Radical Honesty
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Table of Contents Title Page A Ritual to Read to Each Other… That's Why They Call It Personal Growth PART ONE: SETTLING THINGS AT THE SOURCE LIZ: How I Came To Radical Honesty and Grew Up in Two Hours (Plus 48 Years) PATRICIA: Excerpts From My Journal CRISTYN: Memories and Realities of Abuse PAUL: Clearing Up What Happened at that Damned Baseball Game SAL: I Love You Forever I Love You for Always As Long As You're Living My Son You Will Be AMY: Getting Over It With My Dad KATHRYN: Curiosity, Courage & Contact NANCY: A Death in the Family PAIGE: Christ, This Is Fun EVE: Breaking the Shackles Around My Heart JONATHAN: This Person in Front of Me Happens To Be Mom PART TWO: SOURCING THINGS AT THE SETTLEMENT What To Do When Things Work Out AVERILL: Completing What Was Incomplete With My Ex-Husband CHRIS: AIDS, Death & Dad LEO: Love in the Afternoon … Any Afternoon SUSAN: Shadow Dancing In the Light NOAH: A Prose Poem PART THREE: SETTLING THINGS AT THE FINANCIAL SOURCE A Reformulation of Work Based on How You Want To Be at Work: A Change in Perspective That Comes from Honesty PAUL: How Work Becomes Play PAIGE: Sometimes the Magic Works and Sometimes It Doesn't CHRISTINA: Chrissie Becomes Christina at Work KAY: Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own RAVEN: Completion With a Former Lover At Work PART FOUR: SETTLING THINGS AMONG THE SORCERERS A Community of Friends JACK: Blind Truth RAVEN: The Postman JANICE: Dumping the Layers Of Despair BRAD: A Letter to My Friends RAVEN: The Lady at the Laundry PART FIVE: SOURCING A WAY TO SETTLE AND SOURCE THINGS AMONG THE SETTLEMENTS OF SORCERERS The Big Picture: Social Transformation Undoing a System of Secret Influence Solving the World's Problems by Any Memes Possible: The Story About Stories The Memonic Plague Comedians: Heroes of Meme Correction Through Hilarious Bitterness The Problem With Secrecy This Is What We Meme by “We Are All One” Other books by Brad Blanton, Ph.D. Bibliography Send Us Your Story THE TRUTHTELLERS Stories of Success by Radically Honest People edited by BRAD BLANTON, PH.D. www.radicalhonesty.com. Author of • Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth • Practicing Radical Honesty: How to Complete the Past, Live in the Present and Build a Future with a Little Help from Your Friends • Radical Parenting: Seven Steps to a Functional Family in a Dysfunctional World Co-Author: Neale Donald Walsch • Honest to God: A Change of Heart that Can Change the World Published by Sparrowhawk Press 646 Shuler Lane Stanley, VA 22851 Cataloging-in-Publication Data: The truthtellers : stories of success by radically honest people/edited by Brad Blanton. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN: 978-1-4507-9312-4 1. Self-actualization (Psychology). 2. Truthfulness and falsehood. 3. Healing. 4. Psychotherapy. I. Blanton, Brad, edt II. Title: Truth tellers BF637.S4 B553 2004 158 – dc21 Copyright © 2004, Brad Blanton All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photcopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from Sparrowhawk Publications, with the exception of short excerpts used with acknowledgement of publisher and author. Cover by Victoria Valentine Interior Design by Author's Publishing Cooperative and Victoria Valentine Typeset in Bee-Three, Futura and Book Antiqua Printed in USA First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Raves and Reviews by Other Authors and Readers “Here is a collection of testimonies written by people who have had the courage to put the bottom-line truth to work in their lives. Each story is unique, but the common thread throughout is healing. Brad Blanton's understanding that growth always—and only—moves from the inside out is revealed in the organization of this powerful and inspiring book. Honesty with self, honesty with family of origin, honesty with chosen family, honesty in the workplace, honesty with friends, even honesty with acquaintances —one big, giant, wonderful, courageous ripple effect that will change our lives if we're willing, and just might change the world if enough of us are willing.” —Thorn Rutledge Author of Embracing Fear & Finding the Courage to Live Your Life “The visceral descriptions of anxiety and other painful feelings that come in the process of telling the truth are a key strength of this wonderful book. If you're doing Radical Honesty right, it is messy. And it does often hurt. But, as the stories here show beautifully, if you're willing to go through the mess and the hurt, the rewards are unbelievably, unpredictably rich. The kind of love that is possible after somebody tells the truth (in the way Brad and his colleagues define telling the truth), is a whole different animal—fresher, looser, deeper, sweeter, wilder, stronger—than what usually passes for love.” —Grace Llewellyn Author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Co-author of Guerrilla Learning “Just what we need—a book that finally celebrates the healing power of truth! Our culture and world will grow radically different as parents get real with their kids, kids get real with teachers, teachers get real with politicians, and politicians get real with the flowing truth of the world. Thanks, Brad, for your deep commitment.” —Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D. Co-author of Conscious Loving and The Conscious Heart “I know that I create it all—you, myself, and all the stuff that goes with it. For me, the trick is in the choices, and creation comes with every little notion. Radical Honesty is nothing more than a means of helping me to lift the veil of my opinion and judgment…a tool to help me wake up from this dream. So that, at last, I can forgive myself, and consequently all others, and love completely. I am the source of all of that.” —Leo Burmester Actor, Les Miserables, The Abyss, The Last Temptation of Christ “Brad's honesty is so refreshing and liberating. Telling the truth is a radical act. It allows the false to fall away and creates space for the new to arise. Every time I tell the truth, I discover I'm not alone. Such a relief! Brad's books have clarity and grit. He sees the Big Picture (beyond the personal), and at the same time, he plunges into the play of human life with tremendous passion. His work is about true love and living the truth. I recommend his books to all lovers of authenticity.” —Joan Tollifson Author of Awake in the Heartland and Bare-Bones Meditation A Ritual to Read to Each Other… If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider lest the parade of our mutual life gets lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give— yes or no, or maybe — should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. —William Stafford “I know that I create it all — you, myself, and all the stuff that goes with it. For me, the trick is in the choices, and creation comes with every little notion. Radical Honesty is nothing more than a means of helping me to lift the veil of my opinion and judgement…a tool to help me wake up from this dream. So that, at last, I can forgive myself, and consequently all others, and love completely. I am the source of all of that.“ In the fire, Leo Burmester Chapter 1 That's Why They Call It Personal Growth “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.“ —Kris Kristofferson We annot claim to love each other while we withhold information from each other. When we keep our distance from each other by not describing honestly what we have done, what we think, or what we feel, we are maintaining our mutual isolation and alienation from each other. This is the very source of personal and global misery. Intimacy is not possible without telling the truth. This is one of life's hard lessons; and it is an important one. Lying is a learned form of self-governance and attempted control of others. We have all been taught to lie systematically by schools and parents so we will control ourselves, manipulate each other and submit to control. Overthrowing the internalization of this lifetime of obedience training is overthrowing the government of the mind. We have to overcome our conditioning to be on guard against each other by lying. We have to stop lying in order to learn how to love each other. Unlearning lying as a form of survival turns out to be one of life's greatest inspirations.