It was 8:35 am. My girls and I were rushing through the front door of the school as I yelled, "Hurry up! The bell was about to..." RIIIIIIIING! The girls froze and their eyes widened. My shoulders sagged . We were too late. We were often late for school last year, and every time we ran breathlessly into the attendance I heard myself making silly excuses to Beth, the long-suffering secretary: our alarm didn't go off; there was so much traffic; it was my husband's fault; the dog...I didn't know-something about the dog! As time passed by, my lying became a habit, and it raised a red flag for me. Lying - even in the form of "harmless" excuses - means we're ashamed. Shame is different from guilt. Healthy guilt is fair and helpful. But shame can be dangerous. Nothing ruins the connection between two people more quickly than shame and lies do. Anyone trying to live a healthy and honest life must avoid shame at any cost. I was trying to live a healthy and honest life, but my excuses were keeping me from reaching my goal. So I vowed to do something different . The next time we were late, I went to the attendance office. When Beth asked me to fill in a form with the reason for being late, I told the truth. "These days, we are very tired and disorganized," I wrote. Beth looked down at that form, and the slowly looked up at me. She gave us a warm and big smile and her blue eyes twinkled. She started laughing. So did my kids and I. We're all imperfect human beings. We make mistakes. Everyone does make mistakes. However, it's OK to tell the truth about them. It's OK to forgive ourselves and promise to try again. We learn that as time went by, the author  _  .
found that other people liked lying to her realized the harm of lying and wanted to change found that shame had a positive effect on her life realized that she could no longer live a healthy life