How do you handle the Truth?

Feeling overwhelmed and need a break to regroup? You're not alone. Join me on this emotionally charged episode of "Check Yourself with Harley" as I open up about my personal battles with feeling isolated and the struggle for self-awareness. From insights drawn from a recent church sermon on loneliness to the poignant realization that many of us feel lonely even with faith and connections, we dive deep into the complexities of human relationships and the importance of honest conversations. You'll find comfort in knowing you're not the only one navigating these waters.

Ever felt like an outcast for seeking deeper connections? Listen as I share my own journey of transitioning from superficial friendships to embracing authenticity, even if it means feeling isolated at times. I recount how a challenging conversation with my ex became a pivotal moment for self-reflection and growth, underscoring the importance of accepting truths regardless of their source. This raw and candid discussion will inspire you to look inward and confront your own uncomfortable truths, leading to meaningful personal change.

To wrap up, we delve into the emotional challenges of self-reflection and the crucial role of mutual support in relationships. Learn how letting go of bitterness and embracing criticism can be transformative, as I share personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of being grounded in your true self. Finally, I spread love and encouragement, reminding you that despite life's ups and downs, you are loved, enough, and never alone. Stay positive, keep spreading the love, and let's navigate this journey together.

Chapters

• 0:01 Navigating Loneliness and Self-Improvement
• 5:39 Embracing Truth From Unexpected Sources
• 13:25 Discovering Personal Truth and Growth
• 26:09 Navigating Self-Reflection and Personal Growth
• 31:33 Spreading Love and Encouragement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You better check yourself before you break yourself. You better check yourself before you break yourself. The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. Proverbs 12, 15. Hey, what's up you guys? Welcome back to Check Yourself with Harley. Thank you for being here with me today and spending time with me.

Speaker 1: 0:22

I wanted to, before I go on to this week's episode, kind of talk a little bit about things that have been going on with me. I did not film an episode last week. Things have just been sucking a lot lately. Honestly, I am dealing with a lot of stuff personally, a lot of things like inside. As I mentioned to you guys, this is a journey and that is why I created the podcast, because I wanted to share it with other people that maybe were going through something similar or like maybe are wanting to, you know, change some things, and it's really, really hard.

Speaker 1: 1:03

It's hard to completely restructure the way that you have behaved your whole life. I am 34 years old. I didn't learn the way that I was overnight, and I say was because I'm definitely not the same person. However, that person is still there. It's still very much part of me. So there is times where there is situations that come and they put me in a certain like panic mode and survival and then I kind of like start to, you know, want to go back to old behaviors and things like that. So I took a moment to kind of like regroup myself and figure out like what is it that I need to be focused on? Pray, do a lot of like understanding not just of myself, but people around me. Understanding not just of myself, but people around me and that has been pretty helpful for me Doesn't mean that everything's good and things still don't suck, but it makes it a lot easier to handle.

Speaker 1: 2:18

I think that life will never be perfect and you sometimes aren't cured of the disease and you still have to live with it, and it's about learning how to manage what you're dealing with and going through. So that's what I've been doing and I have really been thinking about my podcast. I love what I'm doing so far. I just want to do it better and I haven't been happy with what I've been putting out. To be quite honest. I like the content. They're important episodes for you guys to kind of get an understanding of what I'm doing but I also feel like I'm not coming through on my episodes the way I want to. I want to be myself. I don't want to sound like a corporate representative of something, because I'm not, and I don't want to sound like I have it all together because I don't and that was the point of the podcast was so others like me would not feel alone.

Speaker 1: 3:26

I actually went to church on Sunday and the sermon was about loneliness. I thought it was amazing. The pastors were talking about how only 12% of people that feel lonely will actually talk about it because they are embarrassed or ashamed or you know, feel like they'll be judged. Then the pastors mentioned two-thirds of the people in the world are actually lonely. They feel lonely. So that was a really important sermon for me, because I feel lonely. I feel lonely. Sometimes I am at home with my daughter all day. She's only eight months. I do have a job, but it's obviously work from home, so it does feel lonely.

Speaker 1: 4:14

And one of the things that I thought about, whenever you're a Christian and you say something like I feel lonely, people are automatically going to be like but you have Jesus all the time. Yes, that is true, but from my perspective, is you can be lonely and you can be empty. Being empty and lonely are two different things. When you're empty, you have no hope, you have nothing, you believe in nothing and you're just kind of here for whatever reason, until you're not. And that's how I used to live my life. I used to be empty and I used to look for ways to fill this void that I just didn't know what it was. But I don't feel that I don't feel not happy just because I am going through things. I still have a lot of peace inside of me and I'm still really happy. But it doesn't make it any less hard. And I know I have Jesus with me and I know that I can talk to him. But it is nice to have companionship and it is nice to have someone to hang out with and talk to and things like that. Like yes, I have my kids, but I would like to talk to an adult sometimes. So that is the point of me doing this podcast so that you don't feel like a weirdo wondering weird questions to yourself or like that you're dealing with something and you're not too sure but you don't really know who to ask or you don't have anyone to ask.

Speaker 1: 5:39

A lot of times we think I'm not lonely because I have all these friends, and I mean, what friends do you have? Are they like friends that you can be like real with and talk to and y'all can talk about, like things from the past and how you've overcome or how you haven't overcome yet? Or like maybe something you're dealing with really personal, without judgment? Or do you have like these surface level friends where you're like he, he, ha, ha and at the end of the day, if you're really going through some, you can't call them? And I think a lot of us have those surface level friendships. I had a friend that I had, for my goodness, years and years and years, and they didn't find out personal things about me until like a couple years ago.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I've always had very surface level friendships because I didn't want to like sound like the weird one and I, you know, didn't want to seem like I was just all over the place or whatever. So I decided to stop living like that a while back because I was just over it. It's very exhausting, but I understand that that's very hard for a lot of people. So I don't want anyone to feel alone, even if I can't talk to you or even if you know you feel better just keeping certain things to yourself. I just don't want you to feel like the weirdo outcast like I do sometimes, so I will embarrass myself for all of us. That was just a little pre-episode tangent. I really just wanted y'all to know that I want to come across as me. I am not a professional and I'm not here to be one. I am here to be your friend. I'm here to make you feel like you're not all by yourself in this very complicated world and life that we're all living in right now. That is how I'm going to be moving forward with my podcast. I am going to be keeping it me. I'm going to be myself. All of that out the way.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So today's episode how do you handle the truth? So while making this episode, I was actually having this discussion with one of my friends I went to high school with. He's been a friend for years. We used to work together and we would just shoot the. You know we just do that all the time on different topics. We've always just had like these really deep discussions about different stuff. We have these debates and we kind of like talk about our own different point of view and things like that. Back when Clinton and Trump were going against each other. We used to watch the debates. It was like football for us. We just like talk about what one was doing, the other one, one, and we kind of like talk crap to each other about it and to each other of the can, like our candidate that we were going for, because we were going for the same person. It was just it was fun. It's fun times to have those conversations with him. So for this episode we're kind of discussing my last episode.

Speaker 1: 8:41

And then he started discussing about like the flip side of you receiving, the keeping it real when people keep it real with you. He was kind of saying that the most important part of receiving the truth was where it was coming from. But I disagree with him because I don't believe that is necessarily the case. Doesn't matter where the truth come from. So the truth is just the truth, like we talked about in the previous episode, of course, delivery and like how you mean it and how you kind of like relay something, maybe sensitive information, to somebody that doesn't really know that about themselves. You would want to be kind of cautious and just careful, but that doesn't mean that you can't get the truth from somebody that doesn't like you or that doesn't have your best interest at heart. So why not use that? Why not use something that someone is giving to you If it's useful information? I would and I do. I always have. I think the most important thing is for you to actually analyze the truth that they are giving to you. Is it an actual truth? What value does it hold for you in your life? So we went back and forth for a while. He, I don't think, really grasped on, maybe fully, what I was saying. He was kind of catching my drift, but maybe this episode will answer that for you, my friend, when you listen to it.

Speaker 1: 10:04

So when I split up from my oldest kid's dad, we weren't like the best friends ever. Now our kids are 16, 15, and 14. So we get along just fine. We actually get along well. Yeah, back then we were kind of like doing the baby mama, baby daddy thing that everybody and hated each other and took each other's kids away from each other every other day. Pretty much we would fight all the time. I remember this was years after we split. We'd still have like a really hard time, just because it's hard to like catch your co-parenting wave, I guess. So we used to say like really mean things to each other. One thing that we both knew was that we both cared about being in the kids' lives. Now I consider him great friend, great person in my life. We had to just grow up, but you know, things happen.

Speaker 1: 10:57

So back in the day, in one of these like arguments that we're having, it had been some years after we had split up and he was in a new relationship and he'd been in this relationship for about five years at that time and I remember he said to me I believe his words were are you sure you're not the problem? Or like maybe you're the problem, or something like that. So I was just so upset and I just thought, like how dare you? Why would I be the problem? Because I am just, you know, perfect. It was all him. All of our problems were him and he was the one that did everything to me.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I think that's kind of how we all look at things. Whenever we break up with somebody, we just blame everything on them. We don't think that we did anything wrong or had any part. Especially, we compare the wrongs, like does their wrong match my wrong or is their sin more sinful than mine? And that's not a thing. We don't know how one person feels pain compared to you. Maybe something that you think is small is very hurtful to somebody else. So, anyway, I at the time did not take this truth with any type of value, obviously, and I also kind of thought how can somebody come tell me a truth about me that they don't even practice themselves? I think we all do that a lot of times, mostly with parents. Like our parents will tell us don't do this or be careful with that, and you're just kind of like didn't you do that? Like a million times already, like I'm not going to listen to you, I'm going to go ahead and do me and screw up my life the best way I see fit. That's kind of how I saw it whenever he said that to me.

Speaker 1: 12:36

You know, after a while of things not going as envisioned for me, I had to kind of take a look at the facts about the truth that he was telling me Instead of like thinking, oh you know, this is somebody that does not have my best interest at heart. He doesn't even like me, and why would he care if I am successful in a relationship or not? I had to think about the actual truth. I had to stop thinking about where it was coming from. I had to analyze our situation as a whole. I had to take responsibility for the things that I did in our relationship and why it failed. I had to look at the fact that he had now been in a successful relationship for five years. I think I have already been through two failed ones at this point, probably one actual, real one that I would count. Who knows how many people I dated at that point, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 13:25

I had to let go of the bitterness of our past, maybe look for the value in what he was telling me, because this is somebody I had just spent a lot of years with and we have three kids together. Who better than to maybe recognize something in me that I don't recognize in myself? A relationship that he was in or that he isn't because it's his wife, they're not a bad relationship. They were able to make it work back. You know, when I was bitter and I was upset, I would think well, obviously a man can always find somebody, because women are out here lonely sometimes you just take whatever you can get and they just kind of stay. And that was wrong for me to think like that because anybody, no matter who you are, you we all have like a threshold of how much crap we're going to take from a person, so it was wrong for me to think that they've been able to accomplish goals.

Speaker 1: 14:18

They successfully got her through school. She's a teacher, like I said, a nice person, nothing weird. Anytime that we're all in the same room, it's she's a teacher. Like I said, a nice person, nothing weird. Any time that we're all in the same room, it's. She's very, very cordial. There's no disrespect that goes on between her and I. When I started kind of thinking about all of those things, I started to see, yeah, I probably have a part. One thing is that different people bring different things out of you. Some people are better together. Some of the things is dependent on how you are towards the person, like how supportive you are and how much you share in with their dreams and how much you guys communicate and things like that. So that was something that they had that we definitely did not.

Speaker 1: 15:07

The truth that he gave to me is actually that I wasn't perfect and for me to sit and compare wrongs, I wasn't doing myself any favors because he wasn't doing that. He was able to make a life for himself at this point, but I was still thinking that there's nothing I was doing wrong, so I will just continue being the same thing that I had been through our whole seven years that we were together. That truth actually completely changed things for me in a lot of different ways Not at that moment, because I only have implemented and accepted it, but it is something that I now knew that it was a fact. Yeah, it wasn't delivered from. The best person like this is somebody who I just went through a terrible breakup with and we had like a lot of bad things when we were together. Regardless of who he is, he still told me something that I truly needed to see in order for me to have a successful relationship later on in life.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Had I not known that, I would have just continued to act the same way. I would be acting the same way right now and keep thinking that I am just, you know, a ray of sunshine when I am not. I will always be extremely thankful to my kid's dad for pointing that out to me at that time, and obviously our relationship has came a long way and if he were to say that to me today, I would have thought about. You know what he was saying, but I did not that time because of where it was coming from. You know, just like you're going to receive truths from someone that you don't like, you want to like brush those aside and not accept them. There's times where you're going to receive some truths from someone that you actually love very much, and when we receive hard truths from someone that we love and they are not delivered in the best way possible, I think we take those truths to heart Again. We need to look at that truth, especially if it's not said to you in the best way.

Speaker 1: 17:08

I actually just had a situation happen to me where I was talking to someone that I love, very much, admire, and I always kind of felt like they saw me different. They saw me for the best in me and not necessarily like the bad things that I've done, like not. They don't judge me based off my past, basically. But some of the things that were said, I internalized them right away. The thing is that it's not true. Some of the things that they were saying, the truths that I was hearing, weren't present day truths. They are from the past. I had to understand the difference because if you receive something that you've already kind of worked through, there's no point on you feeling bad about yourself. So you have to look at this truth and think how much truth is there to it? Is that still the case? Can I take something away from it? Like, maybe improve? Maybe you have changed it some, but you can improve it. So from this one, that's kind of what I took. I had made the changes, but I did need to improve and work more on this particular thing. I was very upset and then I was just like you know what? I need to just work harder at this. That's what I'm doing. I'm working harder on that aspect of my life.

Speaker 1: 18:27

Sometimes we get a truth from someone that we care very deeply about A situation that I had. I was in a relationship long term. I was having a discussion with this other person. They were talking about their job and how much they didn't like their job and they were just tired of it and this had been like a conversation for some months now. I was just feeling very like sad that they were just so unhappy with this job and I wanted to help in some way. We were like talking about like goals and things like that and I was just kind of like asking them like what do they really truly want to do? And you know, like how can we figure out to get them to a place where they're feeling happier and more fulfilled? I suggested that they quit their job and that they switch onto a new field, and the response was not everyone can quit their job every two years.

Speaker 1: 19:22

I was really triggered whenever this person said that, because it was true and it was something I was always really self-conscious about. I had a really hard time like holding down a job for very long. When they said this to me, I immediately was like really defensive and I was just like what in the heck? And I was just like what in the heck? Like I am here trying to be supportive of you and trying to help you for you to like feel happy in what you're doing, and you're like coming at me kind of sideways. I thought about what was being said to me instead of like internalizing that and feeling really bad about myself. I had to understand that at that time I had like undiagnosed mental illness and with what I have it's it causes you to be impulsive.

Speaker 1: 20:11

At one point I decided I didn't want to work in an office anymore, so was like I'm going to go waitress. I started working at a restaurant and at a bar and that was just impulsive because I have kids. I can't just be getting up and quitting jobs and doing all that crazy mess, but that's what I would do with school. It was difficult because I have again ADHD or ADD whatever. I couldn't focus for very long on one specific thing. If it was boring, if it wasn't fulfilling, then I just didn't want to do it and I just wanted to move on to something else. I wasn't successful in finishing that and that was something that has always bothered me. Because I wanted to finish school, I tried for a long time to go to school full time, take care of the kids and work a full time job, because I was a single mom for a long time. Yeah, I was hurtful when I heard that. As I analyzed the truth and broke it down, I was able to give myself some grace and understanding to myself that these were the reasons for that and I did not have to make myself feel like I was just a piece of crap because of that. It's just an unfortunate side effect of something that I had no control over at that time. That's something I still struggle with, but I am more aware of the struggle, so I try to work really hard and implement things that will make me be more successful at holding down that job.

Speaker 1: 21:37

When you hear the truth about certain things, how does that truth make you feel? Is it a truth that you've already kind of worked through, because I've received those truths that are past truths. I have moved past that certain season in my life, so it can be true, but it's something that I've already recognized and moved past. Now you're going to hear some truths where people will tell you something like really outrageous and it's going to like upset you. That's not the same thing as something that's triggering or making you self-conscious more.

Speaker 1: 22:13

I think whenever you're self-conscious about something, that is when you probably should take a moment, analyze, like, am I self-conscious because this is like a past thing that I've had and am I still continuing it? Or am I self-conscious because this is like a past thing that I've had and am I still continuing it? Or am I self-conscious because I feel like this is true and I just haven't been able to accept that truth? If you haven't been able to accept it, are you scared of making the adjustment, or are you scared that you wouldn't be able to make any adjustment or make the changes, that it would be too hard? If that is the case, then don't accept that from yourself. You can definitely make the change. It's not going to be an overnight change and it's not going to be easy. But acknowledging the fact that you know that that is something that is true and you probably need to go ahead and work on is a huge step, because not everyone is going to do that.

Speaker 1: 23:08

A lot of people go through their whole life being told like, hey, you should probably like ABC, and they're just kind of like, no, I don't. Because I don't do that and I don't accept it, you will go through life not being able to grow and not improve yourself. That's a disservice that you're doing to you personally. You also want to think about. Is there something I can learn from this truth? Will it help me grow and improve the quality of my life overall, to accept and grow from it the situation with my kid's dad? It did.

Speaker 1: 23:41

I accepted that I needed to be a more supportive partner. I needed to speak more life into the person that I am trying to create a life with and not sit there and bash them every five seconds for every thing that they do wrong, because I do things wrong all the time and I'm not perfect. It's really unfair to think that they are the only ones at fault of everything. And comparing well, he did that, so I am better. That's not how a relationship should work. That's not how a marriage would work. Ultimately, I think that's the goal is to have a marriage that would be successful.

Speaker 1: 24:23

So, in light of the truth that you're receiving, one thing I also try to do is think are there other truths that maybe I've been trying to avoid? Maybe start looking and seeing. What are patterns that you have? What is happening around you? How are you contributing to situations in your life? Maybe make some apologies. Maybe accept the wrongs that you have done, implement changes little ones. Let's start new patterns. It's simple things that lead to huge outcomes. Just for me, listening to something inspirational in the morning, it has completely changed the course of my day. And that started that little bit because it was easier to just put it on in the car, and then it progressed to now I journal, pick up my Bible and do Bible study first thing in the morning. That was like improvement times a thousand for me. You, just as you go, you progress. If you're trying to lose weight, you start walking 10, 15 minutes a day. Next thing you know you're like running marathons, like it's just the small changes that lead to huge things.

Speaker 1: 25:32

When you hear the truth, how does it affect how you view yourself? Does it affect something that you viewed as something like positive about yourself? At that point you might want to go ahead and think is this positive, truly a positive? Because you can think that you are confident, but maybe it's not real confidence, it's just you're prideful and cocky. Obviously, then, that's something you would need to go ahead and adjust Again. No one should be able to hurt the person that you are, that you feel secure in and rooted, that you feel like you are establishing.

Speaker 1: 26:09

So if someone comes up to me and tells me that I'm not a very kind person or that I'm not compassionate, that would be a laughable truth to me, because I know for a fact that I would give my last to somebody that needed it and I've always wanted to help other people. I wouldn't want my worst enemy in the situations that I've been in my life before. That would just be absurd to me to hear that and I would be able to be secure in who I am enough to just move past that and it would not affect me in any way. If someone told me you're crazy, I would feel somewhat triggered. Obviously not if it's like a friend or my kids or you know if it's a jokingly way, but I mean if someone basically attacked me for the way that I think or if I say something, and of course that's's because of I deal with mental illness, not necessarily because it's true, it's just it's a sensitive subject for me.

Speaker 1: 27:05

To wrap this up, just remember that when you start to become grounded in who you truly are, who you're working towards, you have absolute confidence that you are taking the steps, that you are doing your very best to become this person, or that you are doing your best to maintain what you are, or that you're doing your very best and maintaining or where you've gotten. At this point there is no quote, unquote truth that could shake that. I have had the hardest time with people saying things to me from my past that they want to come back and kind of incorporate into my present season. It's frustrating, I will tell you right now. It gets really exhausting because you're like you're almost like annoyed that your past keeps getting like brought into. You know your face when you've been working so hard. But I had to like truly just think and not that I don't care or listen to people's advice, but advice is the amount of skill that that person has and the amount that they know. Nobody knows you better than yourself.

Speaker 1: 28:18

As you become more confident in what you're doing, as you are more sure of who you are, you won't even have to see the difference between a truth and your past. So, to resolve the debate between my friend and I yes, you should consider the source, no doubt. However, that is not the first or second thing that you should consider. We need to be our own source. Just because someone said something to us in a crappy way or with ill intention, or doesn't mean it to help better you, doesn't mean that it's not something you can take and learn from and grow and improve yourself. Like they just did you a favor, they gave you something you didn't have before, which was the knowledge of something that you couldn't see by yourself. And, the same token, just because someone that you love and you care about, that you feel like cares about you.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Tells you something that they feel is true doesn't make it real. People have their own perception of the truth. They have their own insecurities and ideas of all of us. We all have a perception about other people, even those that we love, that doesn't make it real. You are the one that can determine how much truth there is to something that someone is telling you, but you have to be honest with yourself. You have to really think about what is being said and how it makes you feel.

Speaker 1: 29:38

If maybe you're unsure about something that you heard and I've had situations where I've heard things that I am not sure if I am doing or that I haven't improved, or maybe it's even that I haven't improved them all the way and I still need to work harder on that specific thing I will pray and I will ask for guidance. Maybe you don't pray, maybe journal it out, but really try to like dig deep within yourself. Some truths are harder to accept and they're going to take longer. You might not take care of it right then and there, but at least you have some awareness of it and you can go back to it when you're ready. You don't have to face it at that moment. There are some truths that I haven't faced up to this point and I'm not so sure when I'm going to face them, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 30:24

You aren't on anyone else's timeline or any truth. This is your journey. You can work on each thing at the time that you feel most comfortable to do that, because some of them will take strength and some of them will take courage. It can be a lot. It can take a toll on you. Be kind and patient with yourself and just take your time and accepting and working on it. No step is going to be too small.

Speaker 1: 30:51

I'm going to go ahead and end with thank y'all again for listening, being here with me. I am really excited to move forward, be able to just be me, that you guys can feel that you're loved and that you're not alone in this and in the ways that you feel or like the things you're going through. We all are going through stuff. I think it's easier for us to hide away and not share those things, but truthfully, it changes. Whenever you share, you get it out. You're not like carrying this heavy burden around anymore by yourself. So even if you're just sharing it with me, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 31:33

I love y'all. I pray that you're going to have a great rest of your week. Good weekend. I will most definitely be putting on an episode next week. I will continue on with the TikToks and the reels and all that good stuff. Truly miss doing them. I love being able to just spread the love around if you're having a rough day, because it makes my rough day go a little bit less rough. Just remember you are loved, you're enough and you're never alone. Until next time.