Speak The Truth Even If Your Voice Shakes

Susan Leonard
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

Being true to yourself empowers people around you to trust, change and grow more. We slip away from the truth to push away accountability, avoid punishments, confrontations, rejections or to create a temporary escape from that moment. We often lie in the fear of losing control over people, money and work which is close to our hearts. Relationships fail because people build walls with bricks of broken promises rather building bridges of trust. Truth is deeply rooted and unshakable whereas a lie masquerades as the truth eventually gets uprooted and the consequences are severe.

All bonds, be it personal or professional are built only on TRUST. We generally tend to categorize people as trustworthy or untruthful by the pattern on how true they are to you. When you make it a routine to be dishonest, it sticks deep in their mind even if they still smile to your face. A certain uneasiness builds when people are dishonest which eventually breaks the relationship. Sad reality is that not everybody who listens to you — trusts you back. People are conscious about who they open up to. They start sharing their inmost secrets only when they build the trust factor. Breaking trust is like handing over the scissors to cut you off from cemented relationships that would be lost forever and it crumbles when your words and actions contradict the truth.

We all can relate to a well known story of the shepherd boy who cried ‘Wolf’. Story goes like this..

The shepherd-boy, watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers many a times by crying out, “Wolf! and when the people from the neighbouring fields came running to the spot, he would laugh at them for their pains. The Wolf, however, did truly come one day. The shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance as they had been so often deceived. The wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure destroyed the whole flock.

Likewise when people invest time to hear and stand by to support (leaving out their priorities), do not cover-up or use it to our advantage because once they lose the trust, they will stop believing you even when you start speaking the truth. This will blemish your credibility, possibly when you actually need it the most. Truth is like a surgery, pains when you go through it but eventually heals you. Lie is like a drug gives temporary relief but definitely has side effects which is incurable! On a long run, too much drugs (lies) causes all the organs to fail (lose people) after which no surgery (truth) can save the life (can win people back).

Take a minute to think — why do people stop sharing their deep secrets or pains which they once did? It is simple, you could have broken their trust once in the past. Treat people the way you wanted to be treated. When you’re tempted to say anything less than the truth, take a step back to think for a moment — why do you get mad at people when they let you catch them in a lie? Pause before you concoct a lie, put yourself in their shoes and see if those lies will hurt you (you being the receiver ) and the answer is right there :) Remember everything we hear is an just yet another viewpoint of a different person. Your mind will always believe everything you feed it so take time to analyse the fact rather losing your peace of mind over it. Sometimes even salt looks like sugar too, either take a closer look or taste it to differentiate rather judging from afar.

Breaking the trust once will make all your truth questionable and takes forever to restore the faith, forasmuch as truth allows you to maintain a high level of integrity. When you tell a lie, you need to defend it with another lie but When you tell the truth there is no need for a defence for THE TRUTH would defend itself. To make amends and regain trust all that is needed is to let go of your ego, acknowledge the lie along with an apology and make sure you never do it again. The more we realise this, the more we create a safe space for others to build stronger and lasting bonds that would help them to trust us back and open up more. Remember Lie runs only sprints while truth runs marathons!

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