Episode 120 - INTERACTIVE EPISODE: Are People Pleasers Liars?
Lying is such an interesting topic—and after working with many women who feel stuck in patterns of people-pleasing, I’ve learned that lying and truth-telling are far more complex than they may seem. I’m not talking about lies meant to cause harm, but the everyday ones we tell to keep ourselves safe and comfortable: saying we’re fine when we’re not, or yes when we mean no. In this interactive episode, I’m introducing the framework I’ll be using to explore this topic and offering reflections to help you understand your patterns around people-pleasing and lying. Here’s what I cover:
Why lying is not a character flaw of people-pleasers, but a survival strategy
How childhood experiences influence our beliefs and behaviors around truth
How lying creates a disconnect in our relationships—with ourselves and others
Why telling the truth requires internal safety and nervous system regulation
Reflection questions to help you notice why you may choose to lie in certain situations
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Transcript
00:58
So I have been working on an episode about lying for about 18 months now. It is something that I'm very, very interested in. From a personal perspective, I lied a lot growing up, I lied for attention when I didn't feel like I mattered.
01:14
I lied to get out of trouble. And I carried a lot of shame well into adulthood about lying because I was taught like everybody else, honesty is the best policy. There's this moral value in telling the truth.
01:29
But as I have worked with now thousands of women who are stuck in patterns of people pleasing, what I have learned is that lying and telling the truth is very complex. When I hear people pleasers kind of blanketly called liars, it really makes my blood boil because I don't even feel like that's the right subject to be talking about.
01:53
So what I want to do with this episode is just something a little different. I want it to be an interactive. I have a whole episode mapped out where we're going to dive into the psychology, the nervous system science, attachment theory, the works, and we're going to do that.
02:11
But this topic is so layered and so personal and so misunderstood that I want to do it a little differently. I want this to be an interactive episode. I want to talk a little bit in this episode about the framework that I'm going to be using.
02:27
And I want to give it to you so that this week you can be thinking about it, you can be studying the times you tell the truth and the times you don't in your own life. You can share some of those with me if you feel comfortable doing that.
02:41
I want to plant some seeds that might shift how you see your own lies. And I really would love to hear from you. Because here's the thing, when we shame people for lying, when they are just trying to survive, we miss the real issue.
02:56
We miss the real issue: the brilliant adaptations that your nervous system has come up with to keep you safe. We miss the impossible positions that you've been put in where the truth didn't feel like an option.
03:09
And we miss answering or talking about the real cost of our life. So I'm gonna set up some of the framework and give you some foundation. I would love to hear from you and to hear what you think and to hear some of your stories.
03:25
So let's get clear on what I'm actually talking about here. I am not talking about pathological lying or people who lie for personal gain or to manipulate or to harm other people. I'm not talking about those lies.
03:41
I'm talking about when we say I'm fine when we're not fine. When we say I have other plans when we just need some space but don't feel like we can ask for that. When we say I don't mind, when we absolutely do mind.
03:58
When we suppress our opinions. When we make up things that we have to do because we don't feel like we can tell the truth. That's what I'm talking about. And I don't believe those are character flaws.
04:12
I believe they're survival strategies that made perfect sense in the environments where you learn them, which was usually as a child. So the first question I want you to consider is what did you learn as a child about telling the truth?
04:31
By far and away, when I asked this question to the women that I work with, they say, oh, I learned that I was supposed to tell the truth but then sometimes I did tell the truth and I got punished. I was, you know, I got disconnected from my parents.
04:49
I got in trouble and I absolutely learned that it wasn't safe to be myself, to tell the truth. let my opinions out. And so that's the first question I want you to consider is what did you learn about telling the truth as a child?
05:07
Hey, really quick, I want to let you know that the next round of stop people pleasing my group coaching program is starting on August 12. And I'm super excited. I want to give you a taste of the work that we do inside the program.
05:21
And so I'm teaching two free workshops. I don't want you to just understand people pleasing, I want you to have real usable skills to actually do something about it. So if you've ever said yes, when you met no, or kept quiet when you had something to say, or twisted yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid disappointing someone, first of all, you're not alone.
05:42
You're exactly who this program is for and exactly who these workshops are for. So on Thursday, July 10, I'm going to be teaching you how to disappoint someone and not die. And on Tuesday, July 22, I'm going to be teaching you how to say what you really want to say.
06:00
Check out the show notes for all the details about the workshops and how to join the next round of Stop People Pleasing. I would love to work with you. Second thing I want you to consider is that the problem isn't the lying.
06:15
It is actually way more complex than that. Lying is an old survival mechanism that was absolutely necessary in those moments when we didn't feel safe to tell the truth as children. Sometimes as adults, we are actually able to tell the truth in a safe way.
06:39
But because we're still running this old survival mechanism, we miss opportunities when it might be safe to tell the truth because we're so conditioned to do otherwise. The second problem that I see with lying is that telling the truth is actually the doorway to real, vulnerable, authentic, connected relationships.
07:04
I have so many clients who don't feel seen, who don't feel accepted, who don't feel like all of them is welcome and honored. And it's not necessarily because that is true. It's again, going back to the first problem, it's an old survival mechanism that keeps us constantly looking around, trying to decide how much of the truth is safe to say, how much of our needs are safe to reveal, how much of our wants are safe to put into words.
07:36
And because we have an old survival mechanism running, we actually miss opportunities to deepen the authenticity, the intimacy, the vulnerability in some of our relationships by being truthful. And then the last thing that I want you to just keep in mind is that telling the truth requires safety.
08:01
It requires us to be able to create internal nervous system safety. It requires us to take really good care of ourselves when we tell the truth and it doesn't go the way we want it to. And that's a skill that many of us were never taught, but it is something that we can learn.
08:20
You deserve real, authentic, connected relationships where you can tell the truth. You deserve to have safety, internal safety. You deserve to be able to learn to regulate your nervous system and to be so good and kind and gracious with yourself when things don't go well.
08:39
So often we lie when we think something isn't gonna go well if we tell the truth and that makes so much sense. But that really puts us between a rock and a hard place because without telling the truth, we can't have those relationships that we deserve.
08:56
When we're chronically disconnected from our bodies and our own truth, we can't have that relationship with ourselves. When we're constantly living in fear of other people's emotions, we can't have those relationships.
09:09
And those relationships are what I want every single woman to have, at least one, where all of us is honored, all of us is seen, all of us is welcome, and that means telling the truth. So you can kind of see how complex this is, right?
09:26
It's not just as simple as honesty is the best policy. We're going to get into it, but here's what I want you to do. Over this next week, I want you to notice. When you find yourself deflecting or saying something that isn't true, don't judge it.
09:43
Just notice it. I want you to ask yourself, what would happen if I told the truth here? What am I trying to avoid? What do I need that I'm afraid to ask for directly? How am I making the truth smaller?
09:59
How am I editing it? And what is my best guess about what I think would happen? And then lastly, I want you to notice where in your life it does feel safe to tell the truth, and why. And then where does it absolutely not feel safe to tell the truth and why?
10:19
And then if you feel so inclined, I would love to hear about it. Send me your stories. Send me your questions. Send me the moments when you realize you're not telling the truth, and it might be a safe place to do it.
10:32
Because I really want to hear from you. You can email me sara@sarafisk.coach. S-A-R-A-F-I-S-K, sarafisk.coach. You can always send me an email there. You can DM me. I want you to tell me about any of the answers to those questions, or maybe you have a lie that you feel really guilty about.
10:56
Or maybe there's a time when you really knew that telling the truth felt dangerous. Again, what you notice about the relationships where you feel like you can be honest, and what you wish people understood about why you deflect.
11:11
Because here's what I really know. After eight years of coaching now, thousands of women, your stories really matter. And if we can put this in personal context for you, it's gonna be even more powerful.
11:24
My hope is that there are more spaces where we can tell the truth, where we can stay connected to ourselves, where our relationships can become more deeply connected and vulnerable because we're able to be more truthful.
11:41
So I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening.
