How Total Honesty Makes For Harmonious Relationships

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Total honesty is a major part of a harmonious relationship. Holding back in the sense of not presenting yourself totally means that you are not quite yourself when you’re with the other person. That produces a force that makes you want to be away from the relationship and find 100% of yourself again, even if you don’t act on it. Everybody has that need, even if it is buried deeply. To be in a relationship with total honesty is to be free of needing to scratch that itch.

That might sound scary and risky. Are you going to be criticized or thought less of? At first, that’s a distinct possibility; you have to reveal yourself progressively to see what happens. Not everybody wants or can handle honesty. You have to get to know their attitudes and level of acceptance.

Once you have a partner or friend who can hear and accept the truth, it’s time to practice saying it, and of course, that may not be so easy because we all use a public persona. That public image is the first thing you reach for, and it can be hard to avoid it and show your private self.Reach right down, find the truth, and speak it Share on X

If you don’t feel good about yourself because of shame, guilt or inadequacy, it will be that much harder to reveal that interior view to someone else. You may not even want to look closely, but the first step in honesty is to be honest with yourself. You can only speak the truth to the extent that you know the truth. To repeat a phrase from a recent blog, it’s an inside job. Clean up that mess; the less you have to avoid, the more you can invite people in. It shouldn’t take more than a weekend; a lifetime at most.

But it’s not about letting it all hang out, about saying everything that comes into your head. Firstly, that’s boring; who needs a firehose of unfiltered impressions? But secondly, be very careful with those negative words and actions. Maybe they’re justified, but maybe they’re just your hostility or prejudice coming out. Unless you’re a sociopath, you have an ethical sense, so use it in a way that makes you feel good, not bad. Yes, it’s often a difficult choice to make; that’s life.

When you reach right down, find the truth, and speak it, you feel grounded, rooted. It may not be an absolute truth, it may be different next week, but for now, this is the place where you can sit at peace.

Photo credit: Sam Amato
Photo note: Maude shares a secret with her doll

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