How To Practice Radical Honesty With Yourself

How To Practice Radical Honesty

I know I’ve covered something vaguely similar to this a few months ago but I felt it important to revisit with a slightly different slant for you this week.

I’m always going to try and support the best I can in tricky times to attempt to shift thoughts and perspective so you don’t have to stay stuck in any loops or spirals or impending doom when you don’t need to so I hope you forgive me for a little repetitiveness in these crazy bananas times! 

What is radical honesty?

Well it kind of does what it says on the tin really.  It’s being completely, unadulteratedly honest with yourself and others.

And it’s more difficult than it sounds. 

It’s where you override your natural instinct to tell innocent little porkie pies that we do all day to protect people’s feelings or to avoid conflict or whatever it may be and just be honest in that moment.

The hardest is practicing radical honesty with ourselves.

We all tell white lies to save someone’s feelings, or purely out of habit based on what we’ve learned is ‘acceptable.’

The ways someone will ask us if we’re ok and we’ll reply with ‘fine thank you’ even if that’s miles away from the truth.

Or saying no when someone asks ‘would you like some help?’ even if we desperately do want that help!

I’m mainly focusing on radical honesty with ourselves for this episode but it’s worth bearing this concept in mind as you go about your day to day. 

How many times per day are you not exactly honest with people?

What do you find yourself feeling you can’t be honest about and why?

What is the story around what might happen if you were completely honest in those moments?

No wonder we struggle to get our needs met…yikes!

So, for now, we focus on our internal dialogue of honesty with ourselves.

We want all the lovely things that come from high levels of self awareness, like self acceptance, self compassion, self love even! 

To understand our own behaviour and triggers and be able to look at ourselves, warts and all, and know that we are worthy and valuable.

And the freedom…oh the freedom!

But many of us aren’t willing to do the deep dive into our own psyche that will enable us to be radically honest with ourselves and in turn get our needs met and start getting what we really want in life.

At the end of the day that’s what it requires. 

In my opinion this level of self honesty brings a huge amount of humour to our patterns too where previously there may have been frustration and contempt for ourselves.

So why do we find radical honesty with ourselves so hard?

We are designed to lie to ourselves!  We don’t even know we’re doing it most of the time.

Our ego protects our sense of self, always. Usually that comes with telling you similar white lies to the ones you tell other people day to day.

Once you know, you know! You can’t hide anymore and deceive yourself. 

It’s there. 

But the other thing that’s there is your freedom.

Freedom from repeating the same cycles, patterns and behaviours that don’t serve you.

Freedom from forever asking yourself ‘what’s wrong with me?!’ or ‘why do I do this?!’

Freedom from staying in situations that aren’t making you happy.

Freedom from self sabotage. 

Mindfulness adopts the concept of non judgemental awareness and I love that. It’s just being plain and honest about what is present for you moment by moment. What you see, think , feel , hear etc.

Mindfulness has been commandeered by the wishy washy and I’d love that to change because it’s an incredible psychological tool to train your brain in so many ways that are more helpful for you. 

It’s also an amazing emotional regulation tool and a great way to build your own awareness.

Not only that but to help you zoom out from that awareness.

To understand that you are merely the observer of your thoughts and experiences.

Understanding and accepting that these things aren’t who we are, they are adaptive behaviours that we can absolutely change when we heal the root cause.

Everything you want is on the other side of this work.

You might think it could be Pandora’s box, it might be short term but it’s incredibly freeing and if you work with a professional then that time frame is radically shortened.

I’m not going to sugar coat it and say that it’s not sometimes painful, it absolutely can be.  That doesn’t mean it WILL be. 

I can tell you from experience that confronting the parts of myself that I didn’t like was transformative in them not being there for me anymore.

Many people refer to this as shadow work. 

‘Shadow work’ sounds ominous.  It’s about accepting the parts of yourself that you’ve denied exist. Those parts of you that you’ve shunned as unacceptable and unlovable.

And yet those are the things that keep you beating yourself up in your own head and repeating the same patterns.

We want change but don’t want to do the ‘work’ because it’s painful. 

I see too many people paying people in a bid to ‘fix’ themselves. They want something done TO or FOR them. Wave the magic wand. I promise you if you place your money there it’s money wasted. 

Everything is a collaboration of sorts. 

The thing I really want you to understand is that when you DO do the work EVERYTHING can change for you. 

Radical honesty is a part of that work.

What parts of yourself do you disown?

What is it in the people we dislike that is mirroring a part of ourselves that we shun?

Where do our harsh judgements of ourselves and others really come from?

Who do we really want to be? I bet you that’s who you really are at your core. Without all the ‘stuff’ laid on top from other people’s opinions and your own adaptive behaviours.

How can we reclaim the parts of ourselves that are desperate to be heard?  

Where are we projecting our own fears and feelings onto other people?

Where are we not being truly honest with ourselves…and why. What benefit is there for us?

What causes you to feel guilt, shame or disgust within yourself?

Why do you REALLY do what you do? 

Go back to starting with why. The number of wishy washy business owner ‘why’s’ i’ve heard over the years would make your toes curl because the vast majority of them aren’t true. 

If we aren’t operating from our REAL ‘why’ then the motivation isn’t there. 

Most people’s ‘why’s’ are fundamentally selfish and the more honest we can get about that the better. 

Fundamentally to have what we want in life we have to know ourselves on a DEEP level. Otherwise we’ll never be able to call ourselves on our own BS and we’ll be destined to keep repeating the patterns of behaviour and thinking that just don’t work for us.

So you HAVE to get reacquainted with yourself. 

This is where my friend The Enneagram comes in and why I’m so passionate about it.  

You are confronted with radical honesty AND the roadmap to real, true, authentic change AND oodles of self acceptance, self compassion and all the other lovely things you want. 

You’ve just got to look it in the face first. 

Confront it with curiosity and self compassion.

Everything you do makes perfect sense on some level.

Every person who has had an Enneagram essentials session with me so far has managed to laugh at themselves when we’re going through their number together and they manage to look at themselves on a level they haven’t before with no judgement from me…or themselves. 

Magical!

If you’d like to book one I’d of course LOVE to have you. They’re only £222 at the moment. If you need a payment plan, DM me on Instagram.

The link is in the show notes and in my bio on Instagram on my @enneagramandexcell account. 

In my opinion it really is the start to everything shifting for you. 

Better communication with others, understanding why things trigger you and not other people and vice versa. 

More HONESTY with yourself and others. Meaning more control, choice and agency over your own life.

More compassion with others (pretty much every person gets their spouse, best friend or parents to do the test too!)

You’re able to shape your career or your business based on what you learn. 

You’re able to hire better based on what you learn.

You’re able to understand why certain business models just don’t feel good to you and what will.

You’re able to see why something is causing you to feel a certain way.

I know how easy it is to carry on carrying on. 

Wondering why things feel ‘off’. 

To keep chasing the shiny objects that allow you to avoid doing ‘the work’. 

You don’t need to keep chasing your tail.

How can you be radically honest with yourself?  

Create that REAL self awareness and make the changes you’ve been longing for. 

You aren’t broken, you don’t need fixing, you just need the road map to YOU!

I’ll leave you with this thought…Wouldn’t life be easier and more fun if you were able to be your authentic self?

Fx

Fran Excell, Success Mindset Mentor at www.franexcell.com – Helping Business Owners & Executives Overcome Stress & Self Sabotage so they can get back their time, get off the emotional rollercoaster and feel more in control. 

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