How honest can you be?

How honest can you be?

This is a fun question I often hear.

Usually, the person asking already has a specific situation in mind where they really don’t want to be honest. So they want external justification. Or, if reporters ask this for magazines, they often have their editor breathing down their neck, wanting to keep their own dishonesty loophole open.

Well, how honest can you be?

Here’s a straight & simple answer:

There is no pre-set limit to how honest you can be. 

The more powerful question is: How honest do you want to be?

Just as there is no limit to how much you can pretend, withhold, and suppress, the same is true for the other direction as well. There is no inherent situation where you can’t be honest. Only choices.

Let’s elaborate on that for a while. 

Hiding behind rules

Usually, when we ask for a general rule about honesty, there is this specific thing we carry around and are scared of sharing. Or one situation where honesty difficult. And that’s okay. We don’t have to share, but let’s own that we are scared, not give away our power by hiding behind general ideas.

Saying things like:

“I am scared to be honest with (blank)” or

“I will not be honest” or

“I do not want to go there now”

is way more powerful than creating imaginary honesty limits, approved by your local honesty authority. At least you take back agency and admit to what’s really going on.

And that’s a more powerful place to be and gives you agency.

Your own fear is the limit of your honesty

My friend Christoph once put this very simply:

Your personal fear is the limit of how honest you can be.

Fear of what? Being out of control. Being with a lot of physical sensations. Thoughts.

And that’s okay. It’s fine to be scared.

That’s already an honest thing to acknowledge. It puts you back in the driver’s seat.

Maybe you are not willing yet to experience the consequences of being honest.

Good. You don’t have to.

Or maybe the situation is just a little too far out for you at the moment.

I do think that some difficult or “high-stake” situations might be better with more

• grounding in your body

• reference experience with “smaller situations”

• support from friends, trainers, or therapists

• skills in actually being honest

• tolerance towards strong emotional charge in your body

If we go into situations that are way over our head, we might get discouraged or worse.

But let’s not hide behind imaginary rulebooks or generalised ideas.

You can be as honest as you are willing to experience whatever might happen.

Honesty means to share yourself more

Of course, that’s no free pass for being an asshole.

The work goes deeper than blurting out surface thoughts and judgments about other people.

It’s never a strategy for getting what you want.

Or controlling the world around you. 

It’s a vulnerable act of opening up and showing yourself more.

You say more of the stuff that goes on underneath the surface: some of your true feelings, secret intentions, actual desires, and things you usually hide. You allow people to really see you, to peek behind the curtains of your social mask and performance. 

Radical Honesty really is a developmental journey back towards your core.

That takes time and practice.

10 Insights after 10 Years of Radical Honesty

10 Insights After 10 Years of Radical Honesty

This is my ten year anniversary article.

It’s hard to put ten years into one email, so this one is a little longer.

I went to my first Radical Honesty workshop in August 2013. It was a 7-Day, part-holiday retreat with Dr. Brad Blanton in Pelion, Greece. I can still feel the sunshine, hear the cicadas chirping, and feel the avoidance.

A Radical Honesty workshop sounded like a great way to “develop myself.”

But I did not get it.

I thought I had transcended anger after reading “The Power of Now” and six months of occasional meditation. During the workshop, I asked smart questions about how to use active visualisation. In the breaks, I gossiped with other spiritual people about all those angry people.

That’s me at my first workshop (the most tanned person there)

Somehow, and I don’t remember the details, the pieces fell into place after I got home. I realised how much I was actually withholding and playing a phoney role. I quickly realised how powerful the work can be and began practising deeply.

Over these ten years, my views on and practice of Radical Honesty changed as I grew. At first, I used the work to break free from the weight of my personal melodrama, unfinished emotional business, and internalised societal expectations.

Boy, was I angry, and I did not know it.

For the better part of two years, I dove deeply down the rabbit hole and put being honest above everything. I did not care for the outcome of a conversation, as long as I told my truth.

On reflection, I see this period of my life as sometimes reckless, pretty damn exciting, very alive, and, in the end, profoundly transformational for me. I put myself, my life, and my well-being first. I told people the uncomfortable truth who did not necessarily want to hear it. That was selfish, and then again not: by putting myself first, I increased my capacity to serve and care for others.

Through this period of self-centeredness, I learned a lot about genuine care, especially that I can’t really care for others if I am choking myself internally.

With time, and especially after living with Brad in Virgina for three months, I started seeing the bigger picture of Radical Honesty. I hated him for this at first, but Brad always prompted me to work on my life purpose. He said that to do the work I had to do to finish the unfinished business with my family and past, and then use this fresh energy to recreate my life, ideally one of play and service to others. 

He also told me to mow the lawn and not run over golf balls.

“Give your mind something to chew on that comes from the heart”. 

I love him for this sentence, and feel grateful now.

You can say what you want about him as a character, and he deeply loves human beings and cares so much. And he also does not care. Which might be part of his caring. But who cares?

I have to skip over a lot of my story to still have time for the actual 10 Goddamned Insights, but today my practice of Radical Honesty is more calibrated and integrated. It became somewhat of a second nature and I am more playful and at ease. And I just don’t get so angry any more…maybe only when in my relationship when Pavla is not doing what she should in our fights…

Okay. Enough. Let’s go.

1. Buckle Up!

Radical Honesty is a profound developmental journey, taking you back home to your core. 

You reconnect to the alive, feeling, expressive human being you are, to your heart’s desires, uniqueness, and strengths, to all the good stuff that’s hidden underneath your character. You challenge automated habits, and other protective layers that may have outlasted their benefits. 

It’s a journey towards genuine love and presence. And it will inevitably lead through the stuff that has gotten in the way of that. In other words: it’s not just pleasant, and at times feels like dying.

Yay!

The good news is: you are in charge of how deep you want to go. Radical Honesty has the potential to completely transform your life. The degree of transformation depends on how willing you are to let go of control, have difficult conversations (yes, that one!), and trust in you and life itself. 

Of course, such a journey takes time, comrades, mentors, additional support (like therapy, meditation, yoga, bodywork, etc.) and the audacity to actually be a human being. It’s not a direct flight, but a journey of ups, downs, and then more downs and ups. Any volunteers?

2. Expect a Dip

Things might get worse before they get better.

Looking at my relationship with my father prior to Radical Honesty, it was functional, very orderly, and “harmonious” (at a very high price!). We had some occasional conflict, from both sides. When I started being really honest with him, it was tough. 

Our relationship broke-off for a while. I was okay with that. I did not want to continue the old way. He did not like my new way. But one day, after waves of anger, we both stood in front of each other and cried. That was a turning point in our connection. The old fortress had to burn down. I now have an amazing connection with my father, and since then he has spoken to me in-depth about many of his experiences.

I would have never thought that I could love my father so much and be so honest. 

3. Start Now!

You can only be as honest as you are currently self-aware.

In other words, you can’t tell the truth about things you don’t register. And you will start to register more things as you start telling the truth. So Radical Honesty both requires some awareness to begin with and is a practice that improves your awareness as you do it.

That means two things: one, you always have to start where you are, and two, your perception of truth changes as you practise.

These changes will not happen by thinking about it or trying to be honest in your mind. Honesty with yourself is a great concept to hold onto to bullshit your way into believing you’re honest, but these changes happen by being honest with other people, right now. 

Honesty is interpersonal.

You can’t think yourself out of the problem of overthinking. 

4. Rules of thumb

You can do very correct, very by-the-book Radical Honesty and still not say what’s actually alive in you and important for you to say. The sweet spot is somewhere between being attached to a specific language-style and custom of honesty, versus being too loose.

Radical Honesty is a living, breathing expression of self that does work best in some framework. Maybe we can call that freedom within some boundaries? We don’t want to get stuck in the method and there is something to gain in sticking to it, at least for a while. 

5. Go deeper

You can use Radical Honesty, a tool designed to let go of control, to become even more controlling.

Not that I ever personally did that, not once. But one of you sneaky people probably did.

Well-cooked Radical Honesty really starts with your intention, and your honesty about that. Of course, you don’t have to start every interaction with an intention. It’s just that whenever there is an unspoken secret agenda to one-up or blame someone, seduce, get a certain outcome, or control the situation, it’s not Radical Honesty if you don’t admit this.

Sometimes we really don’t know what agenda is actually running us. Practising will likely reveal your intentions eventually. It takes time and good noticing skills.

And it takes a willingness to keep cleaning up your mess without obsessing about your messiness. 

6. No moralism

Radical Honesty is not a new dogma or moral standard.

This was hard for me to accept. I really liked my rules (and still do!) and would love to finally have that one thing to be righteously righteous about. The real hard work is to give up righteousness and moralism, which happens moment to moment. 

The truth is, you don’t have to be honest, nor should you. People make it to 85 years old without ever being honest. So why are we honest? Because knowing that we could get away with pretending and withholding, but choosing to tell the truth anyways, is quite empowering.

Your life won’t necessarily get easier with Radical Honesty, but it gets more real. 

7. Radical Honesty without compassion sucks

Unfortunately, if we do not experience compassion, we might have to tell the truth in order to get to a more compassionate place. This is tricky, very tricky. In the beginning, especially with people who sit on a lot of hurt, like I did, there is a hardness covering the shame and the sadness and anger, and ultimately love.

There is a loving and compassionate part of you. It’s in all of us, at our very core. And at times we need to work through the layers that keep us from that place. That’s the work of Radical Honesty. 

8. Get a Life!

Do something else as well as Radical Honesty. Work on your life purpose. Or lie for a change. 

People sometimes ask me if I would want to live in a Radical Honesty community. I don’t think I would. Well, if that means people who are honest and fun and playful and light, then yes. But if that means people who are trying to live Radical Honesty in a very serious manner, I’m out. 

Very quickly, a great liberating practice can become a new jail. 

Too much of anything will make you an addict. Including processing resentments.

9. Change your mind

You can change your mind as you move along. And go from 10 to just 8 insights.

10. On a serious note

Seriously, it’s not that serious.

That’s Brad’s message about Radical Honesty 😊

Join my anniversary in greece this summer

If you want to celebrate my 10 year anniversary at the place where I went to my first workshop, come join me and a bunch of other people in Greece this August! 

If you already have experienced Radical Honesty, you can join the 7-Day Advanced Retreat from August 5th to 12th. Yes, we will work there, but above all it’s a hell of a good time with a great community of people in one of the most gorgeous locations in the world.

And if you want to really dive in, join the 8-Day Intensive from August 19th to 27th. There will be a separate story shared about that, but my co-trainer John Rosania and I actually both met for our first workshop there with Brad in 2013. So it’s a double-anniversary-celebration! And looking at how we looked back then, our lives did definitely get better over the past decade 😃

Gudrun Graichen will be there as a third trainer. That means you get almost 3 decades of combined Radical Honesty experience. If that won’t change your life, then you probably don’t really want to change. But you can still join, give us a hard time, and enjoy the sunshine.

Marvin

Fear as a Compass

Fear as a Compass

In my twenties, I practiced Pick-Up quite intensely. That’s learning how to be better with women, which ultimately meant getting my life together, cleaning up my past, and being honest.

I remember one particular summer, it must have been 2014. Me and my friend Martin created what we called The List of Social Destruction. I think it contained twenty-five or thirty tasks which we committed to doing. I don’t remember all of them. But I do remember some:

• Walking down the street with female underwear over the face

• Begging for money until we had 5 Euros (which we then gave to homeless people)

• Hitting on a male shop attendant 

• Laying on the floor in a mall for 30 seconds (The Tim Ferris classic)

• Asking a women directly for s*x

We did all of it over a month. It was a nice tingling boost of confidence each time.

Unfortunately, that confidence did not last very long.

The high faded and I found myself with the same insecurities and patterns.

Looking back, I now see why. 

You don’t have to create discomfort on purpose

There were a lot of actual things I was avoiding in my life. Things I was deeply scared of or horrified by but had to look at. And I think I co-created that list to distract myself from what I was actually scared of and instead made scaring myself on purpose a pseudo-courageous sport. 

Here is what I mean by that:

At that time, I knew I had to stand up to my parents. I knew I had to tell my exes that I cheated on them. I knew I had to come clear about stealing at work. I knew I had to figure out what I actually want to do with my life (the scariest thing of all) and be more honest, daily. 

Creating arbitrary things to scare myself did not fix any of that.

Maybe it helped a little to see that truth and get clear on the real work ahead. 

Fear points towards the path

My good friend and teacher Dr. Brad Blanton often told me:

“Sometimes you need to do what you are scared of in order to get the power to do what you actually want to do. Avoiding difficult things will cost you energy and life.”

Over the last decade I learned to use fear as a compass.

Where there is a lot of fear there is also a lot of love. Or a lot to reclaim in terms of aliveness, vitality, and power to act. Fear inevitably points at the work ahead. If your heart beats when you think about saying something or talking to someone, that’s the way to go. 

One of the scariest of all things for most people is to have honest conversations.

But that’s where the gold is:

Bottled-up emotions that block us from interacting presently with other human beings and keep us in re-creating the past.

What conversations are you avoiding?

Here’s a little suggestion for the New Year.

Instead of pushing forward and learning new things and booking ten workshops, pause and really listen to your inner voice: What are conversations you deep-down know you would benefit from having? Things you are avoiding and circling around by being busy or having fun?

Listen to the rationalizations of why it’s not important or can’t be done.

“Yeah, but I don’t need that person in my life. I don’t want to close to them. Yeah but she is an energy vampire. Yeah, but in this case it can’t be done. My mom would get a heart attack. Yeah, but they should contact me first. Yeah, but I tried so much. Yeah, but I don’t want to hurt them.”

That’s all symptoms of fear. 

And the bigger the fear the more certain we can be that there is something to gain on the other side.

When we face it, we step into the zone of heightened presence and power. We go into the unknown. And very likely, we will emerge from there with a new boon or blessing for our life*.

We could call it true power, integrity, or love.

Happy New Year.

* That paragraph is inspired by Joseph Campbell’s writings on the Heros Journey.

Taking Things to the Grave...

Taking things to the grave

I had a few secrets I wanted to take to the grave.

A very big one was that I stole at work. 

At age 18, I did my social service. That summer, I worked as a guardian in a full-time school. One day, I walked down the hallway. I saw a black Playstation Portable sticking out of a backpack. I grabbed it and stuffed it into my jeans. Then I walked to my car and put it in the trunk.

My heart pounded and in my mind I justified this to be a right action somehow.

As you can probably guess, I had some really serious issues in my teenage years.  

I went back to the school and walked into a turmoil.

“Kevin’s playstation is missing,” said the head teacher. 

“Really?” I asked.

“We need to find it. Will you take charge of that?”

“Sure,” I said. 

The culprit was never found.

To shorten this story, I sold the playstation on eBay to buy myself new Nike shoes. And I lied to my parents about the whole thing. At that time I had a collection of 35 pairs. I did not wear most of them.

They gave me some sense of self-worth and boosted my “gangster ego.”

The weight of keeping secrets

Years went by and I was committed to taking this situation to the grave at all cost. 

Taking things to the grave seemed to be a good option.

I had buried this memory deep down and kept myself busy. 

I now worked in auditing for investment banks in New York City.

How ironic.

Somehow, I never trusted myself. I also never had money. The shadows of my past kept haunting me.
Like boogeyman, they were there but never in plain sight. I tried all sorts of self-help. I donated money. I watched a lot of Tony Robbins. I woke up at 5AM. I talked to women on the streets. I tried to reprogram my mind. And did forgiveness meditations.

Nothing really helped in the long run.

One day in New York, I was severely depressed and saw no way out.

That night, I lay awake in some sort of half dream-state. Suddenly, I remembered all the situations in my life where I had stolen, cheated on girlfriends, lied, etc. I was not looking for them on purpose. These memories just came to my conscious attention. 

That was before I had ever been to any Radical Honesty workshop.

If you ever wanted to know why I got into this work, this is the reason. 

I jumped up and grabbed a notepad. I wrote these memories down. That was seven years after I had stolen the Playstation at work. I knew that I had to confront this situation and tell the truth about the theft. I did not yet know how. But one thing was clear to me right there:

Energetically, I was already half in the grave due to the weight of my secrets.

And if I wanted to be happy, I had some serious cleaning up to do. 

Fast Forward

Roughly a year later, after my first Radical Honesty workshop with Brad Blanton, I found myself sitting in the car in front of the school. I was so scared, I could not move for minutes. On my first attempt, I just drove to the school and circled around, feeling all my feelings. Heavy stuff.

This time, I was committed to coming clean. I knew that this fear pointed towards the path.

I counted down from 10, got out the car, and walked towards the entrance of the school. 

That was the most scared I had ever been in my life up to that point. 

I went to the principal’s office. She remembered me. I told her the whole story. The words just came out of my mouth somehow. My senses got shaper. To my shock, she actually was encouraging and nice. I cried.

That was the last thing I expected. 

In my mind, I thought I would be expelled from society, or worse. 

She said: “Of course what you did is shitty, and I am happy you are telling me.”

That night I slept like a baby. 

Later on I talked to the mother of the child whose playstation I had stolen. The principal gave her my number and she was kind enough to actually call me. I’m getting sad writing this now. She said that I can forgive myself and stop carrying that load around. Something shifted for good in my system.

Those two talks transformed my life and especially my relationship to money.

I had dug myself out of the grave I had been in for years, one truth at a time.

The Radical Honesty Job Interview

“Come To Florida”

I met Tom Dyson while I was living at Brad Blanton’s yurt. 

Actually, I remember exactly how we met. I was trying some yoga on the red carpet, facing the entrance. A guy fought his way through the mosquito net, wearing a white suit. I almost fell over, I thought he was a debt collector coming for Brad. In Virginia, nobody wears white suits, especially not Brad’s friends – they drive tractors, wear flannels, and chew tobacco. 

He introduced himself with an impeccable British accent.

Tom just completed an 8-Day Intensive Radical Honesty Workshop in Florida. After the workshop, his wife divorced him. She saw the hour-long video of Tom’s life story, recorded at the 8-Day workshop, where she received a 2-minute-mention.

I was intrigued and wanted to see the actual recording from the workshop.

Later that night we watched the video with Brad. From hopping trains all across North America to traveling Mexico with no money to building a multi-million dollar business whilst having three children, Tom did a lot of stuff. I liked him. And I liked his story. 

We became close friends in a short time. Tom needed a new marketing coordinator for his publishing company. I needed money, and was good at marketing. Long story short, Tom Dyson flew me and my friend Alex, who applied as a writer, into Florida for a week-long working trial.

“I’ve Got This Idea...”

One day at work, Tom came up with a crazy idea.

“Marvin, why don’t you and Alex tell your life story like we do at a Radical Honesty workshop?”

I had never ever been to a full 8-Day workshop. I had never told my life story. I knew about the concept from Brad. And I scared myself simply by thinking about telling it. 

“You mean just to you or on camera?” Alex asked.

“No. I was thinking you could tell it to all my employees.”

“Ehhhhhh….” I said.

“So they get to know you better. And learn about Radical Honesty. It will be fun.” Tom said.

“And you want us to tell everything that comes up in the process, and put our asses on the line in front of all of our potential co-workers?” Alex asked. 

“Yes, I want you to tell it completely honestly and not filter what you say.”

We both agreed. And I regretted it immediately. 

Stakes And Ladders

At that time, I had roughly 200 dollars to my name. I did not want to live in Germany. I wanted to be in America, and Tom was willing to go to extreme lengths to sponsor my visa and help me get settled. Yet the final decision was not up to him but to the department bosses. 

And they would be in our audience!

I wanted that job, and I was scared that telling my life story would ruin my chances.

Telling a life story, Radical Honesty style, is not a scripted performance, aimed to impress. The goal is not to convince others by delivering a sales pitch! It’s the vulnerable process of revealing things worth hiding and feeling your way through the depths of your memories. Now, that’s one thing to do in a safe workshop environment with skilled facilitators, and a whole different thing to do in front of two dozen unsuspecting people being asked to stay after work for 2 hours. 

For 2 days, me and Alex plotted whether to tell a safe-for-work, just-edgy-enough-to-entertain version, or go through the real-deal process and actually strip naked in front of potential coworkers.We went for the latter, and it was an experience I will never forget.

The Interview

The evening came and we entered the glass-walled and air-conditioned meeting room, a good twenty people sitting around the table. I thought I was going to trial. Tom smiled and set up the camera. He looked confident in his plan. My heart thumped against my chest and I could hear it in my throat. 

I don’t think I was ever that scared. 

Alex went first. I sat back and listened.

Here is how he describes his experience.

Enter Alex:

“Sitting in front of a room full of curious faces that I barely knew brought-up a lot of shifting sensations: tensions, tingles, giggles, tears, palpitations! I started talking about the early days of my life. After somewhat settling in to speaking, my mind would come up with another story to tell, another normally-hidden tale from my past that unsettled me again. My attention moved from my visual memories to my body to the wide-eyed faces staring back at me. Sometimes I tried to guess what they were thinking, and sometimes I shared what I thought they were thinking. Surrender can be a dreadfully relieving experience, and I surrendered approximately 107 times in that hour.

I told these potential managers and colleagues of childhood embarrassments, past lies, drug use, mental health turbulence, family issues, as well as travel stories, sexual partners, workshops gone right, and my dreams. After I’d told enough embarrassing details to get somewhat acclimatised to the process, and seeing other people’s curiosity in what I had to say gave me confidence. We inspired each other. Afterwards I felt like I’d had a deep tissue massage on the inside. I sat back, ready to watch Marvin talk, elated to have gone through this and relieved to focus on someone else. “

Exit Alex.

And then it was my turn.

As I went through all the shameful, funny, sad, and painful details of my life, I noticed the bald-headed guy at the other side of the table. His arms crossed in front of his chest, he squinted at me. To me, he looked angry as hell and I was sure he hated my story.

Unfortunately, the same guy was the head of the department I was hoping to work for. 

That was the end of my American Dream, I thought. 

Nevertheless, I finished telling my story and felt proud, light, and happy. 

I included all the details worth withholding: stealing at work, what porn I watched, how dysfunctional my relationships were, cheating, being obsessive and a lot more. Thinking back, I would describe this experience as “being transparent and not caring about being found out”.

Pretty much everything I wanted to take to the grave was out in the open. 

And, despite my biggest fears, that felt great in reality. 

The bald guy still sat with his arms crossed, staring into space.

I approached him: “I imagined you hated everything I said. Is that so?”

“Absolutely not. I was thinking about my own life all the time. I would never dare to tell most of it to anybody, not even my friends. This is amazing. I wish I could do this one day.”

I imagine he looked incredibly inspired and said he had some processing to do. He laughed pretty wildly, and seemed astonished! He left soon to be with his own thoughts. 

It was exactly the things I thought I would be crucified for that he loved hearing about!

Those were the things he connected to his own life and related to.

Long story short, I was hired. 

The Benefits of Honesty

The Benefits of Honesty

Okay, let’s look at a question I get asked a lot:

“Why should I be honest? What’s the benefit?”

Weeeellllll….

Hhhmmmm….

Uuuuuuuhhhh…

Because why in the world would you not?

Let’s look at some reasons people come up with…

I would hurt people’s feelings

Yes. You would. You do that anyway.

You worrying in advance about never hurting anyone's feelings is hurting my feelings.

I’m hurt seeing people play small. I’m hurt by people lying. What you think will hurt other people might actually be a great service to them. Or not. The point is, feelings get hurt all the time, no matter what. And I think feelings hurt in an honest exchange can be fixed by an honest exchange.

There’s no real service to the world in being so careful.

Also, you make people smaller in your head than they really are.

As if no one could handle your truth.

Rather cultivate the ability to deal with hurt in a healthy way.

Of course, I am not saying to hurt people’s feelings on purpose.

I would lose some friends

Yes. You will. You already do by lying. I lost friends. In other words: I realised that some people are more nourishing and fun to be with than others. Some of your friends might not be able to handle your honesty. That’s okay. But why would you shrink back down into a fake version of yourself to please people who are afraid of their own selves? Don’t dim your light for the sake of people committed to staying in the dark. Honesty gets you exactly the friends you need. 

I would lose my job

You might. And how bad would that be? If someone fires you for being honest, good for you. Why would you spend half of your awake time in an environment that does not care about you? Why would you repress your true self? No money in the world can compensate for the long-term damage done to yourself by pretending all day. Worse than being fired is firing your own gut feeling and intuition. That takes longer to heal than finding some new way to make money. 

I would not fit into society

Great. I congratulate you! It would be awful to fit into modern society. Most people sleepwalk through life in a daze. Our Society produces more neurotics than ever. More people kill themselves than ever. People are addicted to porn, sugar, booze, screens, or worse. People play games all day. I like healthy individuals taking a stand, growing in power as conscious creators, and actualizing themselves. 

I would lose my partner

Yes. You might show yourself the way you really are and lose your partner. But how big of a loss would that be? Do you enjoy spending your life playing phoney games? If you do, that’s okay. You can go ahead and keep doing that if you like. I don’t know what else to say here. 

Here’s what I think: 

You are going to die.

Really? Yes. Your time here is limited!

That’s the only thing I can guarantee you. 

So, with that being a given, why wouldn’t you be more honest?

Unmute Yourself!

Unmute yourself

For a long period of my life I felt muted. 

I seemed unable to reach-out and say what I really wanted, or what was really true for me. 

My actual experience was entirely different from what I communicated.

The second time I lived in New York City, I worked for a large media company on Broadway, again. What seemed golden on the outside was a prison on the inside. I dreaded my life, felt out of place and without meaningful connections or purpose. To myself, I was a robot: my voice lacked depth. I smiled perpetually. My communication was automated:

“Hey Donnie. Almost Friday. Will you go watch The Game?”

My inner voice seemed muted – my actual self buried.

Somehow, I could not bring my truth to the surface and kept hiding in roleplay.

The times I lost my voice

But why was I muted? And how come I hid my inner voice?

For me, this was largely connected to a bunch of unresolved stuff from the past.

One evening I came home to my shared apartment in Harlem.

I took a nap and fell into a half-dream. In that dream, I was held by some dark human-like shadow. My chest and mouth covered by its hands. I was unable to break-free and scream. 

When I woke up, I felt strange.

In the dream, I seemed to be both: the one holding and the one held back. 

I took my journal and scribbled “where did I lose my voice?”

I had written down the same question a year ago in South Africa, but at that time it was too depressing to go through with it. That evening in New York, I had enough leverage: I knew I would lose my intuition and integrity if I wouldn't face myself honestly. I would slowly lose my soul, I thought. Plus, life did not seem to get any better despite winning in the status game. 

And so I opened the floodgates of my mind...

I remembered:

How I cheated on my partners and lied about it
How angry I was at my parents
How I stole a few things at work… and from my parents 
How I suppressed my actual feelings towards one friend for years
How I lied to former bosses about why I quit my work
How badly I treated one friend 
How I disciplined my ex girlfriends dog when I was actually angry at her
How I was hurt and punched in school

And a lot more.

These were some of the times I fell mute and lost parts of my power and integrity. Or at least the big things I really avoided looking at. And, of course, there were many more situations from my past that I did not have conscious access to as I wrote my list. 

And even more that pre-dated my memory and language. 

But these were some of the big things I left incomplete in my life, and remembered in that moment. And with every moment that I hid, where I showed-up incomplete, I muted myself further and gave more power to pretending and roleplay. 

Let’s take a moment to reflect.

What are your incompletions? Where did you lose your voice? 

Or where did you express a phony voice?

If you can, allow yourself to have a deep and honest look at your past.

This does not always have to be big stuff. Oftentimes, a combination of small pretenses over time, or habitual role-playing, can have a lasting effect on our self expression. Developing awareness of the times we have lost our voice is the first step towards reclaiming it.

Okay, so what can we do from here?

Reclaiming what has been lost along the way

Let’s look at what that means. 

To me, all the above memories seemed incomplete. That means that the memory was not accompanied by the actual, true feeling. A sense of dread and powerlessness accompanied them, mixed with negative self-talk and judgments. There was a lot of shame behind each of them, and with that shame, I kept myself muted. I thought I didn't deserve a good life. 

Now, this was a vicious circle: it led me to more of the same behaviour. 

I knew I had to resolve those situations at the source and free myself from the weight of my emotions around those memories.

I am aware that we are only communicating one-way via this article. That’s why I will just briefly share what I did to get complete on those incomplete moments without too many details for now. Then I will show you three low-risk starting points you can act on right now towards reclaiming parts of your voice. 

I decided to have face-2-face conversations with the actual people involved. 

In those conversations I told the truth about the past situation and revealed what I actually did or how I actually felt. I brought the situation back by honestly speaking about it. 

This way, I integrated the memories and reclaimed parts of my voice and power to act. After each conversation, my emotional charge/shame/anger lowered. I felt clearer after every one. Those memories were now complete. 

I would not recommend doing this without some preparational work and ongoing support (mainly in getting access to your bodily sensations and developing skills in noticing).

I prepared myself by participating in a 7-Day Radical Honesty workshop. 

However, there are three things you can do, right now, without a workshop: 

1. Sit with memories and feelings

2. Share with trusted friends 

3. Cultivate the pause 

Sit with memories and feelings

A big part of unmuting myself was to simply allow the repressed memories and feelings to come to the surface. In the past, I would have distracted myself by drinking, partying, or gaming. In the process of getting complete, I sat on my sofa and brought the memories back to my mind.

You can try this out for yourself: schedule some time for yourself and block all communication. Then close your eyes and go into the memory. Really welcome it. Allow more details to come back. Feel the feelings in your body. Invite even more details in, and feel the feelings. If you want to cry, cry. If you want to scream, scream. Really go with what comes up. Don’t try to figure anything out or fix it. Just be there.

Staying with the unlocked bodily sensations here is key. It is normal that strong sensations will sometimes come up. They will pass again. Try to stay with whatever comes up, if you can. They are just sensations.

Share with trusted friends 

If you are lucky enough to have trusted friends, ask them to sit with you and support you by listening to you for a while. To the degree that you can, share with them how you lost your voice. Reveal some of the details you would keep hidden. 

This is similar to what you did above, but this time, you share with others. 

Shame can only survive in secrecy. 

This sharing will likely increase your physical sensations in your body. Again, just let them be there and allow yourself to sit with the discomfort as much as you can. 

Cultivate the Pause

To interrupt my auto-pilot communication, I learned to cultivate a pause. This means I practiced letting things land before I responded. Now, this does not mean an uncomfortably long break and a stare, but just enough time to collect my resources and “feel into it”.

Taking a short pause before talking helps me become aware of more things. This way, my communication includes more aspects than just the obvious surface level thoughts.

Transmuting your communication 

Transmuting your communication is a process, not a magic trick.

For me, this process consists of two continuous practices:

One is completing unfinished business in my life to free-up space. The other is to tell my truth on a moment-to-moment basis to get grounded and worry less. Both are vital.

If you want to learn how to tell your truth in a direct, vulnerable way and experience yourself in an exciting way, I recommend coming to one of my workshops in Radical Honesty. These are dedicated spaces where you can just be yourself and say whatever comes up for you whilst being guided to be direct. 

We will work on developing awareness on how you are keeping yourself muted. And we will develop stretches for you to try out and regain access to your lost potentials. 

For now, I will leave you with this:

Try to be a little bit more honest in the next few days. Watch some of my videos for more support. Even saying “no” where you would usually say “maybe” is a good first stretch. Let me know how you are getting on with this practice in the comments below or by emailing me at...

Radical Honesty in Daily Life

Radical Honesty in Daily Life

Hello friends. It’s me, Marvin.

A lot of people struggle to apply Radical Honesty at home. Well, of course. It’s difficult enough to be honest at a dedicated workshop with two trainers, conscious agreements, and other folks who paid a decent amount of money to partake. Doing this at home? That’s tough.

However, from my experience, the real-world is where honesty can really bear fruits. 

It’s crucial to develop a healthy perspective for bringing Radical Honesty home. 

I did not have this when I started ten years ago. And I frustrated myself a lot.

Radical Honesty in Daily Life

First, this is a process, not a miracle. 

You spent however many years to perfect the habits of withholding, bottling your emotions, and pretending. Don’t expect to undo your life’s work in one big bang. For one, it’s impossible for most people. Plus reclaiming too much energy at once would likely overwhelm you.  

Second, you have to honour your personal history. 

Like yoga, Radical Honesty does not look the same way for everyone. We all carry a different load. Have experienced different traumas. Don’t compare your own progress to others. 

You are you. I am I. 

Start where you are and gently work towards greater self-expression and freedom.

That said, I want to share one very simple idea for your home practice.

In fact, I stole this from math class. It’s the concept of the lowest common denominator.

In our case, it’s the smallest honest step you can take in any given situation.

No matter what’s happening, you can take a small honest step. 

Sometimes, the smallest honest thing you can do is to…

• At least not add any new lies or pretend on purpose

• Notice your body for three more seconds

• Take a pause to check-in with yourself

• State how you feel (instead of working on the expression)

• Staying silent instead of distracting yourself with small talk

Steady practice over time trumps an occasional high-intensity experience. 

We tend to mistake cathartic breakthroughs for lasting transformation. I want to advocate for a slow-cooking Radical Honesty practice. Plan at least two years of continuous work. Little by little, you will increase your tolerance for all sorts of experiences. 

And keep in mind that Radical Honesty is not an all-or-nothing approach. 

That took me a while to comprehend. 

Can’t express your anger fully like we do in workshops? 

Well, that does not mean you have to stay silent.

There is a lot of range between the extremes. And in your daily life, you want to go there. Join me for one of my upcoming workshops and we can explore your range together. Plus you will meet many like-minded people who will support you on your journey ❤️

Get more ME time. With others.

Get more ME time. With others.

Me time. Time for myself. Time to feel good. Most people see me time as a break from socializing. Wine and cigarettes at home. Television and gummy bears. Netflix no chill. But how would it be if you could allow yourself more ME time in the presence of other people?

Getting a break for yourself without having to step on the break.

My Brief History

For a long time, I’ve felt most comfortable being alone. After some time alone I would miss being with people. However, when I was actually with people, I missed being alone again. I could never get it right, always wanting what wasn’t there. 

I dreaded socializing: it seemed like a lot of effort. 

I felt lonely in the presence of the very people I was supposed to feel close to. 

I seemed to be living inside a murky goldfish bowl, strangely muted and unable to reach out.

I could not break through, could not be heard or seen in the ways I wanted. 

But who was I to want anything in the first place? So I talked myself out of even trying.

The real me seemed too much to uncork, and so I kept myself bottled-up. 

I agreed to plans I did not like. Smiled when I felt like crying. 

I ended up drained and frustrated. At parties, I often snuck out without saying goodbye.

In relationships, I did the same. 

Unconscious role-playing as the cause of social isolation 

I think the main cause of my loneliness was perpetual, unconscious role-playing. 

The nice listener who always has an open ear (although I did not really care).
The funny guy that likes everything that was going on.
The careless, mysterious tough guy who does not speak much.
The provider and selfless man.
The seductive alpha male who always knows what to say.
The good business student who cares about outsourcing and franchises. 

Now, all of these roles had a function. All roles do. They are never bad per se.

Roles are shaped according to previous experiences. These roles were my best shot at avoiding more pain. They supported me to gain pleasure. It’s always easy to point the finger in retrospect, but at that time, they were the best options I had available. 

I was totally reactive and living on auto-pilot. 

At that point, I was not consciously aware of how much I role-played.

Yet, I took my role-playing very seriously. 

And so eventually the role of my roles switched from tools in my mental toolkit to my masters. I did not flexibly respond to what life brought my way but tried to force life to fit my chosen role.

Like an actor, I was always in character. Trying. Performing. Reacting. 

And of course, this was draining and I had to isolate myself, feeling overwhelmed. 

Sound familiar?

Exercise: Develop Role Awareness

Now, before we will go into three specific ways to get more me time with others, take a moment to reflect. Which roles are you playing? In what ways are you “in character”?

Really take some time here to reflect.

Think about the big picture – the cinematic stuff, so to speak. What are your big life roles? If you don’t like the word role here, ask yourself, in which ways are you performing? 

And then look at the small, daily stuff. Which roles do you play on the bus? The supermarket?

And then give those roles some credit for making your life easier. 

Just becoming aware of how much I pretend helps me to create a little gap between me and all my roles. And in that gap lives a choice. I can choose to keep playing a role or choose to tell the truth and break free. It’s okay to play roles… if you are not limited to that.

How to get more ME time with others

Okay, now let’s look at ways to get more time for yourself with other people.

I imagine that ME time has something to do with feeling good in my body. Worrying less. Being in sync with the world. Feeling connected to the moment. In the past, I only knew how to do that alone. Well, it does seem easier to be in flow of life without others. 

But there is a way to feel more connected and integral in the company of others.

And the way is honesty – telling the truth about what is going on. 

To me, this comes down to three basic practices:

1. Asking for what I want 

2. Telling the truth about my current experience

3. Expressing my real feelings instead of faking happiness 

Asking for what I want: The end of silent regrets 

As part of my playing-it-nice strategy, I never asked for what I wanted. 

I tried to secretly manipulate my surroundings to get it anyways. I know, hearing a direct “Yes” or “No” evokes more feelings in the body, so we tend to avoid it. Yet we get stuck in our heads. We end up wishing and hoping. We end up feeling unheard and with regret.

To me, the process of just asking is rewarding, regardless of the outcome. 

Imagine dating.

“I would like to kiss you. Do you want to kiss?”

How different from awkwardly trying to scoot closer and waiting for the moment. 

Or being married.

“I prefer getting a hotel for your parents. Are you willing to do that?”

Very different from: “Are they coming to stay with us AGAIN?”

By asking directly for what I want, I take responsibility for my experience. And I leave others with a choice too. By stating my preference and hearing a direct answer, I can work with whatever happens next. It’s less effort than juggling different unspoken scenarios in my head.

And it can be surprisingly fun and refreshing. 

Just putting my voice out in the mix helps me to feel part of the moment. I don’t have to have it my way and I can relax having asked and choose what to do next.

Telling the truth: taking the mask off 

Telling the truth means taking the mask off. You step out of character and reveal what is actually true. It means to communicate based on the present moment, not on how I think I should be. Yes, it can be scary. And it will probably be the most rewarding thing you ever try.

Telling the truth means revealing my previous roleplaying: you talk out loud about the mask you’ve taken off.

This is a lifelong practice.

But you can start with small revelations.

“When I told you I was busy, I actually just wanted to be alone.”

“Sometimes I pretend I am happy when I am actually sad.”

“I don’t like how you told me this earlier.”

With each truthful statement, you reclaim a bit of your power. 

Plus you pave the way out of your mind and get back in touch with reality. 

Expressing feelings: no more faking happiness

I come from a culture where men don’t cry and anger is passively expressed. 

So, I used to suppress those feelings, but those feelings don’t just disappear. They fester underneath the radar of conscious awareness; blocking the flow of life from within. In order to be present to new experiences, expressing so-called negative feelings in a truthful way is crucial. 

Yes, that also means working with anger, sadness, disgust, and fear.

Going into the specifics here would blow up the scope of this already long article.

Just for now, it’s okay to say you are angry when you are. It’s okay to admit you are sad. 

If people around you can’t handle your real emotions, you might want to get some new friends in the long run. Friends who support you in being the most real you. 

Or do you want to be applauded for how well you play your roles in life?

Live life out-loud 

Phew, now this was quite a long article.

To summarize the main idea here: whenever you feel drained or out of place in social settings, there is probably something you withheld, pretended, or did not say in advance (unless you are drunk in a nightclub, then it's a bad choice of environment). However, you can always get back in-sync and out of your mind by telling the truth about what is true for you, right now.

To me, the more I show up just the way I am, the less dread I experience. 

And, surprisingly, people find that (mostly) refreshing.

Give honesty a shot, or have a shot of honesty.

Feel free to discuss this or let me know how your shots of honesty have gone in the comments section below

Radical Honesty in Relationships

Radical Honesty in Relationships

I lied like crazy in my past relationships. 

I smiled when I was angry. I said I’m not jealous when I actually was. I pretended I had money when I was poor. I said my dad’s car was mine to impress women on dates. I faked attraction just to have sex. I tried to live up to imaginary standards of how I thought I should be.

I continuously betrayed my actual feelings and intuition at the will of MTV and co.

As a result, I felt frustrated, drained, and incongruent in all my relationships.

And then, I cheated on all my partners up to the age of 24. 

Of course, I lied about that too. I had the right support circle to justify my dishonesty: other frustrated men. And I did not only lie in my romantic relationships, I lied all the time.

At 26, I was tired and burned out. I craved real connection, yearned for love. Over time, I realized how freaking scared I was to show myself. My self-esteem was very low at that time.

Here is what I think I know now... 8 years later.

Lying is the primary cause of suffering in relationships 

Honesty in relationships means to quit performing and pretending. You show yourself how you actually are. I used to think that as a “dominant and playful alpha male” (some ideas I picked up on how I should be) I can never express anger, jealousy, or sadness. I had to be tough. 

Of course, this is shit-brained… and counterproductive for real relating.

The result was a constant state of anxiety, confusion, and disconnection.

It hurts to continuously go against the reality of the moment and the state of your body. Here are some problems that – alongside the ones I mentioned above – show up as a result of withholding, pretending and performing in relationships:

• Constant worrying in loops and overthinking stuff

• Replaying situations in your head, over and over

• Snap-reactions, outbursts, and run-offs 

• A sense of unworthiness and codependency

• Obsessing about small details in the relationship

• Subservient behavior and self-doubts 

I would go as far as to say that whenever you experience on-going distress, discomfort, anxiety or uneasiness in your relationships, you are probably hiding or withholding something important from your partner.

In my experience, lying is the primary cause of suffering in relationships.

And that includes withholding how I actually feel. It’s the top killer of aliveness, sexual attraction, and the joy of togetherness in relationships.

Luckily, freedom is often just one honest statement away.

Three simple and safe ways of telling the truth in a relationship

Now, how can one actually tell the truth? Where to start after years of lying?

For me, those were important questions. I had removed myself so far from my ability to tell the truth, I had to relearn it, step by step. Over the years as a trainer in Radical Honesty, I have discovered three simple and safe ways to show yourself in your relationship and get out of your head. There’s more, but those are good starting points.

1. Sometimes I pretend…

A great way to create connections and free yourself from worrying is to reveal some of your pretenses and say what was really true. In reality, this would sound something like this:

“Sometimes I pretend to you that I’m not tired when I’m actually tired.”

“Last Christmas I pretended I liked your gift when I actually did not.”

“Sometimes I pretend to you that I’m not angry when I actually am.”

“Yesterday I pretended I was not attracted to another person when I actually was.”

You get the idea. The goal here is to come clean about some of your pretenses. You can start small and work your way up to more pressing pretenses. Stay in touch with your body while you speak. You will likely experience some heightened sensations. This is good. This is aliveness coming back into your body. Do it and feel how you feel in the process.

If your partner is up for it, you can even turn this into a game and go back-and-forth.

If you do so, say “Thank You” after each sharing.

2. Are you willing to…?

I used to avoid asking direct questions to avoid hearing a direct answer.

I hid my wishes behind passive statements and manipulations. I had a lot of unspoken expectations in my partners, but how could they know? Instead of playing the hide-and-seek game, try this simple and direct way of asking for what you want.

The way to do this is to clearly separate the wish from the request. 

Here are a few examples:

“I would really like a massage tonight. Would you be willing to do that?”

“I’d like for you to bring me some apples from the market. Will you do that?”

“I want to watch a movie tonight. Will you watch one with me?”

By asking in this format, you take ownership of your wish and leave your partner a chance to say “Yah” or “Nah”. It’s very different from “Hhhm, how about we watch a movie tonight.”

Again you will likely feel more in your body when you ask this way.

Just be careful to not ask questions when you are angry or charged in some way.

This way, it would be better to first work through the feeling first. Also, don’t get too robotic about this. Just make sure you state what you actually want and leave your partner with a chance to agree or not. Own both, your wish and the questions.

3. When I heard you say / saw you do… I felt / thought...

Now, this is not Radical Honesty per se.

In a workshop, we approach the direct expression of feelings differently. Yet, this way is definitely better than pretending or faking and easy to do. 

Next time you feel sad, angry or hurt by something that happened, try this:

“When I heard you say X  just now, I felt tense in my body.”

“When I saw you do X just now, I noticed I felt angry at you.”

“When you did X yesterday, I judged you as X.”

Take a moment to pause and check-in with your body after such a statement.

The idea is not to blame the other person or try to change her.

For me, if I allow myself to acknowledge how I really felt or what I really thought, I have a better chance of letting go and moving on. When I fake or pretend that things are okay, I tend to chew on stuff in my head longer than necessary. 

Small incremental steps

Cultivating a more honest expression takes time.

It’s not always easy and you will sometimes experience discomfort. From my experience, the temporary discomfort was always worth the growth opportunity that was behind.

I needed two or three years to shift from habitual pretending to more honest relating. 

Start where you can without underwhelming or overwhelming yourself too much.

The fine line is where you can notice enhanced physical sensations and maybe a bit of discomfort. For me, this was always a good indicator that I’m on the right track to uncovering something important for me.

Don’t beat yourself up when you catch yourself pretending.

Simply start where you are with what you can, one honest statement at a time.