242. We’re All Liars: What’s Your Lying Style?

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

I'm excited for this episode.

I feel

curious about this episode.

We are going to talk today about lying and truth.

Okay.

We started thinking about this when we heard this voicemail from Janelle.

Hi, Glennon, Abby, and Amanda.

I just love you guys so much.

This is Janelle, and I just had a question about when you're setting a boundary, is it okay to tell a little white lie?

Like, instead of just saying, I don't want to go, or it's just, it doesn't work for me I come up with these elaborate excuses why that maybe aren't so true just to like spare the other person's feelings but then I feel worse because I know that I'm lying so instead of just saying like hey I'm exhausted I can't come I might say hey we can't come my my kid has this friend in town and we're not going to make it because the timing wouldn't work up and I make this elaborate story or I think about making up this elaborate story for days and then I even feel worse but it's really hard to set boundaries and that's kind of one of the ways that I do it to make myself feel better.

Anyway, it clearly doesn't work.

So I would love to know your thoughts on setting boundaries by telling the cold, hard truth or, you know, telling a little story to make everyone feel a little bit better.

Thank you.

This is going to be juicy.

I mean,

I did this last week.

Oh, yeah.

Everyone does this every day.

Okay.

Okay.

Janelle, everyone.

I want everyone to know that I started researching this topic online knowing that this was coming up thinking

that as a truth teller,

this was going to be an episode about extolling the virtues of truth telling and how we should all tell the truth.

And I would tell everyone why telling the truth is better.

I have finished my research understanding that I am a complete liar.

We all are.

We are all lying all the time.

And I no longer think is the question,

do you tell the truth or do you lie?

I think the question is, what is your lying style?

Yeah.

How

do you lie?

Why do you lie?

And to whom do you lie?

Why do you lie?

Yes.

This is the question.

We are going to talk to you today, Pod Squad, about

what we now believe are our

particular lying styles.

Lie languages.

And by the way, we just made this shit up.

There's nobody saying that there's lie languages.

We're saying it.

There probably are.

There probably are, but we haven't come across them.

Okay.

I'm just saying Google it also.

Don't like say that there are lie languages.

Like we just, we're making it up.

But

hopefully you'll be able to figure out what your lie language is.

And

not to beat yourself up about it, by the way.

I think

that actually

it can help you feel more compassionate about yourself and everybody else.

to figure out why we lie and how we lie.

It tells us a lot about ourselves and each other.

So does anybody have a response for Sweet Janelle about her little white lie?

Which, by the way, we should stop calling little white lies because I feel like that's just racist.

It is.

Everything we call white is like, oh, it's no problem.

It's pure.

It's whatever.

There should be another word for these.

It reminds me of the MOK speech where he was talking about how there are 135 synonyms for whiteness that are all positive, like pure, innocent, and 120 synonyms for blackness, and half of them are offensive.

It's the whole idea that we teach in so many ways that to feel good about yourself or feel bad about yourself without teaching it.

But I would say that one of the things that the white lie does have in common with whiteness is that there is this idea of just being fake and polite and etiquette,

which does tie to whiteness a little bit.

It's like etiquette thing about not being real and just like, so are these lies that Janelle's talking about often about pleasing or

not rocking the boat or being part of etiquette yes and I

one thing I want to say about Janelle is that it's really amazing because she's saying like in order to set a boundary I tell the lies and it's like that's not setting a boundary that's something else that is getting what you need out of the situation which is not to go to the thing but

setting a boundary is is actually stating your needs.

I don't think you get to tell the untruth and set a boundary at the same time.

If you're setting a boundary, you're saying what you need, which is,

I'm not going to be there tonight.

It doesn't work for me.

This is where I can't be.

So I don't think we get to have it both ways.

I think we can get what we need.

And if you're going to have some element of deception involved in that, great.

But I don't think you can call that a boundary.

Because don't you think by definition, boundaries are like there is an exchange of actual authentic

needs

there?

And I think the purpose of setting a boundary is teaching someone else what you will and won't do or what you do and do not need.

So when you hold up something that's real, it's like, here's a thing about me that will make our next interaction more true to me.

But when you're telling a story, you're just holding up a picture of a mirage.

Like you're not teaching anyone anything about yourself.

I also think that

the explaining of the why you're setting your boundary, I think that she could just say, hey, we can't come.

Oh, I'm just so sorry.

We can't come.

And somebody might say, why?

It's just like, we just can't.

We don't, we can't do it.

And that could.

It doesn't work for us tonight.

Yeah, it doesn't work for us.

I just think that the explaining thing is what this boundary

is

mistaking, right?

Because to set a boundary is like, I can't or I can, period.

Or I will or I won't, right?

Or I don't want to.

Right.

But to me, the whole thing boils down to, like you said, when you were saying the big question is why we lie or I lie language.

To me, the big question is to whom do we owe the truth?

Because it might be the same people to whom we owe the truth or or people with whom we want to have a truthful relationship.

Yeah.

are the same people with whom we might wish to set boundaries.

Because that's all about an investment,

which is totally distinct from, it's about investment, an ongoing relationship or a modified relationship.

And that all goes in the part of the pie chart of your relationships that is the deeper level of authentic.

And then there's this whole pie chart of your relationships that are about

getting through the freaking day and about being part of ecosystems.

Like

lies are

the social lubricant to get us through

a lot of various people in various parts of our lives.

And so we use that to like grease the wheels and get us through.

But then there's this whole other set of people

who we actually want to have deeper relationships with.

And so entering the tiny lies and the big lies in those are actually detrimental to the relationship.

Whereas this other side, they're helpful to the relationship because we're not trying to have a real relationship.

We're trying to just go to soccer practice.

So it's like a flowchart.

It's like a flowchart.

Okay.

Somebody asks you a question and then it's like, do you care about this person?

Do you see building a relationship with this person?

If the answer is no, you go to the left and it's a box that says, just lie your way out of there.

Just nobody really wants to to know how you are.

Nobody really wants to know why you can't.

If it's like for the soccer team and you're whatever, just say the shit that you need to say.

But there's another side of the flowchart and it's like, do you care about this person?

Do you want this person to know you better so that you can develop a relationship with them?

To me, it's not about, oh, it's about want.

Do you want

this person?

Then you consider.

revealing the truth because you're creating an algorithm with them.

If you just say, oh, I, the reason I can't come or I don't want to come is because I have this thing, then they are forgiven for thinking, oh, if she doesn't have this parent in town or child in town, the next time she will want to go out with me at 8 p.m.

until 11 p.m.

or whatever.

But if you're creating an algorithm with that person and you say, actually,

I don't want to go because I just don't like things at night.

Or I'm just, and I'm tired, or I just have like a lot going on, or I'm the kind of person who needs six days in advance.

Whatever it is that's true, then that person is learning how to be in relationship with you instead of trying to create a relationship on a mirage.

Yep.

I think that's right.

And I also think that it is this whole cognitive dissonance we have around lying.

First of all, we are like lying's bad.

And we teach our kid that lying is bad.

You should not lie.

And then we literally teach our kids to lie.

We're like, say that dinner was delicious.

And we tell them they are rude if they don't do that.

Everyone lies.

There were these studies.

Like, if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't lie, then that would make you exceptional.

You are an exceptionally rare human.

Probably terrible to be around.

Well, yeah, I mean, you live in a lot of integrity, but you live very much alone.

25%

of people lie more than twice a day.

90% of those lies are what the world calls little white lies.

We will call them social.

We will call them minor deceptions.

Minor deceptions.

The irony is that we lie more to people close to us than to strangers.

So 9% of people lie to strangers.

51% of people lie to friends.

And what's wild to me is that, okay, listen to these.

We deceive 30% of the people what we are in one-to-one interactions with.

Men and women lie in one fifth of their social exchanges that last 10 minutes or more.

We cannot be in 10-minute conversations without lying to people.

Is there a difference between men and women?

Yes.

Yes.

Men are more likely to lie about themselves.

They lie more to impress.

So, the typical conversation between two guys contains eight times as many self-oriented lies as it does lies about others.

Whereas women are more likely to tell altruistic lies, which are lies to avoid hurting other people's feelings.

Okay, this is my favorite line that I found in all the research: more men than women lie.

Men are particularly good at deception, or at least they say they are.

They're lying about, they're lying about their lying.

It's lying deception.

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Let's talk for a second about what we mean by lies, because I think this is really important.

Lies are, they contain awareness and intention.

So, for example, if I'm saying that my last marriage lasted six years,

I am not lying because I do not understand years.

Time is a very difficult concept for me, right?

No, I'm serious.

Like this is

you get a lot of numbers wrong.

I get, yeah, it's it's and it's not astounding when someone calls me for an article and they're like, oh, we just have to fact check you.

I'm like, well, I can't.

Is that possible?

That's actually not possible.

Like you have to call a sister.

I cannot fact check myself.

I can feelings check all day.

Now, the reason I say that is because

intent and awareness.

So a lie is a deliberate choice to mislead.

In other words, if you're saying something and you don't know that you're lying, you're misremembering something or you're just being wrong.

That is not what we're talking about.

We're talking about when you are saying something and at the same time, you're having this like double consciousness of, oh, that's not, I know, that's not true.

Here I go.

I keep going.

I am intending to do this and I am aware that I'm doing this.

For example, if someone on the street says, How are you?

And you've had the worst day of your life and you're whatever, and you say, I'm fine.

That is a lie.

It's also probably necessary because it's a stranger.

And so we're, I'm not attaching good or bad to the lie.

I'm just saying, in order to be a lie, intent and

awareness.

I disagree with this whole idea.

Oh,

okay.

I believe that a lie is something

when you are deceiving someone who wants to know the truth.

Oh, so if they really don't even know the truth,

but how people who you walk by in the farmer's market and say, how are you?

don't want the truth.

Okay, but sissy, that's not, that doesn't matter.

You cannot go around assessing other people's intentions.

You can only decide what's coming out of your mouth is true or not.

Well,

I think we assess people's intentions all the time.

That's why we lie to people in the farmer's market.

That's why we don't lie to our partner when they say, how are you?

Okay, then we need a different word for it.

That's like saying, either I did punch you or I didn't punch you.

But if you deserved it, if you were being an asshole, that's not a punch.

It's still what's coming out of us is either true or not,

regardless of what we think the other person's intention is.

Well, okay, this is why the cognitive dissonance, because we say we shouldn't lie, and then we develop an entire society that is built on the assumption that everyone will be lying.

Yes.

Oh, God, totally.

So we shouldn't be calling that lying because that isn't lying.

When you read a room and you know what's expected of you, and you know that

what someone

is asking is not for the truth,

and you deliver in accordance with that expectation.

That is not a lie.

That is something different.

That is part of a social contract, which is why we develop different social contracts with different relationships throughout our lives.

Okay, so someone says to me,

How was your morning?

And I had a colonoscopy this morning, and I said it was fine, it was great,

but it really wasn't great.

That's not a lie.

It's just a compulsory lie.

It's just required lie.

It's a social lubricant lie, but it doesn't mean that it's not a lie.

If I say something out of my mouth that isn't true, it might be a necessary lie, but it's still a lie when we're deciding what a lie is.

I think that this is like the whole shebang here.

Like so many people don't know what A, they're doing is a lie.

And then everybody's definition of what a lie is is going to be different.

And I think that that's where we get a little bit stuck based on the

families we were raised in.

I grew up in a family that were just fucking liars,

bullshitters.

Like they were just like spewing bullshit all the days long.

And here I was interpreting that as some of it is fact.

And then I was learning this behavior of like, oh, storytelling is what we do down here during this life.

So determining like what a lie is is going to be complicated for every person.

Cause for me, I'm like in therapy right now about the bullshitting side of me.

And it's a triggering to try to figure out, wait, what does a, what is the definition of a lie to me?

Which is why I feel like it is important to not call what we do 100 times a day a lie because the dilution of that,

if something means everything, it means nothing.

So if you're saying when someone asks me how I am and what I say back to them is a lie, and that is somehow the equivalent

of

a very serious breach of trust with my partner.

That serves no one because we all agree that this side of the spectrum is totally fine and we do it 1400 times a day.

Where in our mental

like

reaction do we get to the other side of the spectrum?

That's why I just think none of those things on the other side should be called lies.

You should save a lie for what it is.

And the rest is just operating in a society.

Yep.

Not all lies are created equal.

There needs to be like a system in place.

We need to have better language.

We need to have like numbers.

Like, oh, this is a number one lie, which is like the socially acceptable lie.

And then there's a number 10 lie that we don't go to because they're really bad lies.

There needs to be a

because where it gets really complicated is at number five.

Yeah.

Right.

Because the truth is that the studies have shown that when you have like what they call a lie by omission or when you're technically telling the truth, but you still have the impact of deceiving,

the person who is doing it, you think that it is fine because of that whole one through four.

right where we all agree that that's fine but the impact on the person who is receiving that technical truth that operates in deceit is monumental.

It's like they feel it the same as a direct untruth.

That's right.

So this is where the rubber meets the road, which is why I'm so adamant that we don't call one through four lies.

That is just how we operate in a society where we're interacting with a bunch of people who, by the way, are not worthy of our trust.

To be truthful with someone is to entrust someone else with something that is real and important to you.

And a ton of people out there are not worthy of that trust.

Okay.

Your relationship has not developed to the level of that trust.

So this would get at like the idea that we should all be vulnerable all the time.

Truth is vulnerability.

And it is not true that we should be vulnerable with every single person all along the day, all the time.

Vulnerability, Brene Brown teaches us, is something that we give to people who have earned it.

And so what you're saying is

the intent of a lie, in quote marks, to protect yourself,

which is one of the reasons people lie, is to protect themselves or protect another, is actually sometimes just wisdom because it's not making yourself vulnerable to people who have not earned it or

you don't feel like investing in.

I think that's exactly right.

Like, I think that you deepen a relationship.

Like, say, say there's someone in your life and maybe they're even a close person, maybe they're even a family member.

And one of the reasons why you feel ill at ease around them is you feel like you don't have the trust in them that they have the wisdom to be responsible with real information.

But you're supposed to trust them to be responsible with the real information that you don't trust them.

Yes, exactly.

Or with someone else.

Like if you're not understanding this right now, Pod Squad, like this feels weird to you.

Think about like if somebody says, asks you a question about a vulnerable friend or a child that's in your life, and you don't trust that person with information, and that person says, how's your kid?

Or how's whatever?

You're not going to tell them everything about that kid's life because you don't trust them with that information, not even necessarily because they're a bad person, just because that's sacred to you.

So that sort of protection of self or others.

That sort of quote lie is often wisdom.

I mean, I was thinking about this and I was like a wild liar as a kid.

Wild.

My kids and I laugh all the time.

I once convinced my entire gymnastics class that Madonna was my aunt.

Okay.

I carried that lie on for so long.

I had pictures like I'd cut out for magazines of Madonna in my book bag.

I think it still haunts you a little bit.

I was committed to Madonna as my aunt.

I told my friend Kristen that I had a bunk bed that had a elevator,

that I used an elevator to get from my bottom to my top bunk bed, and that I had a tub of gummy worms that was the size of a refrigerator in my bedroom.

I could not invite Kristen to my house for a year because of these big lies.

I had the crush on this boy named Kyle and his birthday was March 17th.

So I told my entire class and Kyle that my birthday was also March 17th and had to sneak into my teacher's classroom during lunch when no one else was in there.

So I could cross out my birthday behind her desk.

She had a birthday chart behind it.

Lies after lies after lies.

Okay,

so I've been thinking about why I used to do that.

I was so desperate to be special.

I just wanted to be special.

I wanted to be important.

I wanted to be chosen.

I didn't feel like I had like whatever natural currency of belonging that the other kids had.

So I felt like I had to manufacture it.

I had to like make up cool currency.

I was not wrong.

Okay.

I did have to do that.

Then, so that was like one sort of lying that I've identified in myself, right?

When I was little.

But

as you know, sister, I also was a big liar as a teenager.

You're like, in contrast, I also lied a shit ton as a teenager.

But on the other hand, I was also a big liar later.

Okay.

I remember,

and this was like a different kind of lying.

It was lying to my parents about my life, like always

lying to them about where I was or what I was doing or my boyfriend or hiding my period, like hiding, like just always hiding stuff.

And I remember

getting in a lot of trouble for that.

I remember my parents saying, why do you always lie?

And I, in this case, have a lot of sympathy for myself because I did not believe that there was room for my truth

in my home in a lot of ways.

In anything regarding, you know, being

imperfect or wildly human or like a sexual or

appetite or, you know, I, I, when I survival.

Yeah.

Like, and so I think that is what two sisters are saying.

And sometimes we look at a person, we say, why do they always lie?

Instead of looking at their environment and thinking, why do they have to lie so much?

And I also think when we talk about lying, it's super important to think about there's lots of groups that don't get to tell the truth.

Like, well, if there's a man and a woman and the man is angry and the woman is angry, well, why might the woman conceal her anger?

Because there's not room for her truth because the world will react to her poorly.

So she learns to hide.

She learns to conceal.

She learns to protect herself.

If there's a white woman and a black woman and the black woman is messy and vulnerable

and a little bit pissed and the white woman is messy, vulnerable and a little bit pissed, well, why might the white woman get to share all of that and be loved and endeared for it?

And why might the black woman never get to share any of that?

There's an element of truth being a privilege, like being honest being a privilege for some people.

So, when we explore, you know, lying languages and why people lie, I think privilege and freedom to be human without negative backlash is one reason.

It's a big one.

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I don't even think it's relationship dependent.

Like there are a bunch of

relationships where I feel like the stated or unstated expectation

is that we will continue to live in deception.

Absolutely.

And that is the lubricant for that relationship to make it work.

And so that's why to me, it is so, it's like setting the terms of engagement.

It is a privilege in society to be able to tell the truth.

And it is also a privilege that you earn

through

expectation among people.

I don't think anyone is owed the truth from me unless we have formed a bond of trust where that is the mutual expectation.

Yeah.

I don't think anyone has owed your truth.

If you are grounded and have done work enough to know your own truth, hallelujah.

And then you're, you're going to share it with other people, great.

But people need to know about you that you want the truth from someone.

And it is, it's a big ask.

Yes.

Asking someone to always be truthful to you is a potentially dangerous thing.

It is like, we are entering the arena with each other.

That means when you're pissed at me, I want you to tell me that.

There's only a handful of people that I want to know when they're pissed at me.

That's right.

So true.

And that I want the truth from.

So

I just think it's like we should get honest about truth and lying.

Yeah.

Even truth truth with self.

I mean, you think about like,

we have some people who are working out some major family stuff and the younger kids in the family are not seeing the toxic nature of the parents.

And it's frustrating for the older person, but it's like, you know, we can see it.

You think about, no, no, no, they can't yet.

The younger kids are dependent.

It's developing

inappropriate.

It is.

They're protecting themselves.

The lie of being rose-colored glasses is protecting them until they can handle it because they can be on their own.

I don't know.

I'm with you about this research just making me

think very differently about lie being bad, truth being good.

What does that mean?

It's like a religion.

If you're always trying to be quote unquote good

so that you don't violate the principle that you should never lie,

then you might not be taking care of yourself.

Because then you are disclosing the truth to people who can't handle it,

might not deserve it.

And then you're creating a relationship and deepening a relationship with people that the very reason you might want to lie to them to begin with is because a deepened relationship is not appropriate in that context.

Perfect.

Okay, so we are saying that there is a bucket of lying.

I know we don't like that word.

That Stoyle is not calling lying.

Right.

Which is an appropriate protection.

Protection of self, protection of others, protection.

There's another side where you could say it's protecting.

Like

this is gray also, because a person who's hiding an affair could say, well, I was just protecting.

I was protecting myself.

Exactly.

So what if she found out I was having an affair?

Yeah, exactly.

I would call it adaptive and maladaptive.

Okay.

Okay.

Adaptive and maladaptive.

Okay.

What do those mean?

So like adaptive is using it for good, using it in a, but maladaptive is using this protecting thing and using it for not so nefarious purposes.

Okay.

So what let's move on though from that very helpful category.

to what Abby and I have been discussing on our walks this week about our particular lying styles that don't have to do with just this protection, protection, I don't think, although maybe we will discover that they do.

But

we have

made up words for these people.

We have decided that Abby is a bullshitter.

Right.

And that I am a puppeteer.

And we have some other ideas that might be some people are hiders, some people are promoters.

We can get to that.

Abby, love, can you tell me what your lying style is as a bullshitter?

Okay, well, I just have to level set this for myself.

About 10 years ago, maybe even 15 now, I read the Four Agreements book.

Oh, yes, you love that book.

And I challenged myself to be impeccable with my word for one year.

And I want to just say that

it was the least amount of talking I ever did.

You're like, I'm going to be so impeccable with my word that I'm going to say three words this year.

It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

And I remember hitting the year mark and being like, fuck this shit.

Like, it's too hard.

So, this has been something that I feel like I've been dealing with for quite a long time.

And, like I said earlier, I come from a family where it's just like a lot of people around, and there's just like

mostly masculine energy, four brothers,

one of which

lies a lot.

And you don't know if it's true.

Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not.

And then I went into the sports world where there's just like lots of bullshitting, you know, people talking shit.

So I got into this kind of way of being

that

has hindered the kind of integrity and the character that I think of myself as.

I

don't know a lot of things, but I pretend to know a lot of things.

And I have the kind of male confidence in that pretending.

And it has backfired on me a lot.

Sister, I don't know if you remember this, but the first time I spoke to you ever,

you said to me, just don't ever lie to Glennon.

But I have tried really hard to not lie in our marriage ever.

I don't lie.

Like, that's not my thing.

But there's this bullshitting component to the way that I am, my being, that I can talk shit.

I'll spew a fact that like maybe I read on Twitter as Bible.

And then somebody will call me out and I'll be like, Google it.

You know, like, please don't Google it.

Please don't Google it and catch me out in this lie.

But there is something deeper, like with the things that we've been talking about is like, well, why, why is it important to me to

feel or present myself as somebody that knows things?

I think that I have a lot of insecurity around my intellect, not having graduated from college, being the sporty kid, not the education academic kid.

And then I come into this family of the smartest fucking people I've ever met in my life.

And so I do think that I have a lot of insecurity around how much you guys know.

And so I want to like be additive in some ways.

And so I think that I make some stuff up or I pretend to know things

that may or may not be true, truly, like may or may not be true, because I

want to feel important and I like want belonging and I want to be a part of this family.

And that's like a real truthy truth.

I'm like literally in therapy about it.

Yeah.

Cause like trying to find my own self-worth and what I bring to the table.

And then

adding the whole parenting conversation to this lying conversation.

Like

isn't parenting a whole fucking trove of lies?

Yes.

It's just like, you're just trying to get through the day and get your kids.

Like when you're like, it'll be okay.

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah.

Like, I don't know, but you got to pretend.

You got to pretend.

You can do it.

So

long and the short of it, my core fear is that I'm not smart enough and that I want to belong into this really intellectual family.

And I do know that like, I am bringing something to the table in some ways.

If you could see Abby sometimes when she's working on this, like we'll be at the kitchen table and one of the kids will say something.

I don't know, like, how many moons does Jupiter have or something?

I don't know.

I'm making it up.

And Abby will look at me and she'll go,

I

don't

know.

Oh, it's so hard for me.

And it's like

after discovery work, you're like, you're twitching.

You're having like withdrawal.

You're like,

yes.

I want to say 12.

I want to say 12.

I'm like, that's an interesting question.

I don't know.

It's really been something.

No.

Oh, God, it hurts me.

But then she'll look up and she's so proud of herself for saying, I don't know.

And I'll look at her and go, oh, my God.

Oh, baby.

Well, because I'm trying to establish a knowing.

that like keeps people feeling like safe and comfortable.

And ironically, what is happening in your body when I am going into my bullshitter way?

It makes me feel so unsafe.

Yeah.

I notice it right away and it always makes me feel so unsafe.

I don't know how to describe it other than a feeling of like,

I'm just wondering, okay, practically, how does that work?

Would someone just be like, hey, what happened in the War of 1812?

And Abby will just start riffing and just making stuff up as she goes?

Yes.

Yes.

Well, not necessarily.

It'll have a kernel of truth.

This is not ever about something like

that I know.

Okay, here, here's something.

We wouldn't pretend to know there was a warning.

No, no, it's not.

That's a pretty shoot.

I can instantly survey the crowd and know in some ways what they don't know.

And like, I know this is going to sound so

if you're like, read a room.

Here's the thing I could say that they can neither confirm nor deny.

Well, and also, like, I would never go down the history route because our kids are taking all of those classes right now.

Okay.

And they've read all the books.

So like anything that's outside of their purview, I'm like, oh, this is maybe where I can assert some

untruth.

So that's so great.

You have, you have a skill set.

I know.

And it's deep down.

Like it's so under, underneath like my consciousness.

It's like so deep into my subconscious that I don't know that it's happening, but something happens in my belly.

that when I say something and nobody else knows it, especially in my family, my brain lights up i'm like i feel really good even though i know that i have no clue what i'm talking about so it doesn't even have to be real no i'm like you're like they are looking at me as if i am an authority on this subject yes they believe me and i don't know like there's i'm sure that there's got to be some sort of chemical thing happening in my body i i actually feel something happening and then there's this like other side of it where i'm like terrified to be found out sure but baby, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to like in being in a big family.

I've been to your home.

Like the person, everyone turns towards the person who's talking the loudest.

It doesn't matter whether they're telling the truth or what they're saying.

Yeah.

And it's, it's just

expectation of truth is non-existent.

No.

Like the social contract here is that we're all just throwing stuff around, but nobody is actually expecting truth here.

That's right.

But I have had so much fun walking into the bullshitting family because I have learned how to do it.

Abby's has a person in her family who does just present stories.

And I can tell in a second that this person doesn't know what they're talking about.

So the thing that you do with a bullshitter, oh, God.

Okay.

So at one point, this person was talking in a way that I felt slightly uncomfortable with.

Okay.

And they were talking about cameras, like

cameras, and how

body cams, and about why a police officer shouldn't have to wear them

because

they don't even work or something.

They just don't work and spouting off stats at the table or something.

And I just interrupted and I said, as a matter of fact, in 49 states, 87%

of those body cams work 48% of the time or more, especially on the weekends.

She just made it up.

And I just stared at him.

She just fucked up.

Knowing he was full of shit and knowing there was nothing that he could say back, knowing the thing I said didn't even make sense.

Bullshit.

Ended the conversation.

In the end, my side won.

So, what you can do with bullshitters who you can tell don't know is just make a bunch of shit up back and say it louder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for being so vulnerable with that.

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I know that we've been talking about all these different kinds of lying.

And I do remember feeling when I was doing that year of not lying, I do remember feeling really proud of myself for being

really in truth.

And yes, it meant I didn't talk as much, which I think is probably fine.

But I also think that there's something to be said about the way that lying can actually make you feel about yourself in terms of, for me, at least, being a bullshitter.

Like, I don't want that to be.

who I am.

I want you and my people to feel safe in knowing that what I'm saying is true and that I, more than anything, I need to be comfortable with not knowing something that establishes my self-worth.

You know, like,

yeah, because it's about self-worth.

That is the work that I'm doing right now is trying to disconnect any kind of knowledge that I have to me having any sort of self-worth.

I should have self-worth regardless of what I know.

I love that.

You know, just knowing that at a table, your worth is just you existing, not having to like make something up to be worthy.

Yeah.

And just being able to say, I don't know.

I love it.

Abby, you are so worthy and you bring so much every minute.

And we love you so much.

And the least interesting thing about you is what you know, but you know a lot of shit

that none of us will ever even have access to.

And it's also all of us are insecure.

All of us lie based on our insecurity and unworthiness.

Yours is just in that particular area.

But all of us do.

I think one of the things that has been so interesting and beautiful is the way that like you have been able to communicate this with me.

Nobody in my life has ever been able to.

And it's because I trust you and I trust that what you say is your truth.

And it's a complication in our marriage because it's not something that I'm like healed from and perfect around.

And so sometimes I'm still doing it.

I do think that in a marriage, this kind of conversation is really important.

Like, what kind of a liar are you?

And when do you do it?

And so she can hold me a little bit accountable privately, not necessarily in front of everybody.

That's important.

Yeah.

But I do just get scared that our kids are going to have all the wrong facts about things.

Yeah, but so do we.

Our dad did that all the time.

Remember, he told us that on the, on the, he would just say things so definitively, you're like, that's got to be true.

You know, the, what are they called?

Where the, the electrical cords that are on the poles.

What are those that phone the balls?

Phone wires.

Yeah, phone, phone lines.

Where the cords go, and you know, they have those, those circular balls on them.

He told us that the elves lived there and cleaned the

cleaned the wires.

We believed that until we were like 12.

Yeah, but those weren't the worst lies.

The worst lies were stuff that could be true until we were 540, like that spam was called spam because they served it in the Spanish-American War.

Yeah.

So many things.

I mean, I also think that there's something we said.

This is in defense of myself here.

It is good for kids to be critically thinking on whether things are true or not.

Listen to your parents with discernment.

Like that sticker they used to put on my books in the Christian store.

Read with discernment.

I mean, think about all the shit that we were indoctrinated with.

Yeah.

Like, so it is important that our kids are.

capable and able to discern for themselves what their truth will be, right?

Like, so I'm helping them.

They're in training.

Yeah, you're training them to know that a discernment training they're in truth training um okay so that's the bullshitter if you relate to that pod squad that means you might be in a situation where you puff yourself up or act like you know more than you know it might be tied to worthiness so abby when you were just saying about

having the conversation with glennon that's

so big because I feel like in this whole conversation, it's been like, well, this is a lie and this is a lie.

And we're calling all of this lies, or we're calling none of this lies.

And so it feels like a really important conversation to have with the most important people in your life about how you define a lie.

Totally.

And what you actually want from someone else.

Like, I actually, when I ask you how I look,

Am I looking for you to tell me what you actually think or not?

Does that count as a lie?

Does that count as deception?

Or do I not want you to think that i decided very early that i was never going i used to have like boyfriends who'd be like what are you thinking about what are you thinking about and i'm like so you're asking me to lie to you because i'm definitely not going to tell you what i'm thinking about thinking about your best friend exactly i'm thinking about how quickly can i get the hell out of here and so there are certain things that like i actually don't want that level

of accountability to you but like what level of accountability do you want with the people in your life?

What level of honesty do you want?

And what, what constitutes a lie to you are just really huge conversations that I don't think we ever have with people.

It's the same, like,

what constitutes cheating to you?

Is it just sleeping with someone?

These are big deals because if we are in this world where it's so ill-defined, then we never know what it is.

And same with our friendships.

Yeah.

Like, I want to actually know from you if you don't like something, if like I want to hear that from you versus all these other people I don't want to hear that from them because I don't want that type of relationship with them.

Same.

I mean Glennon and I we went on a couple of walks and we talked about this and it was such a beautiful thing because we took the good and bad out of lying.

So it wasn't like bad or good.

It was just like, hey, like what kind of a liar do you think you are?

We like just openly talked about it and it really helped.

me understand.

And I've been in therapy.

So we've actually been talking about this for many weeks now.

And And I don't know, if you can just be super honest with your partner, let them provide you with what they think the lies are that they tell.

And so it can offer some sort of guidance into knowing each other better.

And to, if you want help with that lie, because I don't know, do you want help with your lying?

I do.

No, okay.

I

think that we're going to stop here.

And you all, Pod Squad, are going to think about what kind of liars you are and what your motivation is behind lying.

And then we're going to come back and then I'm going to tell you what kind of liar I am and sister will.

And then we have some freaking hilarious stories about lying that make me so happy.

We love you.

We're all big liars.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

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