Two Truths and a Lie
On holding two truths at once and the lie that keeps us stuck.
You know the game.
Two Truths and a Lie. Someone shares three statements about themselves and you have to guess which one isn't real. The trick is always in the telling, the lie is usually just believable enough to make you doubt the truths.
I've been thinking about that game lately. Because there's a version of it that plays out in our hearts all the time. Especially when it comes to love.
It goes something like this:
Truth one: I love this person.
Truth two: Being with them hurts me.
The lie: That means I have to stay.
Sound Familiar?
This is something I've been sitting with deeply over the past month. And something I keep hearing from the people around me who are navigating their own complicated relationships, romantic and otherwise.
We have been taught, somewhere along the way, that love is supposed to override everything else. That if you truly love someone, you find a way. You work through it. You stay.
And so when we find ourselves in a relationship, or a friendship, where both of these things are simultaneously true, we get stuck. Because they feel like they should cancel each other out. Like one of them has to be wrong.
If I love them, then it can't really be that bad. If it's really that bad, then maybe I don't really love them.
But here's what I've come to understand, and what I've watched so many people struggle to accept:
Both things can be true at the same time. Completely, fully, painfully true.
You can love someone genuinely and deeply, and being around them can cause tension in your body, stress in your nervous system, a quiet erosion of your peace. The love doesn't cancel the hurt. And the hurt doesn't erase the love.
They simply coexist.
Holding two seemingly opposing truths at once is not confusion. It is wisdom.
The Lie That Keeps Us Stuck
The lie isn't in either of those truths. The lie is in what we tell ourselves those two truths mean.
It means I have to stay.
It means I owe them my continued presence.
It means leaving would be a betrayal of the love.
That's the lie. And it's the one that keeps so many people, maybe you, maybe someone you love, in situations that are quietly costing them their peace.
Because love does not require you to keep showing up where you are not valued. Caring deeply about someone is not the same as owing them access to you. You can hold someone in your heart with complete sincerity and still choose your own peace. Still choose yourself.
These two things can both exist:
1. I care about this person.
2. Spending time with them is too painful for me.
And choosing number two doesn't make number one a lie.
The universe is always listening. When you stay where you're not valued, the message it receives is simply: this is okay for me. Send more.
Why This Is So Hard?
Leaving, or even just stepping back, feels like a contradiction when love is present. It can feel like you're saying the love wasn't real. Or that you're being disloyal. Or that you're giving up on someone who needs you.
And there's grief in it too. Real grief. Because you're not just losing the difficult parts. You're losing the good parts too. The history. The laughter. The version of the relationship you always hoped it might become.
That grief is real and it deserves to be honored. Not rushed through. Not dismissed.
But grief and wisdom can also coexist.
You can grieve what was, and what never quite was, and still know with complete clarity that staying is no longer the answer.
What This Has to Do With Love?
We work with people who are preparing themselves for the most aligned, expansive, genuine love of their lives. And one of the things we see again and again is this:
The capacity to hold two truths at once, to love someone AND choose yourself, is one of the most important things you can develop before stepping into a new relationship.
Old patterns, like staying just because love is present, even when peace is absent, follows us. It shows up in the next relationship as tolerance of things that don't feel good. As managing instead of being. As slowly turning off parts of ourselves to keep the peace.
The work isn't just about finding the right person. It's about becoming someone who knows the difference between loving someone and owing them. Between caring deeply and staying indefinitely. Between honoring a connection and sacrificing yourself for it.
That clarity is everything. And it begins with letting two truths exist at the same time, without letting the lie decide what they mean.
A Note on Roger's Intuitive Work
If you find yourself sitting with two truths that feel impossible to reconcile, if you're circling a relationship, a pattern, a decision that feels bigger than your own thinking can hold, a session with Roger might be exactly what you need.
His gift is helping people access the clarity that lives beneath the noise. The knowing that's already there, waiting quietly for an opportunity to speak and be heard.
And when you're ready to go deeper:
With love,
Kim
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