soft. tender. sensitive.
on the fallacy of âbrutal honestyâ and a gentle reorientation towards kind, radical honesty
What are all the ways you know yourself? When you last looked in the mirror, did you notice the distinct softness that now emerges from your eyes? Do you see how, more and more lately, you take one moment longer before turning away from your reflection?
In this brief and passing moment, facing your reflection, a part of you now whispers, tenderly and regularly, âWell done, beloved.â
I thought about the different angles I could start this passage today. Should I start by drawing out the sword and cutting through the excesses? Or perhaps, like an aircraft, glide slowly and quietly before suddenly launching into the skies? Maybe, I thought, it might be worthwhile to take a bold leap into the core of my subject matter with no cushion or countdown.
Eventually, I settled on radical honestyâbecause that felt like it encompassed all of the above. For honesty to qualify as âradicalâ it means that itâs the kind of story-telling and truth-telling that is rooted, grounded, and connected to its origin. So here we go.
This is a piece that attempts to trace the ways that truth-telling tends to deviate from integrity and the ways that truth-telling has become a performance that mirrors honesty. My exploration today is also about how honestyâas a practiceâhas become less about staying connected to the origin of the feeling/story and more about playing out (performing) our idea of what we think the truth should sound/feel like.Â
The fallacy we have come to believe is that the shadow of the object is the object itself.
And when our shadow-version-of-truth is questioned and critiqued by others, instead of us asking âWhy?â or âWhat could I be missing here?â, we jump into using brutal honesty as a tactic to gain validation and generate an audience. All along, we simply yearn to be heard. But yelling an illusion does not transform it into fact.
How much longer are you willing to keep brutalizing your way through life as you seek to be heard, believed and understood?
there is breaking, then there is breaking openÂ
A while ago, I decided to resign from the âbrutal honesty campâ. The forced dichotomy between kindness and honesty does not resonate with me. I often wondered, how it is we go around bruising and battering each other and with the same breath saying, âI do this only because I love youâ. That equation is incomplete and false. So I turned to other modalities that felt comprehensive yet curiosity-led, chaotic yet attuned. I found radical honesty.
The thing with âradical honestyâ is that it does not need to prove a point. It exists alongside whatever complexities arise because it does not rely on denying the truth of others for it to be validated. The survival of radical honesty does not require the asphyxiating of other forms of life. It does not require the demise of contradiction and complexity, nor the necessary insistence on reductivism and singularity.Â
Radical truth-telling is both audacious and vulnerable. After all, it knows that while it is exposed and prone to attack, it is simultaneously protected because it is firmly grounded and deeply rooted. This quality tracks with the definition of âradicalâ. That is: of or relating to the origin; of, relating to, or proceeding from a root; foundational.
Therefore, radical truth-telling does not need to elbow its way through the crowd to deliver its message through a megaphone hoisted on a pedestal, pulpit or stage. Because of its fundamental, foundational nature, it reaches whomever it is intended to reach all while moving at the speed of trust. Radical honesty is a form of truth-telling that moves forth with clarity, yet remains open to inquiry, critique and feedback.Â
Beloved, simply put, radical honesty is when you hold my hand in a moment of intense conflict and tell me: âYour words right now are hurting me, and I am doing my best to try and listen but itâs becoming more difficult to do so... Could you pause for a moment then tell me again in a way I can hear you?âÂ
Or maybe it is when your colleague at work tells you: âI can see that you have a lot on your plate right now. I am also struggling to make progress because this part of my work depends on you delivering on your part of the work. Could we revisit our agreement and make some changes that might support us both?âÂ
Radical honesty is also when you look at your reflection and firmly, yet compassionately, ask yourself: âAm I proud of how I showed up today? Why/why not? Over the past week/month, how did I practice being the type of person who keeps the promises they make to themselves?â
Tenderness becomes possible when you realize that truth will not break you simply to turn you into a mockable spectacle. The kind of truth that matters will break you open.
This kind of truth will offer you an opportunity to revisit the edges of your softness, and to test the âlimitsâ of your compassion. This kind of honesty will require your active participation; it will invite you to be transformed by it, and in doing so, to open to a deeper and more intimate relationship with other, more challenging truths.Â
However, there is also another kind of messaging that is masked/sold as âtruthâ. These are the narratives/stories/opinions that are delivered recklessly and without care for what and who is harmed in the process. This kind of âtruthtellingâ is not an invitation. Rather, it is an instigation to catalyse you into some form of immediate response and dysregulation. It relies on your unchecked reactions. As the intensity of your reaction grows, so does the provocation. The purpose of this kind of âtruthtellingâ is not to compel you toward critical thought or mindful response. Instead, these messagesâdelivered through a façade of âbrutal honestyââare intended to get you agitated to âdo somethingââwhether or not that action is in integrity with your values.
wherever you go, take your tenderness with you Â
In my time introspecting on this topic, I have come to the awareness that there is a difference between what we do, and how we do what we do. If you are breathing, heart-beating, and aware that you are alive, then I call you to remember that you have choice in how you do what you do. So, yes, tell me the truth. Be honest all the way to the root. But, if you mayâbecause we have already established that you canâalso be kind.Â
There is a kind of truth that is committed to drawing you closer towards love, then there is a kind of truth whose fires stay lit only because you are committed to perpetuating your suffering. The latter is the kind of truth that eventually leads you to be callous and repulsed by your own as well as otherâs softness and tenderness.Â
The latter is the version that led some close relations of mine to tell me the following (with rather harsh tones):
âStop crying; your tears are a sign of weakness.â
âI donât know how to care for you; you are fragile.âÂ
âYou are delicate; I donât know how to move around you. I am afraid I will break something.âÂ
Initially, when these words landed in my ears and heart, I put up all my defences. I fought aggressively with words of my own, or passive-aggressively with inaudible snickers and protest-like behaviours. I was having a difficult time reconciling how people who told me that they loved/cared for me also spoke to me in this harsh and brutal manner.
Sometimes, my response was to coil into myself, such that the words forming in my mind vapourised in my throat and came out as a gasp. Other times, I pretended that I was unaffected and unmoved by what I heard, only to break down in tears and pained breaths somewhere in plain sight or a hidden dome of despair on my bathroom floor.
Each of these incidents has left me with a toolkit tucked in the crevices of my mind titled, âHow To Catch Your Breath When Your Heart Is Breaking Faster Than You Can Breatheâ. I wish not to retrieve that toolkit again.
come let me hold you as you cry your truth out. i promise you, your softness is safe with me
Today, I ask myself: âWere these people trying to share some feedback that might be helpful?â My first response is, âPerhaps.â However, what they intended is miles away from the impact of their words. And thatâthe distance between intention and impactâis where we have an opportunity to interrogate our relationship with softness, tenderness, and sensitivity.Â
This is not about us using âcute messagingâ, âcoddlingâ or â[political] correctnessâ. I am not willing to invest my time and energy in writing manuals on âHow To Outperform Each Otherâs Notions Of Righteousnessâ. Rather, what I am inviting you into is a consideration of how much power and responsibility you are willing to name, claim and practice when it comes to your choice and delivery of words. How truthful are you willing to be about how you use unkind provocation (aka brutal honesty) to displace your discomfort about what it means to be soft and tender?Â
The real question is: Do you truly want to be honest with me or are you looking for someone to emotionally dysregulate so that you can distract yourself from facing your inner feelings of terror, anxiety, fear, sadness, loneliness, etc.?
We consistently refuse to tend to the injuries within. Instead, we look for a place/person to displace our inner turmoil upon. Brutal honesty, as I have come to learn, is first and foremost a battle lost within before it becomes a displaced proxy war around you.Â
Beloved, you must be tired of running from yourself. There are not enough wars you can externalize that will give you the peace you are looking for. You must tell yourself the truth first, and hear itâhowever difficult it is.Â
Perhaps the problem is not the intensity of your love but the quality of the people you are loving.
âWarsan Shire
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