Sometimes I'm Psychic

I don't really think I'm psychic. But I know that I can come across that way sometimes - it's just that it never occurs to me that it's happening. I just say what I say. And then people say what they say.

So today it came up during a class at the children's hospital, where I'm dealing with teenagers who are still technically children and don't worry, I don't forget it, that addictive behaviour includes lying. The kids I deal with are in the hospital, some of them in the psych ward basically, for disordered eating issues - bad enough that they're in the hospital for it. I just talk to them like I'd talk to anyone else normally and today we're talking and the next thing I know we're talking about lying and being an addict, which is kind of like what's going on with ED, but I'm not talking about that, I was talking about smoking and how I'd lie like crazy to my mom about it and I'd come up with plenty of excuses, and they were totally relating, and then it came up that I mentioned, "you'll know you're getting better when you can't lie anymore and you find yourself having to tell the truth." One girl was laughing and the other girl was just lying there on her mat because she was really new, and the other girl was saying, "nobody's perfect." I took that one and ran with it. "Of course nobody's perfect and anyone who says they are is a liar," is what I told them.

As it turns out, one of them had totally been lying earlier in the day about hiding food and the other one had confronted her about it, mentioning that her hiding food was a trigger for her - behaviour is a big deal in these tiny communities in the hospital. Wow. During my little break between classes I bumped into someone (one of the therapists) who told me that she had been concerned how yoga would go given that there had been this tension earlier in the day between two of them. It wasn't hard to tell who she was talking about. I told her that we'd had the conversation about being an addict, she laughed and said that it was great that I reinforced that when you get better you won't need to lie. "The truth is manageable" is what I told them (and you know I'm into that - that was not a hard thing for me to say) and I told her and the therapist laughed. She seemed really pleased that I would send that message without any prompting or divulging.

It was funny to have hit the nail so totally on the head. It's neat when that happens. Again, I have no idea when I've struck a chord (or nerve as the case may be) but when it happens it's magical.

When you are lying there's something going on and trust me, it's not alright. The need to tell the truth is a sign you're getting better - you can handle the truth and you trust that the others around you can handle it too. What a powerful way to live.