According to the author of the book Radical Honesty, therapist Brad Blanton, the main cause of stress is nothing other than living in lies. According to him,
“All of us lie like crazy. It drains our life force. It is the primary cause of the stress people experience. In short: lying does us in.”
Here is more from this provocative book:
“The most deadly form of lying is withholding—keeping things to yourself or hiding information from someone because you believe it would affect them negatively. The most severe psychological illnesses are the result of this type of lie.
Psychological healing is possible only in the presence of freedom—when we stop keeping things inside ourselves. Keeping secrets and covering up facts from others is a trap. Adolescents spend most of their time playing this game of hide-and-seek. The better you were at slipping through the cracks of this game as a teenager, the harder it becomes to grow up later in life. ‘Important’ secrets and all the scheming and thinking connected to them are complete nonsense. The mind is a prison built of nonsense…
When we withhold things, when we don’t tell others what we feel or think, we remain locked inside this prison. The longer we stay there, the faster we deteriorate. Figuratively speaking, either we escape from this prison, or we die in it.
Salvation lies in learning to tell the truth.”
Brad Blanton, Radical Honesty
When the attitude of radical honesty is applied to life, it becomes a direct path to freedom, creativity, and personal power. That is why, if you believe you are honest, yet still fail to feel your strength, creativity, and freedom, it is worth checking two things.
First, to what extent you are prone to self-deception—believing you are honest simply because you fail to notice when your mind has created yet another story that gives you a sense of righteousness and security, but which, upon more impartial examination, reveals itself as the security of a prisoner. Because here we are not talking about honesty in general—we are talking about radical honesty. About uncompromising sincerity toward yourself and toward others. And this is so difficult precisely because we are largely unaware of how we fabricate stories about ourselves in order to avoid the pain of direct contact with reality.
Second, to what extent you are willing to pay the price for this uncompromising honesty. This is the main stumbling block for people full of good intentions to be sincere and truthful. They want the power and freedom that come with being themselves, but they do not want to pay the price for it. And of course it does not work—because the logic here is very simple: power comes as a result of our willingness to endure rejection, loneliness, misunderstanding. To not get what we want, yet remain faithful to ourselves and to what we believe in. Power is the consequence of this courage and follows it like a shadow. The price we pay for living in truth is precisely what gives birth to our strength.
So, if you want to learn the lesson of radical honesty, ask yourself this question: to what extent is your desire to live in truth greater than all your other desires?
The answer to this question will show you why your “honesty” does not bring you inner power. Only after the price is paid does the reward arrive.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
