Why do we lie when we're not okay?

As an American, I’m intimately familiar with the well-known greeting that often perplexes other cultures. It goes something like this:

“How are you I’m fine thanks how are you I’m fine thanks.”

I put it in a whole sentence like that because this is exactly how it feels. No genuine curiosity. Generic response of ‘I’m fine” that is palatable to any listener. No pausing to reflect on the question (in fact, most Americans will ask “how are you?” and then walk away before they’ve even gotten an answer!). Zero attention to the deeper thing beyond the pleasantry itself.

I’ve lived in Europe for nearly fourteen years, and during that time I’ve gotten an earful from Europeans who find this way of greeting people to be confounding. On the one hand, how the greeting carries on feels impersonal to them, but also, to ask a perfect stranger how they are is somehow very intimate and even invasive.

Over the years one thing I’ve noticed the most though, is that no matter whether you’re in the US, Europe, or anywhere else in the world — even if you genuinely ask a person How They Are, offering your full, undivided attention and presence as you await the answer —

People are rarely honest in their response.

We’ve given a lot of value to giving positive, or even neutral responses to this question, but for whatever reason, we have a tendency to lie when we’re not okay, as though to tell someone the truth, “I’m having a really hard time right now,” would immediately catapult us into the stratosphere.

WHY DO WE LIE WHEN WE’RE NOT OKAY?

I can’t really speak for others, but I know for me, I used to lie because my melancholy, my lethargy, my frustration, my despair, my heartache, all felt insurmountable in the moment, and I had some resignation around dragging someone else into something which was, for me, so hopeless and unresolvable. I also (quite naively) thought people would only like me if I was always happy and joyful, and I really, really wanted to be liked.

This was especially true during the two years leading up to my own spiritual awakening where I felt completely lost, perpetually dissatisfied, and empty inside. At the time, my life seemed so perfect from the outside looking in. I was acutely aware that I should be grateful for what I had, while also being haunted by l’appel du vide (the call from the void).

Although I know now that I was being divinely guided into my heart, I definitely didn’t know that at the time, and because not knowing things catapulted me into an abyss of worry and angst, I figured it was safer to stay within the known realm of pretending that everything was fine (which of course prolonged my suffering significantly!).

It was, perhaps not surprisingly, earth-shattering for me when I eventually learned that there was a huge catalyst — and growth and healing — in giving an honest answer to the question “How are you?”

Sometimes I really was great and enthused by life.

And.

Sometimes I felt like I was falling apart at the seams.

It was comfortable for me to tell someone I felt great. But it was so incredibly tender to share when I felt confused, lost, dissatisfied, miserable, terrified, desperate, resigned…

And so I committed to working on that. After all, it was a pretty persistent part of my reality for many years.

To be received in our most tender places, and not fixed, talked out of it, rationalized with, or cheered up, is like salve to the heart. But it requires an enormous amount of courage to first admit to ourselves that we are not okay, and then to admit it to someone else.

This is where the healing starts though.

You don’t have to be okay all the time. To expect that of yourself is to deny your very humanity, actually. And the beauty of us getting to ride through life in these bodies is that we are sentient beings, and the thing we do best as sentient beings is that we FEEL.

Learning to feel our most “gnarly” feelings all the way through is the key to both emotional maturity, self-mastery, and ultimately, spiritual awakening. It also opens up the more elated and positive polarities of those feelings.

Do you want to feel genuine joy and bliss? Get intimate with despair and pain.

This is what it means to be embodied, emotionally mature, and masterful. The most evolved and equanimous amongst us are undeniably intimate with all parts of their expression.

One of the greatest fantasies of those who embark on a self-discovery journey is that there will be some arrival point where we’ll no longer have to face painful life challenges; that if we do enough inner work and self-reflection, eventually pain will disappear once and for all.

Pain is intrinsic to reality, and no matter how much inner work you do, no matter how awake you are, you’ll never be able to escape pain; you’ll only just get better and more efficient at moving along when it arises.

So learn to befriend your pain, and when you’re ready, get courageous and start sharing the truth of your experience with others.

(It’s a good idea to be discerning about whom you share with, of course. Remember, people who are not okay with their own not-okayness are going to have a hard time receiving yours.)