Have you ever been lied to? How did you feel when you found out?

Have you ever told a lie? How did you feel, after you did it?

I think all of us would agree that being lied to is annoying and we don’t like being deceived or misled. If you’ve told a lie, you most likely came up with some sort of justification for doing it. Lying isn’t just rude or annoying, though – it’s a form of manipulation. To lie to someone is to manipulate them through a situation, in an attempt to guide them toward some sort of action without them being fully aware of the real situation and the truth.

One reason someone may tell a lie is to avoid the potential reaction of another person. If you think telling someone the truth will make them mad, disappointed, or hurt, you may tell them something you think they can handle better. This can go from just being a slight variation of the truth, all the way to either not telling them anything or telling them something completely false. With the un-truth that you tell them, they have a reaction that you feel more comfortable with. However, if that person trusts you and believes what you’re telling them, they are then moving forward with their life, their decisions, and their beliefs based on what they know think is true – whatever it is you told them.

If telling someone the truth will completely change things, it’s going to be even harder to do it if you don’t want things to change. For instance, confessing something to a spouse or significant other that will most likely make them want to end your relationship, could definitely influence whether or not you are inclined to tell the truth or not. Having someone angry at you, or hurt by you, can also cause serious hesitation about being completely honest.

What happens when a lie is told is that the person hearing the lie takes on a belief that isn’t the truth, and their thinking is then influenced and changed by that new belief. They may make life-altering decisions based on what they believe to be true, and so it really is unfair to that person not to provide them with the reality of a situation and the whole story, so that they can make the decision that is best for them.

When someone tells a lie, depending on how strong their conscience is, something happens called, “cognitive dissonance,” where your brain starts fighting with itself, in a way, trying to find comfort with what’s being said. When we do or say something that goes against what we know is right or truthful, it causes a disconnect, or “dissonance,” and we then have two stories that don’t align. Our brain tries to align them, and that disconnect causes stress. Lying actually causes stress for the person telling the lie. In order to calm down the discomfort that’s caused, we need to make the two stories align, and we do that through justification. We tell ourselves things that somehow make it feel more okay to be telling the lie. The more uncomfortable you are with telling the lie, or the further it is from the actual truth, the more the brain will need to create justification.

Aside from the stress caused by lying, and the unfair consequence lying has on the person being lied to, lying also creates mistrust. If you’ve ever been lied to more than once by the same person you know that you probably stopped believing them, at least without first having some sort of doubt about things they say being true. People who lie regularly are manipulating situations and people regularly. Trying to point out to them that they are “a liar” can backfire, and blame will typically be turned to the person pointing it out. The person who lied will say, “You don’t trust me!” as if it’s the fault, or a choice, of the person who has been lied to. So the person who has been lied to, instead of saying, “I don’t trust you,” could say, “You haven’t been trustworthy.” This puts the action and the choices back on the person actually telling the lies.

If you know someone who has shown a pattern of lying, know that this can be a natural reaction to not wanting to face the reactions or consequences that telling the truth may cause. It’s manipulation, and unfair to be on the receiving end. If you are someone who lies frequently, do some work to figure out why the reactions or consequences feel so threatening that it makes the truth hard to say. Lying to someone only distances them and creates mistrust and doubt. You’ve probably heard the adage, “Actions speak louder than words,” so if you’re seeing someone’s words not matching their actions, follow their actions as the probable truth.

Honesty is a way to show someone respect, and it is a caring way to allow someone the opportunity to make decisions based on fact. Being honest with someone else, even when it’s really hard, is the ultimate way to show them they matter, and that you care. If someone puts themselves first, by manipulating a situation through lying, that’s an action that shows you who they really are, and that’s what you should believe about them.