8 Ways to Spot a Liar
Little white lies, big ol’ whoppers of deception…they’re everywhere in our lives whether we like it or not. While you may not be able to stop them, you might be able to tell when they’re happening and act accordingly. As it turns out, there are several telltale signs that the average liar throws out there, so keep an eye open and detect deception for yourself:
Facial Signs
People may think they can conceal their emotions, but studies have proven they can’t hide everything! Experts advise paying close attention to hard-to-hide micro-expressions; these clues are often so difficult to detect that even trained experts have trouble discerning them. But you may be able to spot the more obvious ones, like reddening on the person’s cheeks, since anxiety can cause people to blush. Other indicators of lying? Flared nostrils, lip nibbling, deep breathing, and rapid blinking, which hint that the brain is working overtime.
Eye Movement
Generally, if people are thinking of visual information to answer a question, their eyes will move up. This is how they retrieve mental pictures. Most right handed people will look up and right when remembering and up and left when creating or visualizing. This is an unconscious habit, but it’s also a reliable one. Looking up and to the left doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is making something up, however. It simply means she’s searching for a mental picture.
The key in reading eye movements is the same as reading other clues. You look for what’s different. Notice when they don’t look up in the same way, or when they look up but perhaps to the other side, or when they maintain eye contact with you when they would normally do otherwise.
This bit last is an interesting point. Most people imagine that we maintain eye contact when we tell the truth and break it when we lie. Not true. The majority of people will maintain eye contact when lying, because they don’t need to retrieve information from their minds and, therefore, don’t need to move their eyes. At another level, they are eager to appear sincere, and so consciously decide to keep looking at you. The eyes are the window!
Body Language
When discerning a person’s truthfulness, it’s important to examine the person’s overall status, as there’s no one feature that’s guaranteed to give her away. Honesty is characterized by features that are in sync with one another—so besides posture, notice the fit between face, body, voice, and speech. Like an animal avoiding detection, a liar may pull his arms and legs inward or keep his movements to a minimum—anything to appear smaller. Liars often shove their hands behind their back because those fidgety fingers might give them away.
Smiles
Is she just happy? Or is she lying? A smile can sometimes mask a person’s true feelings. Pay close attention to how a person smiles as well as other facial movements. You may be able to detect the emotions he or she is trying to hide—such as fear, anger, and disgust. A true smile will incorporate both a person’s lips and eyes.
Voice Pattern Cues
Although a change in voice can be the tip-off to spot a liar, experts say that to be sure, you should also pay attention to a person’s speech rate and breathing pattern—if either speeds up or slows down, chances are you’re not hearing the whole truth.
Word Cues
Liars tend to avoid exclusionary words like “but,” “nor,” “except,” and “whereas,” because they have trouble with complex thought processes. Also, they are less likely to use the words “I,” “me,” and “mine.” In their attempts to distance themselves psychologically from their tall tales, liars will tend to communicate using fewer personal pronouns. Instead, they’ll speak about themselves in the third person (“This is a girl who doesn’t like to commit”) or even truncate their language (“Nice to be here today”)—anything to give themselves psychological distance from the lie.
The Question
It’s normal for someone to look away when asked a difficult question. But when someone avoids your gaze when asked a simple question, you should probably think twice.
Sworn Statements
To sell us on the integrity of their answers, liars often use phrases emphasizing the validity of their statements, like “To tell the truth” and “To be perfectly honest.” Guess what? More often than not, these verbal tip-offs frequently invoke religion. Think of expressions like “I swear on a stack of Bibles” and “As God is my witness.” Most truthful people don’t need to go that far.
About the Author
4 Ways to Move Through Your Emotions: LOVEolution Project
I’ve written extensively about how humans like to repress their emotions and the side effects that result. Now, let’s look at how we can experience all of what our emotions have to offer so that we can move through any roadblocks to our personal and transformational growth.
Emotions are energy in motion.
Panache Desai
Here are four steps for how to experience emotional health.
- Become Aware
We have repressed our feelings for so long, it can be intensely uncomfortable when we become aware of our emotions, especially sadness. The word depression has become our “go to” because we do not know how to transform our sadness into an authentic state of happiness; this is a lost opportunity for growth. Instead, we quickly turn to pharmaceutical intervention, which makes us numb. Pharmaceutical companies will continue to prey on us while we play right into their hands of marketing illness. Feeling sad? Take this pill.
A dear friend of mine who experienced some very challenging events in life did decide to turn to medicine, and she said for two years she didn’t cry.
I very much believe that medicine can bridge the gap to health, but YOU need to cross the bridge.
- Sit with your emotions
When you have lost your way, the only thing left is to slow down and just observe with a desire to understand. We need to remember what emotions are—a wave of energy that offers an opportunity to evolve in our human experience. It is that simple. Don’t judge, just be the observer and look for ways to progress.
Additionally, you may want to become aware of the behaviors you may engage in to avoid your emotions. Many try numbing with an addiction (food, drugs, sex), and this only results in a moment of instant gratification instead of long-term emotional health. Numbing can quickly take control, causing you to lash out and misdirect frustration, which really comes from the lack of understanding your emotions. These are just a few of the many behaviors that stem from emotional repression.
- Move Emotions Up and Out
Many, including myself, have taken the route of traditional talk therapy. For years it was even considered cool to go lay down on a therapist’s couch. However, there we sat talking about the same things in life, over and over. At some point, in order to evolve, we must move how we feel forward; this means letting go of how this will look in the future or how it looked in the past.
Feelings are a gift to help you transform, and there are many tools to move emotions through you. However, you have to find what works best for you. Here are a few places to start:
Forgiveness of self
Forgiveness does not have to be a two-way street; just let go of your story and recognize we are all here to make mistakes in this human experience.
The physical practice of yoga and breath
Yoga asanas allow you to focus on the releasing of emotions. The practice of yoga is intended to help you surface your emotions in a gentler way. This is why when we attend a hip opener class we may feel emotional afterward, as we store emotions in our physical body. Pranayama is personally my favorite way as I intentionally set a breath cycle to visually release things that are no longer serving me.
Crying
Crying is one of our greatest emotional releases. Yes, our society has turned this into a form of weakness by telling us big boys and girls don’t cry. We need to work together to change this perception. We ALL need to cry! Next time, instead of telling your friend not to cry give them a hug and let them cry it out. Give your friend the space to be vulnerable and release. You do not have to be the “fixer.”
- Let Life Teach You
Many of the challenges in our life come as a gift to teach us a lesson. With this gift we need to accept responsibility for our own healing, as only YOU can be your FIXER. Start with the relationships in your life, as this is usually a great source of emotion for us all.
Just as with our emotions, we need to evolve in our relationships, too. This means we sometimes get angry or frustrated within the relationship. Instead of reaction and blame, sit down (face to face) and have a gentle conversation to understand how you got there and how to move forward. Maybe it is time to let go, but finding and appreciating the love with compassion will pave a beautiful road with the gift of a lesson.
Understanding emotional wellness will be the greatest gift we can give our children and ourselves.
Now more than ever, we need to embrace our emotional wellness as we continue to live in a world that is moving at epic speeds.
The increasing level of technology that continues to remove emotion and connection from our conversations and experiences is ‒ and will continue ‒ to negatively impact us if we don’t start to pay attention.
The good news is that many of us are sensing that we need to find the courage to break this cycle. This will only allow for us to grow and re-align with our whole, authentic being.
Explore Your Emotional Authenticity
Want to raise your vibration? If you have been ignoring your emotions, then you’re creating vibrational density. Learn to let your emotions become your allies through your life’s journey.
Take the next step and move past judgment, away from fear, and beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone when you become a member of Gaia. Start your streaming here with Signing Your Soul Signature with Panache Desai.
