… or Bearing False Witness

Getting our youngest ready for school can sometimes be a challenge.  He is easily distractible, and I often spend most of my morning following up on him.  This morning I came out of the bedroom, where I was getting ready to leave, to make sure he had fed the dog.

“Yes.”  He said with a completely straight face.

My mommy senses went on alert immediately.  I glanced outside and could see that our dog was in the exact same spot as earlier and the dish was empty.  There was not enough time for him to have eaten all his food. 

“Really?”  I asked.

“Yes, Mom.  Really.”

What followed was a short discussion on lying.  Providentially, we had just covered the 10 Commandments in our church last Sunday, so we were able to harken back to “bearing false witness” and how our lying causes others to lose faith in us.  We become untrustworthy. Then he lost all electronics for the rest of the day.  Because.  Lying.

Later, I was at the gym…

Ok.  Time out.  Disclaimer:  I JUST started doing this regularly.  I am not a gym rat.  Yet.  Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

I was at the gym and trying to figure out what I should eat for breakfast.  I began logging my food two days ago and I am loosely trying to use Weight Watcher points to curtail my overeating and eat healthier things. So, I wanted to know what my options were for today.  As I was calculating todays options I remember Last Night.  Yes.  Last Night.

You see, at around 9:20, right in the middle of watching the new episode of “This Is Us”, I had an emergency.  It was a Lemon Oreo Cookie emergency and involved 6 cookies with no justification whatsoever.  The thing was I did not log my emergency into my food log.  So according to my app I was pretty dang successful yesterday.

This all came flooding back to me this morning as I was planning what to eat today.  And it occurred to me.  I was “bearing false witness” against myself.  Nobody knows about my food log (well, now YOU do).  Who was I hurting by not being truthful about what I ate?  Me.  I was hurting me. I was causing myself to lose faith in myself.

Sometimes we blame aspects of our self-worth on others and that can be completely legitimate.  Abuse, bullying, snark, rejection… they can all contribute heavily to the way we value ourselves.  However, those small moments when we cover up, hide, “bear false witness” can eat away at our confidence bit by bit, causing us to lose faith in ourselves.

Right before writing this post, I pulled out my phone and recorded my Lemon Oreo emergency from last night.  And, yes, it put me over my point total for yesterday.  But the important thing to me today is that I am being honest with myself.  Instead of chipping away at my faith in myself, I am practicing faithfulness.  Today anyway.

What false witness have you been bringing against yourself?  What do you quietly bury that could be eating away at your self-confidence and worth?

Often we don’t know how to start living truthfully with ourselves.  Coaching can be an excellent way to identify areas of concern and be strategic about moving forward with confidence.  If that is something that resonates with you, I offer a free 20-minute phone or video consultation to see if coaching is the right fit for you.  I’d love to hear from you and see you start to shape your own story!