Radical Honesty will not make you a better person
Hi fellow screen observers, Rose here.
Today, I want to tell you a story about my teenage self, and how practising Radical Honesty did not make me a better person.
This story begins in Greece, at the KaliKalos retreat centre in the mountains of Pelion.
I would spend my summers here as a kid, between each school year. The first few years were brilliant, lots of fun and adventures. However, as I started to grow into a teenager and young adult, the intensity in which I was learning at school was slowly bleeding into my summer holidays. University applications drew close, I knew I needed to keep learning, keep improving, to stand out from the competition and ‘make it’ into the next stage in life.
Coming straight from an educational setting every year, where almost all my time was spent on becoming exceptional, I would arrive at the centre like a sponge, ready to join seminars and workshops to ‘become the best version of myself’.
I was obsessed with this notion of self-improvement. More importantly, I wanted to be seen as this version of me. I took great care in controlling my image so that people only saw what I wanted them to see. Just as I was only seeing the best of the adults around me.
For example, every year I would spam my Instagram with snaps of hairless, tanned, skinny me, folded up into yoga positions on a beach with some inspirational quote like “Experience something deeper than a suntan”.
What I didn’t dare show people was that many of my photos were carefully chosen to show only the most flattering, sexy angles and if they weren't quite up to scratch - I would edit those pictures to either make my waist look smaller, skin clearer or teeth whiter.
I was a pro pretender. How does that saying go?
Fake it until you make it.
Well, Ain’t We All Full Of Shit?
One of the most popular workshops at KaliKalos was Radical Honesty. The centre would be buzzing in the days preceding guests arrival. There was something different about this group of participants and teachers that arrived which was so stark in contrast to other workshops at the centre. Something messier, angrier, sillier, funner; I couldn’t quite describe what ‘it’ was until I summoned the courage to experience a workshop for myself.
I joined with this preconceived notion that being honest will transform me into a better person with a better life and was ready to take away new tools to become a better me!
That is not what happened.
Dr. Brad Blanton started with an exercise about how we constantly control our image in the minds of other people by withholding what is really going on for us, by pretending.
Rose at her first 8-Day Intensive with Brad Blanton at Kalikalos
We went round in a circle, one by one, sharing moments we pretend in life. When it came to my turn, I nervously confessed about how I edited my photos to look skinnier, expecting to be thrown out of the group for such a terrible thing… instead, the person next to me calmly said, “Thank you.” Someone else appreciated me for sharing.
Another waved their arm in an elephant trunk-like fashion which means “me too.” The turn moved on to the next person, who revealed how they pretended to be listening to the group when actually they were busy in their mind, preparing what to say for their turn. Not quite the reaction I was expecting.
The rest of the exercise continued like this, one by one we revealed the ways we pretended to be better than we are. I was surprised that every person had several examples they could bring to the group and shocked by how many I could relate to.
When the exercise was over, Brad chuckled and drawled something like, “Well, ain't we all full of shit.”
Radical Honesty Is Not Self-Improvement
The rest of the course was an uncomfortable rollercoaster of self-revelation. I didn’t feel like this workshop was helping me be a better version of myself; if anything, I was becoming worse! I was expressing ugly anger, petty judgments, asking unreasonable requests and morphing into this unrecognisably messy version of myself.
I had totally lost control over the perfect, put-together image I had spent so much time and energy trying to maintain.
I left the workshop confused. I had just spent the week revealing really vulgar parts of myself, and witnessing others do the same, and yet I wanted to do it again.
Looking back now, I realise why these workshops stood out to me and what kept me coming back for more.
It wasn’t clear to me back then, but I was constantly surrounded by advertisements, subliminal and direct messaging telling me I had to improve. The Self-Improvement Industry thrives on making us feel that we are falling behind, aren't enough or that we need to rush to be better.
This consistent improvement cycle diminishes the complex experience of being a human.
I was desperately in need of environments where I could contradict myself, sit with discomfort, communicate imperfectly and still feel supported.
I could witness others do the same, especially adults I looked up to. Where the goal was not to be ‘better’, or there was no goal at all - instead a space of curiosity, messiness and honesty.
Rose at a Radical Honesty 8-Day Intensive in Mallorca led by Tuulia Syvänen & Pete Jordan
Radical Honesty Will Not Make You A Better Person
Since practising Radical Honesty I am certainly less charming, more vulgar, less glamorous, definitely hairier, less serious, more playful, less motivated and more hypocritical. The teen that joined that workshop in Greece all those years ago would argue that Radical Honesty did not make her a better person.
And I agree with her. I stopped actively pursuing that definition of ‘better’ after my first workshop as I started to realise I was chasing rainbows.
As soon as we enter this head space of ‘better’ we are evaluating. Using our upside-down mind to compare memories and create a judgement, and in doing so, disconnected from our experience.
When I was trying to be a better version of myself, I was sacrificing the present moment to do so. I was in my head about ways to pretend to not be as I am, missing out on what was right in front of me, for example the beautiful experience of being part of the KaliKalos community just like when I was a kid.
Rose assisting with her first weekend workshop in Aberdeen with Trainer Michael Kolb
Most days I have overcome this need to be exceptional and have found a new sense of contentment in the everyday experience of this ordinary, complex, messy journey that we call life.
Other days I find myself getting sucked into feeling insecure or righteous about something that I want to change. And that’s ok, too. I know the difference now between self-awareness and self-improvement, and when to put my energy into either.
Radical Honesty does not make you a better person.
It makes you a messier, more human one.
If you want to join a space to indulge in being a messier version of yourself, join us this spring in Aberdeen for a Weekend Workshop on May 26-28 (Early Bird price until March 3rd)!
WARNING: You may not come out of this workshop a ‘better’ person:
And, I am looking forward to organizing our very first Radical Honesty 8-Day Intensive in the Scottish Highlands this summer on June 21-29 with Trainers Michael Kolb, Jura Glo & Law Turley 🏴
I'll also be assisting at our next 8-Day Intensive Workshop in Corfu, Greece this fall on October 20-28 with Trainers Marvin Schulz & Michael Kreuzwieser!
Rose Owen is a fellow pretender and recovering advanced liar, and a Radical Honesty Trainer Candidate who lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. She leads the Honesty Aberdeen Meetup group.
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Upcoming Workshops Co-led by Rose: