Things (and people) are not always as they appear.

My new favorite TiVOed television escape program is GCB.  A staunch departure from my traditional TV fare—Law & Order, CSI, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Army Wives, and Mission Impossible (old school TV)—GCB provides me with that occasional and necessary light diversion. It is so funny.

With an interesting plot line, GCB is about a mean girl who has “supposedly” changed, but the women she tormented, abused, and bullied, don’t buy her Ms. Goody-two shoes bit—and for good reason.  It’s a funny show, and while Annie Potts was my original reason for watching, she and Kristin Chenoweth are my reason for tuning in, via iTunes or TiVo, whenever I have a free hour on the plane.

Its underlying premise is about hypocrisy. How folks hold themselves out as living one way, but in truth, live very different lives.

Three couples are seen as pillars of the Dallas Christian community, and all 3 have secrets and problems. In one marriage, the husband who outwardly flirts with women is gay.  In another marriage between the college football all-star, who was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, and his cheerleader bride, he cannot keep his hands or his eyes off the new kid in town.  Finally, the third couple, while not without their share of problems (they both have fall victim to the power of resentment), in my opinion are the most real about their dysfunction. What you see is what you get.

Ironically, the supposed former mean girl is the unhealthiest of them all. The only reason she came back to Dallas is because her adulterer husband left her for her best friend (he later died), and the government took all the money he stole from investors. She wants people to believe she did not know that the lavish lifestyle they led was the result of her husband’s criminal and unethical Madoff-like behavior. She has an attitude and a chip on her shoulder, because people won’t see her as changed. Perhaps because she has not.

So what’s one Esteemable Acts lesson here? Talk is cheap. If you want to be seen as changed, then you must change.  When I was in early recovery I was angry all the time because people continued to see me as the selfish, self-absorbed, and self-centered person I had always been. I expected that overnight they would forgive my past transgressions.  Well they did not. It took time for me to change old bad habits. And sometimes, I had to be patient and understand that people needed to see the change in me, not hear me talk about it.

Have you ever had a behavior that did not serve you, and even after you changed, people did not get it? How did you handle it? Join the conversation on my Esteemableacts Facebook Fan Page.