Are you living a truthful life? What does living a truthful life mean anyway? To me, living a truthful life means living an authentic life. It is a life where you are honest with yourself and the others in your life. It is life that follows the old saying of “The Truth Will Set You Free”. Stacy Sheasby of Inspring Joy Today does an excellent job of explaining that old saying.

Living a truthful life is not for the faint of heart. It is difficult, painful, confusing, and joyous all at the same. It requires effort, and internal introspection. It requires a person to be accountable for their own life, without any excuses.

I am attempting to live a truthful life. It is not something I have always attempted to do. In fact the majority of my life has been spent living an untruthful life. I have spent a lot of years lying to myself, lying to others, and just flat out living a lie. The different parts of me were compartmentalized. Part of me shown to this person, another part shown to me, while still yet another part for that group over there. No one, not even me, had access to the whole of me.

In her post, Stacy Sheasby, suggests that if the truth will set us free, then if we are not living a truthful life we are living in a prison. I agree with her. It is a prison of our own making, but never-the-less it is still a prison. My prison took the form of depression, a depression that endured most of my life, becoming more and more severe as I got older. Included in my prison were the Anxiety Guards, and the Panic Attack Warden. If I ever tried to step out of my depression prison cell the Anxiety Guards and the Panic Attack Warden would set off such fears in me that I always scurried back to my “safe” cell.

After many, many years in my self made prison, I grew tired, and hopeless. I chose a way of escaping that gave me an easy way out, one where I did not have to encounter the Anxiety Guards and the Panic Attack Warden. Even that escape did not work. I found myself waking up in a hospital, tethered to a bed and still in my prison.

I was told I had no choice but to begin therapy. I did. I really did not want to, but I did. The smartest move I made in my life was promising myself and others that I would always be truthful in my therapy sessions and with my psychiatrist and actually following through with that promise. So began my journey of attempting to live a truthful life. I could only manage it during those once a week, hour long sessions, but at least it was a beginning.

As time has gone by, and I have gained confidence, began to care about myself, and learned to look at and tell the truth about myself, I have gotten more into the habit of living a truthful life. It is still not easy, I do it more out of habit than actually wanting to do it, but I am attempting, every day, to live a truthful life.

I have experienced a few rewards as a result of my attempting to live a truthful life. My relationships with my family has improved. To think, all these years they have been waiting to hear what was on my mind and for me to set boundaries with them. My depression and anxiety has lessened a great deal. The best reward has been passing the lesson of living a truthful life on to my daughter and her “getting it”.

Anna recently had a accident and broke something of hers that had significant monetary value. She made the decision to not say anything to either me or her father about it. She had decided that since it was an expensive item that we would be mad if she told us. This morning I asked her about that item because I had noticed she had not been using it. She looked like a deer caught in headlights and then she ‘fessed up about the item being broken. I was mad, but I was able to use that as an opportunity to explain to her that there is nothing wrong with being mad, it is a real emotion. It is a truthful emotion. I was also able to use this incident to talk to her about living a truthful life. An hour or so after we had this conversation, she said that she “felt better” because she was no longer worried about being “found out”. She explained the feeling by saying it “felt like an annoying bug that would not go away”.

My hope is that by teaching her to live a truthful life now, she will not find herself locked up in a prison of her own making in the future. There is nothing more beautiful then someone who can live a truthful life from a young age and never has to experience the pain from being in prison for most of their life.

I have ventured more and more outside my depression prison, walking past the Anxiety Guards and Panic Attack Warden. In some ways I am still bound by that prison, but the more attempts I make at living a truthful life, the less hold depression, anxiety and panic attacks have on me. I am looking forward to the day when that prison has absolutely no hold on me.

Are you living a truthful life? Are you living in a prison of your own making? Are you honest with yourself about yourself? Are you honest with others about your thoughts and feelings? Are you honest without excuses? example, I could be happy but…

I am looking forward to seeing how everyone answers those questions.