Aloud: How To Be You - No Lie Challenge

Hey, everybody, it is Shannon from aloud. It is 01:00 on a Wednesday and I'm coming to you live right now from the Mississippi river. So I'm going to show you. It's a beautiful day here. Can't really see. You can kind of see downtown Minneapolis and our beautiful river. It's an anomaly to be outside like this in almost December, but I'm excited to be here today. We are talking about how to be you. And we've talked about a couple of different things. And for those of you who don't know me, I'm Shannon.

I'm the founder of Aloud. And aloud is a safe space for people to talk about topics that can be hard to talk about, socially awkward topics, taboo topics. And one of those topics is how to be you, being you. The fact that we have to stop down and think about what it means to be you and how you're actively showing up in the world, even that in and of itself, is something really interesting to notice that we don't inherently know who we are. It's just something to notice about how we live in the world.

And so that's an exercise that I went through about seven years ago. And just for those of you who don't know me, hi. Welcome. Newfie lover, sue. It's nice to see you today. I'm not a therapist. I am a person who has anxiety and CPTSD and then parents with child with special needs. But I have spent the last seven and a half years in therapy really trying to find myself. So today I'm going to talk about the no lie challenge. And it comes out of a book that, for me, was incredibly valuable by an author, a woman named Martha Beck.

The book is called. Now I'm going to get it wrong. I think it's the way of integrity. I can't believe I don't know what it is. Google Martha Beck integrity and you'll see her book. But one of the premise, the premise premises in her book is the idea that what if, what if we just showed up as who we are? And so one way to test that and a tactical thing that you can do to try to understand who you are is to do something called the no lie challenge. It's hard. You can tell it's going to be hard already.

So when we think about lies, what is a lie? Is a white lie. My 16 year, my 16 year old and I just had this conversation, is any lie an okay lie? Is a white lie. Telling someone you know something they're wearing looks good on them. Is that okay? Is that considered acceptable? But the idea that Martha Beck presents to us is, what if we just 100% didn't lie for 30 days? What if when someone said, how are you? You responded with the truth? What if you paid attention to a relationship in your life and someone that you are in relationship says something to you and you react 100% truthfully?

It sounds. It sounds like. It sounds little and big at the same time. Right? It sounds little in that. Yeah. I can say how I really am, but it's really big in that. What happens is you'll start to notice inconsistencies and incongruencies. And if a month, if 30 days is too long for you to do this, just try it for one day and see what happens. For me, I know when I started doing it, what I really noticed quickly is that there were things I was saying yes to that I did not want to do. And if I was honest and I didn't lie and someone said, hey, you know, do you want to do this?

And I said, no. It had an impact. It was a bump in the status quo. Right. It was a moment where people have gotten so used to maybe you showing up in the world in one way that it's disruptive, potentially, when you say something that might not be in alignment with what you've always done. But I think that's my challenge to you today, is as you try to figure out who you are. Just take a day. If it's just a day, that's great. Hi, Nikki. It's a beautiful book. It is called the way of integrity, I think.

But take a day and don't lie. Don't lie to yourself. So if you have a feeling in your body about something that you're doing or saying, don't lie about it. Just notice it. Jot it down in a book. Maybe it's a person you interact with. Maybe it's something you're doing, like, I don't know, eating dessert at 10:00 at night and you're like, does that feel good? It doesn't. That's definitely one for me. I had to pay attention to the fact that, like, oh, this isn't great, that I'm eating ice cream at 1030 at night and I go to bed feeling icky.

But I had to notice it. So that is what I have for you today, friends. I hope that's helpful to you. It's just another step in starting to know yourself, because as you know yourself, you can eventually come to peace and be you. And if you are following JC's series about exercising your influence, which you should. It's that idea that we all have incredible influence, and so you inherently have influence. And showing up as you and the full expression of you is the most gift you can bring to yourself and also to those that you do influence.

All right, that's it. I'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to talk a little bit about how to be you and what are the sweetest parts of it, when you are, what are the best things that come out of it. So we'll see you guys soon. Hope you have a beautiful day, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, guys.