious and hyperviligilant, reacting to new situations as though it was the old.  Therefore, we remain in a state of self-preservation, protecting ourselves from being wounded, harmed, or killed.  What this means in every day relationships is that we are willing to compromise the other person in order to preserve ourselves.  We are willing to lie, maim, harm, kick, and fight our way out of the event that is unfolding before us, even if we no longer have to use these behaviors.  It is likely that we have a difficult time filtering out what is really worth using that type of energy to guard us from harm.

 

How is it that we are so willing to compromise our integrity by fibbing, lying, and fabricating information in order to avoid negative consequences? Is it that we are unable to behave with mature thinking? Is it that we are unable to behave with thought-fullness? Is it that we are unable to operate in relationships without consideration of the other, only in respect to our self-survival? We lie to bosses, to parents, to children, to constituents, wives and husbands, to ourselves, and even to God – if that is possible.  It is a common belief in substance treatment circles that we are truly unable to lie to ourselves, and unable to lie to God.  Just recall those moments when we are on the verge of releasing false information, it feels in our body as if we were regressing to childhood, standing in front of our parents, and claiming not to have hit our sister or broken the vase or stolen the gum from the store.  But even with the negative physical and emotional effects of lying, we still do it.

Motives

 

“All of a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but God knows the motives of the heart.”
How often have you questioned someone’s words after they have explained their excuse to you, wondering if it is the truth and even at times, how you can prove their veracity?  So many times we are witnesses through our own experiences, those of others, or even the make-believe situations fabricated or reported as accurate on television or movies, that place us in the position of wondering what is the truth and if we can ever know it.  When we are in relationship with others, or encounter the communication between others, we seem to be left with assessing truth, trying to determine if our counterpart is expressing accurate truth, or some version of truth, in which our society coins “white lies.”
It may seem uncomfortable to acknowledge that we may not always share all of our thoughts or feelings, leaving some information out, not disclosing the whole story, or twisting some of the words to fit the situation, for the purpose of leaving our position in good standing.  Wringing the truth out of children seems to be a key role of parenting, therefore, we, who are parents, and all who have been children, have learned methods of getting the truth out, and recalling what it takes due to vivid memories of using the same immature techniques children use to withhold that very information that is believed, if discovered and uncovered, will cause some distress, or even great distress, if found out.
Why do people lie? Why do relationships encounter much of its strife associated with withholding of the truth? Think about it – what arguments and disagreements in relationships deal with “versions of the truth” that cause anxiety, insecurity, fear, anger, and other core and basic emotional expressions. Deep, deep pain, distress, turmoil, and despair can be generated in all forms of relationships that rely on truth, fairness, loyalty, and fidelity, when the motives of their counterpart are tainted with dishonesty.  Finances, Family Relationships, Parenting, and Sexual Relations – these are the four major topics of conflict in intimate relationships. From recall of past and present interactions in each of these areas, we can examine relationships to evidence various levels of untruthfulness that stimulate the onset of conflict.
There are those who believe that “if I think it or feel it, I have a right to express it.”  We know that blunt truthfulness can hurt feelings and bring about devastation in relationships as often as withholding the truth or melding the truth to fit our cause.  What is the balance? Do we commit the relationship crime of misdirection and white lying, or do we tell every stitch of truth, ensuring nothing is left out of the disclosure? What is our responsibility in our relationships when it comes to our communication and the motives behind the words we choose to say? Or, do we have control over every word we speak, utilizing the Four Agreements’ model – Ensure that every word you speak be impeccable?
This search for “truth” is prompted by exposing a man’s motives, in which scripture informs us, “All of a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but God knows the motives of the heart.”  Are there two different levels of motives in which are conscious to our thinking, our cognitive brain, the motive that is in our awareness and the essential motive that lies deep within the spirit of man – the area which has the ability of communication with God, He who will convict or confirm our intentions? Is lying or fabricating the truth a habit? Do we recognize when we are going to lie, premeditate and plan that verbal action? Or is it primarily because we are afraid of honesty, afraid of the consequences of revealing what is required to report if we were truth-tellers?
In some therapy sessions with children or adolescents I would often play the game of “Truth-Telling.”  The intent was to offer an atmosphere, a holding environment, in which no consequences would occur due to what was expressed.  Without doubt, every time this “game” was played, the client would tell the truth.  How this was known is that this “story” that was told exposed someone that had caused traumatic harm, and this “story” had never been shared.  There was no opportunity or length of time for preparation for information to be skewed.  This was a lie-detector test that stood the test for reliability, which enabled the child or adolescent to disclose those hidden secrets that were so difficult to reveal due to fear of harm to themselves or others.