I Learned to Lie Before I Learned to Tell the Truth
One Writer's Journey Through the Shadow of the Storyteller Archetype
Long, long ago, back when I started my first content writing business, I chose the Storyteller as my brand archetype.
In my bio, I said it was because I loved stories—that I wanted to use my words to connect more deeply to the world, to others, to myself.
The truth is—I chose the Storyteller because I’m a liar.
Not the kind who steals millions or hides a secret family in the suburbs. Nothing quite so sinister.
I’m a more subtle, socially-acceptable kind of liar.
I like to gloss over the truth. To embellish a story just enough to make my life sound more interesting. To tell people what they want to hear.
And I used to think my ability to tell stories was my gift. That I was just using one of my natural strengths to draw people in and connect with them on a deeper level.
But I was fooling myself. Because any lie, no matter how well meaning, carries a shadow.
In the first years of my business, I lived in the shadow of the Storyteller. I used my storytelling to protect myself from judgment, fear, reality, everything.
What’s even worse? Somewhere along the way, I started to believe my own lies.
And that’s the thing about being a good liar: it doesn’t feel like a lie.
A good lie feels like safety. Like control. Like solid ground when your world is crumbling around you.
But safety built on a lie can’t last long. And when it inevitably crumbles, you’re left facing the truth of whatever you were avoiding. Raw and unprepared for reality.
Don’t worry. My natural storyteller eventually brought me back to reality, and I’m here to help you do the same.
Truth is, you aren’t as in the dark as you think. The lies you’re telling reveal a lot about you. They’re like little breadcrumbs pointing you back to the parts of you that need the most attention.
And if you’re willing to listen, your lies will eventually lead you back to the truth.
Why We See the Shadow First
Every archetype holds a shadow and a gift.
The shadow of the storyteller is a liar. A gifted storyteller who can spin a lie so convincing they believe it themselves. They are also self-serving, manipulative, gossipy—
You get it, right?
So, you’ll probably also get it when I say that seeing myself in the Storyteller’s shadow stung a little bit.
I’ve always hated liars. Gossip. Manipulation. People who only look out for themselves.
Which, of course, only confirmed my connection to the Storyteller.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
We tend to hate the parts of ourselves we’re not ready to meet.
So I went shadow hunting inside my own energetic field. I wanted to know why I identified so much with the darkness.
Turns out, it’s pretty normal.
It’s called negativity bias.
A phenomenon where our brains put more emphasis on negative experiences than positive ones.
Like how you can vividly remember the most humiliating moments in your life in so much detail it makes you physically cringe, but you can’t remember the sunlight on your skin during breakfast yesterday, or the way your coffee tasted this morning.
It’s a survival instinct, but it also makes it really, really hard to see the good in a bad situation.
Because of negativity bias, looking at archetypes is basically like picking up a rock inside our energetic field and only seeing the gross slimy things that live underneath it. It’s intriguing but it also makes you not want to look too closely.
But when I first met the Storyteller, I didn’t avoid her. I picked up the rock and stared straight into the shadow.
I saw how I used my talent for telling stories to manipulate my friends, my family, even myself. How I shared only what I thought people wanted to hear. How I spun a story not because it was true but because it would get the most attention.
Thankfully, I don’t mind poking at slimy things under rocks.
Because as I learned more about the Storyteller (and archetypes in general), I found out that inside the shadow, like a seed in dark earth, is a gift. A light hiding within the darkness.
But to find the light, we have to be willing to look. To poke. To clear out the crap.
And once we do, all we are left with is the gift.
Shadow hunting in the energy of the storyteller led me to some powerful gifts.
My tendency to gossip revealed a fascination with human behavior. All that curiosity about why people do what they do eventually helped me understand the emotional nuance behind our choices.
My desire to put myself first led me into the world of healing and self-work. I started filling my own cup before trying to pour into anyone else’s.
My ability to manipulate came from a deeper desire to help people feel better. I didn’t want to lie to deceive them—I wanted to lie to protect them.
Once I saw that, I stopped sugarcoating and started creating content that helped people see what they needed to face. And move through it.
If you, like me, can tell a beautifully executed lie—then you’re holding a powerful tool. One that can be used to deceive, or to connect. To mislead, or to teach.
But if you want access to the gift? You’ve got to go through the shadow first.
The Energy of a Lie
We don’t talk enough about the energy behind a lie.
We act like a white lie is nothing. An added detail, a harmless embellishment. But if you work with energy—even just a little bit—you start to see that even a white lie leaves a trace.
When I lie, I feel like I’m putting on a mask. I step outside of my body, becoming more in tune with other people’s energy than my own.
Sometimes, when I’m in the middle of spinning a wild story, I’ll hear a voice whisper in my head, “Why am I lying right now?”
And the truth is, I had no idea. Not at first. I just knew that the truth felt boring, or uninteresting, or too vulnerable.
So, I told my little white lies to make the story more interesting—more worth sharing.
But part of me always knew it was wrong.
Authenticity is THE peak.
Did you know our vibration is at its peak when we are being authentic? Even more than when we feel joy, love, or peace—authenticity vibrates higher.
Funnily enough, embellishing my stories didn’t feel inauthentic to me. At least, not at first. I thought it was just part of my charm that I fudged the truth. I told myself, I’m just a natural storyteller.
But as I contemplated the energy behind the lies, I began to wonder:
Was I really being authentic? Or was I just hiding my fear, discomfort, pain behind the lies?
If authenticity is the highest vibration, what does a lie do to your energy?
Why did I have to leave my body just to tell a story? And what would it take to keep me in my body while I was speaking?
People can pick up on the energy of a white lie just as easily as they can a more harmful one. Part of them senses the shadow in the words. The dark inside the light.
And it creates a rift between us. Maybe they still believe the lie, but that’s because they have some shadow inside them that is attracted to the one inside us. It’s like a parasitic relationship, with our lies fueling their insecurity and fears.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, we can also lie to ourselves. In fact, as a reformed liar, I believe that’s where the compulsion to lie begins. We start by lying to ourselves, and then that energy floods out into all of our relationships.
The lies I told myself were definitely the most harmful. I convinced myself I was safe, happy, present, grounded, home when, in reality, I was none of those things.
And believing those lies kept me stuck in a life that I didn’t want for far too long.
What Does It Take to Stop the Lies?
Like that Marcus Aurelius quote says:
What stands in the way becomes the way.
A seed won’t grow without darkness, just like you won’t grow without your shadows.
So, what does it take to stop the lies?
It takes going deeper into the darkness. Picking up the rock and poking at the slime underneath. More specifically: noticing when and where you lie the most.
This was tricky for me. By the time I became aware of the harm I was doing, I was sprinkling little white lies into almost every conversation. But particularly, when I was talking about my day to day life.
I’d say something took hours when it really took 20 mins. I’d say I felt devastated when really I was just bummed. I’d say the customer gave me the dirtiest look when really they just cast a glance in my direction.
My day to day life wasn’t very interesting so I embellished the details. Harmless white lies, or so I told myself.
But those “harmless” little white lies didn’t just make my life sound more exciting, they amplified my own experience of that moment. They started a chain of events where I began to search out emotionally traumatic moments.
I put myself into harmful situations, created drama, and disrupted my own peace—all in service of a better story. A more exciting life. A day that felt worth sharing, even if it didn’t feel good to live.
To stop the lies, I had to let go of the drama. I had to come to terms with my deep need to be seen. I had to ask myself annoying introspective questions like:
Why wasn’t I happy with the truth?
Why was I so addicted to emotional highs and lows?
Why did I think I needed chaos to be interesting?
All of which led me to self worth.
Deep down, I didn’t think I was worthy of an interesting life. I thought I needed drama and manipulation and chaos to make my stories worth listening to.
To stop the lies, I had to rewrite the story I was telling myself about who I was and what I deserved. I had to believe I was worthy of a peaceful life—one where the stories didn’t need editing to be interesting.
And the places I was lying the most? They showed me where I needed to do the most work.
I lied about how I felt at work, in my relationships, in my body.
The lies weren’t just slipping out by accident. They were signals. Breadcrumbs.
They were pointing me toward the things I wanted to change.
So I started following the trail.
I left the job. I ended the relationship. I began caring for my body in a new way.
Little by little, I removed the pieces that fed the chaos. I began prioritizing the ones that made me feel safe, settled, at peace.
And slowly, I didn’t have to lie anymore.
Because the truth started to feel good in my body.
Not dramatic. Not impressive. Just real. And finally—enough.
A Note About Performative Spirituality
In the world we live in, a little exaggeration is almost expected, especially in the spiritual world.
It’s easy to slip into what I like to call performative spirituality—where we’re more focused on appearing healed than actually doing the healing.
We mean well.
We post about meditating daily when we haven’t sat down in a week.
We talk about our “deep embodiment practice” when we’ve barely stretched.
We tell others to journal or rest or nourish themselves… while we completely neglect to do so ourselves.
It’s not always conscious. But it’s still a lie.
And these lies feel extra slippery because they sound like wisdom. They look good on paper. They get likes. They sell.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to teach something I haven’t embodied myself first. And now that I’ve healed my relationship with my inner storyteller, I don’t.
These days, I only share what I’ve embodied.
Because the thing about going deeper into the shadow and coming out the other side is: A long time in the darkness makes you crave the light.
I didn’t choose the Storyteller archetype because I’m good at telling the truth.
I chose it because I used to be such a good liar.
And because learning to tell the truth—really tell the truth—has become one of the most sacred practices in my life.
How to See Yourself in the Light
At first, all I could see was the shadow.
I recognized myself in the liar. I was the storyteller who spun a tale so tall she believed it herself. I was all shadows and no light.
And for a while, I was ashamed. I thought the darkness was all I would ever be.
But the more I sat with it, the more I realized:
The shadow wasn’t trying to hurt me.
It was trying to show me where I was hurting.
Being a good liar didn’t mean I was broken, manipulative, or doomed to be dishonest—it meant there was something unhealed. Some part of me that didn’t yet feel safe being seen as I am. A part that didn’t believe the truth was worth living, worth sharing.
That’s the paradox that lies within every shadow—it protects you while inviting you to grow.
But when you stop running from the shadow, you fall into the light. You find your gift.
The part of me that was broken helped me to heal. And now, I use that lesson to help others do the same.
I used to lie to make my life sound more magical.
Now I tell the truth, and my life is magical.
Not because every moment is grand or wild or perfect—but because it’s real.
It’s peaceful.
It’s aligned.
It’s full of small, everyday miracles I don’t have to exaggerate to feel.
A gentle morning routine. An acknowledged emotion. A quiet moment of clarity. These are the stories that matter now.
So if you see yourself in the shadow right now, you’re not doing it wrong.
You’re just at the beginning.
Your gift is waiting on the other side of the shadow.
All you have to do is move toward it—one step, one truth, one story at a time.
And the stories you tell from that place?
They won’t just be worth telling.
They’ll be true.
This Week’s Journaling Prompts:
Where in my life am I more focused on being interesting than being honest?
Where in my life have I created chaos just so I’d have something to say or prove?
And don’t forget to share with someone who loves to tell little white lies.
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