DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

There is a turning point in every honest person’s journey — a moment when truth becomes lighter than the lies we once carried. It’s the moment when you stop being owned by your own cover story and begin to reclaim the wisdom hidden inside it.
It’s the moment you take more from your lies than your lies took from your life.

The anatomy of a lie

We rarely set out to lie maliciously. Most of the time, our lies begin as protective stories — ways of preserving dignity, safety, belonging, or control.
A lie can be as small as pretending we’re fine when we’re not, or as large as building a life that doesn’t resemble our true values.

Each time we hide a part of ourselves, we send a message to our own soul: “The truth about me isn’t safe here.”
That’s how self-deception starts — not from evil intent, but from fear and the deep human need to be accepted.

But lies have gravity. They pull us inward, into a smaller orbit.
We expend more energy maintaining appearances than pursuing growth. We start performing life rather than living it.
And the cost? Distance — from others, from purpose, and from peace.

The emotional economics of deception

Lying is costly because it creates emotional debt.
You may gain temporary relief, approval, or advantage, but every falsehood comes with interest — anxiety, shame, and self-alienation.

The more we lie, the more fragmented we become.
We start living in two realities: the external one we project, and the internal one we suppress.
That split is exhausting.
It’s what coaches and therapists call incongruence — when your outer behavior doesn’t match your inner truth.

Yet, paradoxically, it’s also the starting point for transformation. Because the pain of incongruence eventually becomes unbearable. That pain is not punishment; it’s an invitation.

The turning point: When the lies break before you do

At some point, the structure cracks.
It might be a relationship that collapses, a burnout that forces you to stop, or a conversation that cuts too deep to ignore.
You find yourself face-to-face with the truth you’ve been avoiding — and strangely, it doesn’t destroy you.

This is the moment of reversal: when your honesty becomes your strength, not your shame.
You begin to take back what the lies had stolen — your authenticity, your energy, your self-respect.

From a coaching perspective, this is where awareness transforms into agency.
You shift from “How could I have lied?” to “What was this lie trying to protect in me?”
That question opens the path from guilt to growth.

Extracting the wisdom

Every lie has a lesson — a coded message about what you feared, valued, or didn’t yet know how to handle.
When you dare to decode it, you discover your own unmet needs, your blind spots, and your potential.

For example:

• The lie of “I’m fine” might reveal your discomfort with vulnerability.
• The lie of “I don’t care” might reveal a deep longing for recognition.
• The lie of “I have control” might reveal your fear of uncertainty.

By tracing the roots of your lies, you don’t justify them — you redeem them.
You turn deception into data.
You take the gold from the ashes.

That’s what it means to take more from your lies than your lies took from your life.

The coaching shift: From shame to curiosity

When clients reach this threshold, the role of a coach is not to judge, but to guide them into curiosity.
Shame locks you in the past. Curiosity opens the door to growth.

Here are three reflective practices often used in coaching work:

1. Name the lie without defending it.
   Write down a situation where you weren’t truthful — with yourself or others.
   Then, without explaining or excusing, simply name it: What was I afraid of losing? What was I trying to protect?
2. Reframe the lie as a teacher.
   Ask, What truth was I not ready to face at that time? What strength did I not yet have?
   This reframing shifts you from guilt to gratitude — not for the lie itself, but for the awareness it sparked.
3. Transform insight into integrity.
   Decide one small action that would align your current life more closely with your values.
   Integrity doesn’t mean you’ve never lied; it means you’ve stopped pretending.

The paradox of healing

Healing from self-deception isn’t about rewriting the past. It’s about integrating it.
You don’t need to erase your lies — you need to outgrow them.

In truth, every healed person carries a history of distortion. We all have chapters we’d rather hide. But when those chapters become integrated rather than denied, they turn into the most powerful parts of our story.

A mature soul doesn’t speak from perfection — it speaks from reconciliation.
It has learned that truth and grace must coexist: the courage to see clearly, and the compassion to forgive gently.

Why this moment changes everything

When you finally extract more wisdom from your lies than they extracted from your life, something shifts permanently:

• You stop running from your own reflection.
• You stop fearing exposure because you’ve already stood naked before your own truth.
• You stop pretending, not because you’ve perfected honesty, but because honesty has freed you.

At this stage, your power no longer comes from performance — it comes from presence.
People sense the difference. They trust you, not because you’ve never failed, but because you no longer hide the parts of you that did.

Authenticity becomes your credibility.
Truth becomes your leadership.

Leadership and lies

In leadership coaching, this principle is profound.
Teams follow leaders who tell the truth — not perfect leaders, but human ones.
When a leader admits mistakes or limitations, it doesn’t weaken authority; it deepens trust.

In fact, organizational cultures built on truth-telling are far more resilient than those built on image management.
Lies protect reputation. Truth builds character.
And in the long run, character always wins.

The same applies to personal growth. You don’t attract love, success, or peace by pretending — you attract them by being real enough to handle them.

Reclaiming the lost self

The lies we tell are like walls.
When we begin to dismantle them, we don’t just find truth — we find ourselves again.
The parts of us that were exiled behind the lies — fear, longing, tenderness, creativity — return home.

It’s not just about moral correction; it’s about wholeness.
Because truth, at its deepest level, isn’t a weapon. It’s a form of love.

When you tell yourself the truth, you stop fragmenting.
When you live the truth, you stop fearing the light.
And when you teach from your truth, you turn your former shame into someone else’s permission to heal.

The freedom beyond the facade

The moment you take more from your lies than your lies took from your life is not a moment of triumph — it’s a moment of peace.
It’s the quiet realization that you no longer need to curate an image to be worthy of acceptance.

You’ve learned that truth costs less than illusion.
You’ve learned that honesty is the shortest path home.
And you’ve learned that every falsehood, when faced with courage, becomes a teacher of integrity.

In the end, our lies don’t define us. Our willingness to learn from them does.