Radical honesty, this book by Brad Blanton can be a real life changer, it certainly was for me. After I heard about it I kept it in the back of my mind, thinking I probably could try not lying, not even small, white lies. Little did I know that not lying is still not honesty when you keep stuff to yourself. Being radically honest means that you don’t filter before sharing what comes to your mind. Of course, you can’t be 100% honest all the time, because then you wouldn’t stop talking, and there are certain cases when you have to be careful. But saying things out loud that you’d normally keep to yourself either because you think it’d be awkward or you’re afraid that you’d hurt someone can help you a great deal.
Fear of being awkward
When you start saying things that you think are awkward, you might realize: everyone is awkward at least a little! And most people are willing to accept you with your little quirks and will even like you more, because you’ll show that you are human. And the people who don’t really like the real you shouldn’t be around you anyway, because they keep you from growing, they make you feel like you have to keep a mask on.
Interestingly, studies show that when you meet new people and you tell them a little bit about your least shiny side, they are more likely to connect to you. All the times when we screw up, when we feel awfully sad or nervous, we think that we are pretty much alone with those feelings. We kind of know that others screw up too, but we don’t really believe that in those moments. And it’s reassuring to hear these same kind of feelings and failures from others, it makes us feel better about ourselves (hopefully not because we feel like we are better then them, but because we feel equal to them!) and we can relate and connect.
This short video tells more about this:
Apart from getting people to like you, when you see that your little shameful flaws get a positive or neutral reaction you’ll feel more confident, since you realize that these flaws are not a big deal after all, and you can be even more open about your thoughts. You get closer to the state of I am enough, which is a very important part of loving yourself.
Not filtering and giving out your true self is a vulnerable act. Brené Brown vulnerability and shame researcher dedicated her whole life to make people dare to be more vulnerable, since that is how the most valuable things are born.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” – Brené Brown
And love. When two people dare to be vulnerable to each other, intimacy comes to life and from intimacy love can sprout.
Being afraid of hurting people
While it should be clear that our freedom and happiness shouldn’t cost someone else’s (and someone else’s freedom and happiness should never cost ours either!) honesty, used with empathy, can improve our relationships immensely. Not only because vulnerability brings intimacy, but because if you promise yourself to be radically honest, you’ll have to express your feelings and needs towards others, which makes it easier to actually get them to be fulfilled. If you tend to avoid conflicts, radical honesty can be a tool to learn to express feelings, thoughts, opinions, and ask for things you need.
When you start to talk about your feelings more, you might experience other effects: your vocabulary for feelings and needs expand. You might start to look inside yourself more than before, and gain more knowledge of yourself, you might discover patterns in your feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
Expressing vulnerable information about you, like things that you are afraid of, comes with some risk of course. I’m gonna tell you later about how to be careful. But when you talk to an empathetic and generally nice person about things you judge yourself for, and your words find understanding ears, it might help you with understanding and accepting yourself better, too.
Looking into yourself requires some bravery, so does speaking your mind. But – as I said before – it gets easier with practice.
Being free of expectations
When you think of the times when you felt the most free, they probably were times when you didn’t have to live up to others’ expectations, and you were able to be just you.
This is what alcohol does to us, by the way, it makes us care less about expectations, and it also gives us some sort of permission to be something else, than our sober self. ‘It wasn’t me, it was the alcohol’. This other, drunken version of us might be the side of us that we suppress in our everyday life.
It’s very liberating to be able to be yourself in front of someone. You can do or say whatever you feel like and they get you. If you want to live most of your life in that state, then you need to start filtering people, not your words. Find those people who don’t judge you, who will listen, and generally: people who make you feel free. And spend less time with those who make you feel less than. This way it’s easier to let go of who you think you should be, and be your authentic self.
Abusing radical honesty
Like almost every technique, radical honesty can be abused. This article is written to help you express yourself with good intentions. Your purpose have to be to get people understand you more, or figuring out a solution for conflict by searching for mutual understanding and some common ground, or just to share feelings, to vent, that is great. But if you plan to use the label “radical honesty” to hurt others, or to get your ego inflated by putting others down, that is just simply wrong and you should stop doing that right now. There are other ways of feeling better about yourself, and it’s not healthy to compare yourself to others anyway, not even when you “come out the better”, because your self worth doesn’t depend on that. You are worthy, just because you exist, but please, if you notice yourself judging or even bullying others, look into yourself and try to figure out why you do that.
How to know who you can trust
It’s hard to give a brief summary of who you can and can’t trust with your feelings, but I can give you some tips.
They judge others
If you have a friend who judge others a lot, that’s an indicator that they do or will judge you too.
They are always the victim
If you notice that in their stories everything is always somebody else’s, or the circumstances’ fault, not theirs, that’s another red flag. It can mean they never take responsibility for their actions.
Gut feeling
It’s said that everyone has a gut feeling, trust it! If you feel very comfortable with someone, you feel it in your gut, then they might be someone who you can share your thoughts and feelings with. If you don’t know what’s wrong, but something is not right with them, you might want to spend less time with them. If you don’t think you have a gut feeling, it might just be that you never listened to it, but it comes with self awareness.
They think your relationship with them is closer than how you feel
Some people (like ones with narcissistic and histrionic disorder) might appear very accepting and comforting at first, but that is a mask. There are plenty articles and youtube videos out there about how to spot a narcissist, one of the signs is that they feel and act like your relationship with them is much much closer and warmer than how you feel about it. These people might use information about you, against you.
I don’t think you should walk around constantly being afraid of narcissists and mean people. While they can be very destructive, if you learn how to spot them this knowledge can help you to make your life easier. Just be you, be brave enough to share things with everyone, but if you see the warning signs, you can always stop. But until then, just be unapologetically you.
Featured image by Yingchou Han on Unsplash