"In my experience, one of the best ways to achieve happiness is to stop lying." When I recently shared this statement in a workshop, the energy in the room suddenly changed. It actually seemed to drop as a hush of shame fell over the room. Why? Because we all lie and we all have a hard time not lying. The more we lie, the less we feel good about ourselves. Especially if we are unforgiving. When we can't feel good about ourselves, our self-esteem goes down. We then withhold happiness from ourselves, ignore opportunities and start sabotaging ourselves.

In spirit, we are all honorable beings with good intentions. However, our brain doesn't come from that lofty position; it has no conscience, just programming. Our brain will lie, even when we don't want to.

No one has to teach us to lie. Lying, or the ability to deceive, is hard wired into our survival brain. Although it feels best to tell the truth, everyone will lie to survive and not feel the least bit bad about it. The compulsive liar once saved his skin with a lie and now, every time he feels threatened, his brain is compelled to lie. Psychological studies conclude that anyone under enough pressure or given enough incentive will lie. Ordinary people lie once or twice a day on low stress days. Both men and women will lie in approximately one-fifth of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes. People lie most often in dating situations or on the phone. We lie a lot to make ourselves look good.

Most people know they lie but hide it from themselves. We all have our lying barometer inside - directly hooked into our value system. Some lies are socially acceptable. We may feel it is okay to tell "white lies" or lies that "save face." Often, we lie to please other people, telling them we like them more than we do. We may exaggerate, minimize or leave out information that doesn't cast us in a good light. We tell ourselves these little twists are not lying. But, sometimes, we weave tangled webs indeed.

Our brains hold an intricate denial system that protects us from shock and pain. Our denial system consists of lies we live from: parts of ourselves we refuse to confront, acknowledge or own up to. The more dysfunctional we are, the more complex and twisted our denial system becomes. We have the ability to see something right in front of our eyes and yet deny we saw it. The brain will even delete information to help us out. We always delete information that doesn't support our position, thereby creating a slightly false (biased) reality.

One problem of the brain is that it believes everything you tell it and acts as if it were truth. Whatever you go into agreement with or allow in as programming becomes "the truth." This "truth" the brain will feed back to you later as fact. For example, a depressed individual may convince him or herself that life isn't worth living. Is that a true fact or only an opinion? Say something often enough and your brain believes it as fact, whether it is true or not. We often think that if we believe something then it must be true. That's why we think our opinions are right instead of just our opinions and that our beliefs are true instead of just our beliefs.

Another problem with the brain is that it makes assumptions from limited data and then believes its assumptions are true without further investigation. This is a real trap that can cause endless drama and unhappiness for people. Never make assumptions - only deal with facts. Assumptions many times turn out to be lies. Don't get upset until the facts are in, otherwise, you are wasting energy and fooling yourself.

The hardest lies to get over are the group lies. Whether family, race, or religion-based, we feel that if others believe our theory, it must be the truth. Unfortunately, we all too often believe others' opinions of us above our own. We can also get caught in the belief that "our group" is the true group while all the rest are false. This one can really get us into trouble.

Society places demands, expectations and rules upon us through propaganda and conditioning. Many are completely unrealistic. Yet, we believe them automatically and unconsciously try to fulfill them - usually falling short. Many lies are fed to us from the TV, media, and educational systems. Theories are presented as facts, later to be disproved. Relationship and other myths abound. Like blind sheep being led into the ditch, we accept these conditioned lies as truth and become whom "they" (advertisers, teachers, parents, the government) want us to be, telling ourselves it is who we want to be. The web becomes more tightly tangled even though "they" are always an illusionary figure in the brain. "They" are very rarely watching us even though much of our behavior is geared at pleasing "them."

Telling the truth is the best way to disconnect from the social mass of illusion we all cling to so desperately. Telling the truth and keeping your word are spiritual practices that lead to immense power, personal growth and mental health. Telling the truth untangles the webs we have woven and sets us free. It is a spiritual practice because lies are everywhere - we have to work at the truth. It makes us humble to see what a liar we are. It takes enlightenment to realize our way may not be the only way or that we really don't need the approval of others enough to lie to get it.

The first step is to become an observer of your brain. Watch how it lies. Notice what information it deletes. Forgive yourself and develop compassion when your brain lies. Then, again work on telling the truth. Observe your brain making assumptions and ignore them. When that critical voice turns on in your brain and tells you that you are not good enough, attractive enough, or rich enough, tell it to be quiet and stop lying.