Truth Serum<\/span><\/p>\n Dear Wounded Child In The Body Of A Grownup:<\/p>\n It\u2019s not your fault.<\/p>\n Well, I mean, plenty of stuff that came later was<\/em> totally your fault. But that\u2019ll take years to unwrap. Y\u2019know, in the unlikely event that you\u2019re ever willing to look at it.<\/p>\n The point is this\u2026<\/p>\n I understand why your head is such a mess. It\u2019s what our brains do. Even the criminal who rapes a woman has a voice inside trying to justify his actions. Was she was dressed a certain way? See, the human brain can take a tiny grain of truth and twist it around like a very weird pretzel. Sure, she might\u2019ve been dressed in seductive clothing. But here\u2019s the thing about that fact\u2026<\/p>\n Only a complete nutjob would use it as a justification for rape.<\/p>\n Crazy example, right? Very extreme. Clearly, you are not a sociopath. But I had to grab your attention. Because this main point is important. It needs to hit you right in the gut\u2026<\/p>\n There\u2019s a part of you that justifies everything you do.<\/p>\n All of it.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a part of your brain that will always judge others by their actions. It\u2019ll do this for the rest of your life. While judging you by your intentions<\/em>.<\/p>\n Think of that as a flaw in our programming. Call it \u201cbad wiring.\u201d Do whatever you want with it. But whether you choose to see it or not is irrelevant\u2026<\/p>\n It\u2019ll be true regardless.<\/p>\n Your brain\u2026and your own thoughts\u2026will quite often be the worst enemy you encounter. \u00a0<\/p>\n Most likely, you have some understanding of this fact. \u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s around the edges.<\/p>\n In the margins.<\/p>\n With the pills you can swallow. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n No, you\u2019re not a rapist. Never will be. Not even in the same universe of being a monster. But does your<\/em> brain operate in some nutjob-y ways too?<\/p>\n Abso-fucking-lutely.<\/p>\n Today, I\u2019m offering you a chance to fast-forward through the years of therapy you desperately need. A kind of skip-the-line pass. Getting you straight to the finish line of all that work. I\u2019ll put it on a shiny, silver platter. All you need to do is really<\/em> allow it in. No tricks here. No hidden objective. I\u2019ll cut right through all the years of bullshit. And what\u2019s your job? Simple. Put your defenses down, allow a few moments of true vulnerability, and maybe feel some (healthy) discomfort.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all it\u2019ll cost. But, ultimately, the price will be too much to ask. \u00a0<\/p>\n And it\u2019s because of that<\/em> part of your brain.<\/p>\n But we soldier on. In the hopes that, one day, this pill can be swallowed.<\/p>\n Look, I get it. Your discomfort armor is already starting to activate. Might be thinking about skipping this post and coming back in May for the usual witty banter. So, please feel free. This isn\u2019t for everyone. As a matter of fact, it will only <\/em>appeal to a very small minority. Because we build our lives around not getting too personal. We constantly protect ourselves from danger. So, I really do get it. For most people, a lifetime of programming is sounding the alarm right about now.<\/p>\n But maybe you\u2019re the exception. <\/p>\n Maybe you feel intrigued\u2026<\/p>\n If that\u2019s the case, here\u2019s a quick disclaimer about why this is such a longshot. Mainly because none of it will be sugarcoated. And that \u201csugar\u201d tends to be a necessary evil. Have you ever wondered why therapy takes a bunch of years to work? No big secret. Same reason so many of us think we don\u2019t need it. When push comes to shove, this pesky part of our brain doesn\u2019t want<\/em> to look at our shit. It doesn\u2019t want<\/em> to feel wrong about how it operates. Even with our most dysfunctional stuff. Which is why we need to be gently eased into it. Really think about how wild that is. A loud voice inside of you actually wants to be right<\/em> about the shit that makes you feel bad about yourself. The stuff that makes you feel small. You know all that inner noise you dream of transcending? Well, it\u2019s the exact same nonsense this part of your brain needs to hold onto. And, man, what a difficult thing to see. If you (somehow) grasped this paragraph and find yourself nodding your head right now? You\u2019ve hit a level of honesty that most people never will.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a trip back to when this seed first started growing\u2026<\/p>\n As a teenager, I was abnormally curious about people. Myself, of course. But, really, all the people around me. Family\u2026friends and neighbors\u2026teachers at school\u2026even random strangers. In short, I wanted to figure out why everyone was so fucking weird. No, not just the homeless guy muttering in the street. What about the rich dude in his convertible with all his strange tics? The confident lady with perfect makeup and designer clothes who needed to be so put together at every moment? All those friendly, awesome people around me who were capable of being so\u2026different\u2026in certain scenarios? Humans were a big mystery. And I was ready to play detective.<\/p>\n Eventually, I narrowed it down to specific questions. Like, why is it so difficult for our brains to be wrong? Sure, it\u2019s easier with small things. But what happens with something significant? When emotion gets involved? Always the same old pattern. That quick, instinctive pushback. A resistance. I started seeing it everywhere. The more emotional a moment, the harder it is for a human to be wrong. Were there exceptions? Of course. So, I looked at them. And, underneath the bullshit, those \u201cexceptions\u201d were mostly just attempts to manipulate. Whether to gain someone\u2019s approval. To appease them. A clever tactic that people use to gain something. Not maliciously. Just by instinct. I didn\u2019t judge any of it. Just a kid detective trying to observe. Wanting to learn what the hell makes us so strange.<\/p>\n So, in high school, I started doing what I called \u201cscientific experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n I went around asking a simple question: Took it seriously. Had a fresh notebook to track all the data. Certainly wasn\u2019t a shy child, so talking to people was never an issue. Mostly, I just wanted to listen. Unfortunately, as a teenager, I had the focus of a squirrel. Lost myself in video games or whatever else for months at a time. It ended up taking years to finish the \u201cscientific experiments.\u201d Finally completed the surveys in my mid-20\u2019s. The results were always so consistent. I had the answers I was looking for. And here\u2019s what I learned:<\/p>\n Most people have a really<\/em> hard time coming up with an answer. I mean, we\u2019re all wrong thousands of times in our lives. But the majority of people struggled to think of a single example. When were you wrong? Such an easy question. The answers that did come were usually about small, insignificant things. Again, stuff without any emotion attached. I spoke to humans of all shapes and sizes. Various ages, races, and genders. People I loved. Absolute strangers. Everyone in between. And the responses were always in 3 categories.<\/p>\n Either: That final category? It got juicy. You could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. There was emotion attached. Leading to longer conversations. For the most part, it was still a ton of resistance. A \u201cbut\u201d at the end. Which became its own category. The \u201cI was wrong\u2026but\u201d people. They basically just took a longer road to not being able to answer. However, a small percentage of people went deeper. Seemed to have more self-awareness. More honesty. More\u2026something. And, with these people, there was always a visceral sadness when speaking of being wrong. It\u2019s what I found most significant. Just how sad they looked when speaking about it. Usually, they seemed to have \u201cwronged\u201d themselves the most. Meaning, they appeared to have paid the biggest price. \u00a0<\/p>\n And that\u2019s when clarity began to form.<\/p>\n The growth of something big\u2026<\/p>\n Why do we find it so hard to embrace being wrong? At such a young age, this was a breakthrough.<\/p>\n I started observing more closely. The elaborate song and dance we all go through. How we create our personas. Developing our sense of self. Building these identities. Defining ourselves by an adjective or two. And at the root of this? A shared foundation built on avoiding pain. People would rather fall into destructive habits than really feel it. Will live a life in denial\u2026rather than just dealing with that shit. Sure, we feel plenty of stuff. But from within our carefully constructed stories. Inside our own matrix of who we \u201care.\u201d And what runs this whole show? The same damn part of our brain. The one that justifies everything we do. That one that doesn\u2019t want to feel bad. What the hell is this mechanism? It seems to exist for one purpose \u2013 to \u201cprotect\u201d ourselves from feeling our shit. So, if that requires dysfunction or dishonesty? No problemo.<\/p>\n Ok, ok, ok. <\/p>\n So, this<\/em> is why people have such resistance to being wrong.<\/p>\n It always comes back to that same damn part of the brain. Behaving like an enemy. Wearing the costume of an ally.<\/p>\n Boom. <\/p>\n Now the floodgates were open\u2026<\/p>\n It all made sense. It\u2019s impossible to live in this society without falling into \u201cThe Big Lie.\u201d Which is what I started calling it. From an early age, we learn the lesson. That the world (and people within it) can tell us our value. We relearn this on a daily basis. Seeing and hearing the message every single day of our lives. So, we believe it as fact. And you\u2019ll see how that plays out in different ways. We all treat our value like a currency that can be increased. Based on our looks, money, success, good deeds, parenting, strength, character\u2026or whatever your <\/em>individual story is about. <\/p>\n That\u2019s your big lie. <\/p>\n See, you will never actually be a \u201cbetter person.\u201d And, yes, I know you just experienced an inner reaction reading that sentence. It\u2019s the same part of your brain trying to get loud again. Just be aware of that feeling. See, if you can be a \u201cbetter person,\u201d that also means you are currently a worse person. Which is exactly how this part of our brain operates. Eventually, we get to the end of our lives still believing it. On a constant search for ways to increase our value. In whatever currency we\u2019ve been raised to use. Even those big, bad bully world leaders are terrified inside. But, of what specifically? Their own big lie. That being weak will make them small. And being \u201cstrong\u201d will increase their worth. See, we all do the same dance in different ways. Wrestling with our own big lie. But the truth is this\u2026<\/p>\n No magic pill will ever give you more value.<\/p>\n No reading of self-help books will get you there. Listening to wellness podcasts won\u2019t change it. Behaving in confident (or humble) ways won\u2019t make a difference. No amount of money, no size of house, and no speed of car will change it. None of the sex, love, or approval can help you earn it. There\u2019s zero chance of burying it under any amount of alcohol, drugs, or food. Won\u2019t hit a number of years of acting strong\u2026or kind\u2026that will affect it. Friendly or angry. Fat or skinny. Success or failure. That won\u2019t make any difference. Your charitable acts will never buy it. And no line of people telling you how great (or terrible) you are can ever impact it. Maybe you\u2019re a parent. Or feel alone in the world. None of that will change this. \u00a0<\/p>\n Your value exists.<\/p>\n Because you exist.<\/p>\n The world (and your brain) are playing an obsessive game of pretend. On an endless loop. Win or lose, it will never make you matter more. Or less. That\u2019s all just a made-up concept. An accepted insecurity that we pass down to each new generation. \u00a0<\/p>\n A baby doesn\u2019t rank itself against other babies. Better or worse. Superior and inferior. It\u2019s all just noise we learn over time.<\/p>\n Deafening noise.<\/p>\n The big lie.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s when this puzzle came together. The pesky part of your brain? It doesn\u2019t actually want<\/em> to be wrong about the big lie.<\/p>\n It needs<\/em> to believe it.<\/p>\n I want you to look all around you. In every direction. No matter what \u201ctype\u201d of person you see, they\u2019re battling with a feeling of smallness. A belief that their value is a currency which can be won or lost. The hottie who needs to stay attractive or else\u2026the entrepreneur who needs to be successful or else\u2026a need to be loved or else\u2026a need to be strong or else\u2026and on and on.<\/p>\n That part of your brain might be trying to say you had a great childhood. What a gift. But, yes, even you are at war with your big lie. Think about what matters most to you. Whether it\u2019s your success or looks or parenting or whatever your \u201cthing\u201d is. Ok, now what happens if you suck at it? What happens to your sense of value and worth then? See, there\u2019s a massive difference between caring deeply about something\u2026and deluding yourself that your entire human value hinges on it.<\/p>\n The latter is a lie.<\/p>\n And the big lie impacts each and every one of us.<\/p>\n World leaders, the rich and famous, the poor and sad\u2026none can exist in this society and be immune to it. Yes, you can absolutely behave in ways that are fulfilling and healthy. Ways that will have a positive impact on others. Of course, you can want love and success. But none of it will ever change your value. It\u2019s not a currency that can be increased. <\/p>\n It\u2019s already there.<\/p>\n Why do people go around chanting \u201cI am enough\u201d like some kind of mantra? Because they believe they\u2019re not. Because of the big lie. The most important thing we can ever do for ourselves is actively search out where we are wrong. So we can develop that muscle. To be able to see that we\u2019re wrong about a long list of things. Which is much harder than it sounds. Because of that<\/em> part of our brain. But doing this will make it possible to see your biggest <\/em>wrong. To see your story for what it is. To see your big lie. You don\u2019t have value because of what you own, who you\u2019re with, what you\u2019ve accomplished, the people you\u2019ve parented, the way you look, the approval you\u2019ve gotten, or anything else. And you never lost any value for your failures. No matter what the world says. No matter what your brain says.<\/p>\n This is not something to earn.<\/p>\n Not something you can lose. \u00a0<\/p>\n Your entire life is branches off this tree. It\u2019s all an extension of this. Can you see your own personal big lie? This isn\u2019t some new age hippie greeting card. It\u2019s about honesty. About realizing you\u2019re more than just the way you\u2019ve been programmed since birth.<\/p>\n There\u2019s just no way to be honest with yourself when you believe your big lie.<\/p>\n And the only thing in your way? <\/p>\n That same damn part of your brain. <\/p>\n It runs the show and always has.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen were you wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
A \u2013 struggled to come up with an answer,
B \u2013 insignificant stuff (easy to \u201cforgive\u201d oneself for),
or
C \u2013 something more interesting.<\/p>\n
Because it makes us feel bad. It causes us pain. And we humans will go to great lengths to avoid feeling that.<\/p>\n
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