Workshop led by Certified Trainers, Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan.
Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth and Living Out Loud:
8-Day Intensive Radical Honesty Workshop in our beautiful retreat center SyVilla in Parkano, Finland!
Join Certified Radical Honesty Trainers Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan for this fun, intense, and truly transformational immersive experience.
Authentic Connection
The key to intimacy is honesty. Learn the core honesty skills as a way to transform yourself and your relationships.
Transformational Communication
Clear and direct communication is a game-changer. Learn the tools to resolve conflict both within yourself and with others.
Self-expression & Self-compassion
Discover what wants to be expressed moment-to-moment while cultivating the tools for self-compassion.
A Supportive Environment
There are so few places where you can be your FULL self. Use this supportive environment to discover who you really are in the moment and emerge a changed person.
The Immersive Experience
There's nothing like the full-time, communal experience of a Radical Honesty immersive workshop. To really see yourself anew, notice how you've held yourself back, and relearn how to connect authentically with others, you need time, community, and great facilitators.
Throughout your 9 days at the workshop, Tuulia and Pete will lead the group through a series of learnings in Radical Honesty, including honesty skills training, lectures, paired and group exercises, hot seat work, couple's work, meditation and movement, naked work, and life stories.
At a beautiful secluded wooden villa with several other building to hang out surrounded by lush big garden and lawns, with two saunas, jacuzzi & hot tub by clean Kovesjärvi lake you can enjoy the sunshine and warmth of the Finnish summer.
Our lovely lakeside retreat center is placed in a two hectare property with big flowing garden and lawns, surrounded by a lush pine forest. We will have a hot tub and jacuzzi at your disposal any time – and of course Finnish sauna by the lake!
During your free time for hanging out by the fire places, rowing to our own little island nearby, walking in the forest, canoeing, playing games like frisbee golf or croquet, exploring the lake with sup board, and nightly saunas in our wood-burning sauna.
Here you can: Connect in a deep way with others. Talk about the things that are shameful or embarrassing or difficult for you to talk about. Experience compassion. Learn to express whatever arises in you in the moment: excitement, fear, anger, attraction, appreciation, embarrassment, happiness. Experience the sensations in your body as they arise. Learn and practice being present in the here and now.
Watch this video to hear us and participants talking about the RH 8-day intensive workshop:
Content of the training:
This workshop includes lectures, directed conversations, paired exercises, small group exercises, hot seat work, meditation and much more to help you learn how to relax into intimacy based on being open and honest. All this is geared toward having you learn and practice the distinction between thinking and noticing; the difference between interpreting reality and actually noticing it through direct experience. Then you learn to share what we notice about the reality of your own experience with others, and have it be the basis for true intimacy—learning to love being and love other beings. In this workshop, you can express yourself by laughing, shouting, crying, smiling, sharing and by asking for what you want.
This workshop is for you if:
you want to experience more freedom in your life
you want to let go of shame, fear and attachment to approval
you are looking for using conflict creatively and want to go beyond blame
you desire to learn the art of asking for what you want
you want to heal your relationships and find forgiveness
you yearn deeper love, connection & intimacy
Workshop on How to Live, Love, Laugh & Be Happy & Completely Ruin Life as You Know It
Radical Honesty is direct communication that leads to intimacy. It is the difference between making a performance and laughing and playing with friends. Honesty is kind of scary fun that turns out better than you thought it would. Lying is work and a pain in the ass and makes you lonesome as hell.
We claim that lying is the major source of all human stress. It wears us out and eventually kills us. When people engage honestly, energy that was wasted maintaining a performance to make an impression is suddenly available for real creativity in playing together. When we admit our pretenses we can refresh our relationships and powerfully create new ways of living together. That is the not so secret of Radical Honesty.
Leaders:
The workshop leaders will be certified Radical Honesty trainers—and married couple—Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan. They will be assisted by a Radical Honesty trainer candidate.
ARE YOU READY TO TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE?
Learn to:
Let go of shame, fear and attachment to approval
Be completely and compassionately honest
Get out of your comfort zone
Share with others – laugh out loud, cry and yell, smile and dance
Ask for everything you want; expand your ability to give & receive
Heal relationships with full-body forgiveness
9 days and 8 nights
The retreat will take place at uniquely built, fully renovated villa with several other buildings and a big garden, two hectares of land, private little beach, two decks on the lake and two saunas.
With lots of room to spread out and lots of privacy, we’ll have plenty enough space to dance, laugh, yell and cry to our heart’s content!
In other words, we’ll have everything you need in terms of comfort for a successful transform-your-life-for-the-better workshop! During the afternoon breaks, you can dip into the lake, lounge in a garden, stroll through the forests or lake side, or row the rowing boat.
The leaders of the workshop will be Radical Honesty trainers Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan. They will be assisted by a Radical Honesty Trainer Candidate. We will also have a cook preparing our meals.
Brad Blanton—Radical Honesty founder—says this about the 8-day intensive workshop:
“The 8-Day workshop is an experiential course in living out loud, increasing your capacity for intimacy and creativity, and living your life on purpose, instead of residing in the jail of your mind and reacting to life’s circumstances while believing you’re in control.
“In our workshops, we get together to make some agreements about what we will do together for the next nine days. One of the most important agreements is that we will tell the truth to each other completely for the next nine days. If that was all that occurred, and there were no other agenda whatsoever, the course would be powerful because the power of that agreement alone is incredible.”
What is the program?
We will begin each day with about 20 minutes of conscious movement and 20 minutes of meditation, followed by breakfast and a morning session of teaching, group conversations and paired exercises. We will then have a healthy lunch and an afternoon siesta. After the break, we will continue working with “hot seat” work, teaching, meditation, movement or dancing, and more paired and small group exercises. At around 20:00, we’ll eat dinner.
After dinner, one by one, each person will spend about 45 minutes telling the whole story of his or her life. By the time the workshop has ended, each participant will have told their own life story and will have heard the telling of everyone else’s. Each person will also receive a copy of the video recording of them telling their story. They can later watch their video with their parents, (ex-)spouses, siblings, lovers and friends with whom they have unfinished business in life and use the video-watching as a way to start honest conversations.
On about the fifth day, we’ll all get naked. Each individual’s work will be video recorded. One at a time, we’ll stand in front of the group and talk about what we like and don’t like about our body. We will also tell our sexual histories: when we first discovered we were a sexual being, when we first masturbated, how and with whom we like to have sex, how many sexual partners we’ve had, our favorite and least favorite sexual experiences, and so on. Though we’ll probably get embarrassed, with good coaching and complete sharing of the truth and support from the group we will face our shame/fears/taboos—and get over them.
People often presume this will be some sort of “sexy” experience. Usually, the experience is anything but sexy. Mostly the naked work is about embarrassment and shame and suffering—and about how our avoidance of those aspects of ourselves often controls our lives. Quite often, the participants who, beforehand, scare themselves the most about doing this exercise are the very ones who benefit the most from it!
Then, together, we’ll review the videos of our naked work. One by one, each person will sit in front of a television screen and observe their own video while receiving feedback about it. For some people, the process of watching oneself on a television screen, naked, while talking about their own body and sex life can be a more confrontational process than the original experience of standing naked before the group. Again, the willingness to face the experience and live through it can provide a decrease in the intensity of the sensations related to shame/embarrassment and a change in perspective on one’s own life in the direction of compassion for oneself as well as compassion for others. And then, most likely, we’ll appreciate ourselves and others for doing this work and live more fulfilling lives with less shame about ourselves and our bodies.
Just as with the life story video, each participant will receive a copy of their naked work video to share with others in his or her life. (And the original files of those recordings will then be deleted.)
As you can imagine, by the sixth or seventh day, people will have gotten to know themselves and each other pretty well. What happens—and it happens again and again with very diverse groups of people—is pretty much the same each time: Everyone falls in love with everyone else. Now, isn’t that a hell of a thing? Imagine all the time and energy we have wasted putting on acts and pretending who we are in hopes that others would love us for our performance, when actually what we needed all along was to drop the act and tell the truth—and be ourselves!
Brad Blanton says this about the lead trainers:
“If you do a workshop with Tuulia, it’ll change your life. […] Pete is a calm, level-headed and compassionate trainer. He’s a good listener and has a great ability to stay present and focused.”
Some past participants have expressed this about our Radical Honesty 8-day workshops:
“I judge this workshop to be one of the best things I’ve done so far in the area of life improvement (and I’ve done some). I feel tempted to say ‘life changing’ as I now navigate through the world with a sense of freedom & expansion unknown to me before. I felt very safe & seen during the entire, very intense time. I judge Tuulia & Pete to be highly competent coaches and inspiringly authentic.” –Silke
“After having already done a few Radical Honesty workshops, the 8-day intensive went much deeper and showed me even more than before what stories I tell myself to make myself unhappy. By being in this environment for a longer amount of time and with the closeness created in the group, I took a big step in knowing who I really am and daring to show myself.” –Arjen
“I attended two intensive 8-day retreats with Tuulia and Pete. Both have been very powerful experiences that changed my life profoundly. I cried, laughed, shook, danced, shouted, cuddled, whispered, sang. I told the story of my life and was naked with people I had met only a few days before. And I survived. And I fell in love with these strangers. And I fell in love with myself. Today, I breathe and live more freely. Thank you.” –Participant
Our retreat center Syvilla
Our lovely retreat center Syvilla is located beside the clean Lake Kovesjärvi in a lovely spot of lawn, flowers and forest. It has many buildings including fully renovated yet historically important main red building, an old barn turned into lodging spaces and a kitchen & big space for gatherings and parties, a large terrace which can be covered for rain, an old smoke sauna turned into lodging, a sandy beach, a wood-burning sauna and a smoke sauna by a lake, a wood-burning hot tub and jacuzzi and big hangout areas by the shore, our own small island and a lot more.
Leisure activities include fishing, swimming, enjoying the many fire pits, cycling (we have few bikes), sup boarding, games such as board games, golf frisbee, croquet and basketball hoop. You can also go horse-riding in the nearby stables.
The property in Parkano about 11 kilometers from the city center and has 170 meters of shore line and is about two hectares in size. Syvilla about 80 kilometers north of Tampere and about 260 kilometers north of Helsinki. The railway is about 17 kilometers from the location and we will organize transport from the railway station.
Read more: https://syvilla.fi/gb/
Weather
Lodging
The accommodation will be in two-person bedrooms or you can choose to stay in a 3-person bunk bed room, a wood Hammock (Tentsile), yurt or bring your own tent.
When does the workshop begin and end?
The workshop will begin at around 17:00 on Tuesday 4 June and will finish at around 13:00 on Wednesday 12 June. We do recommend arriving a day early in order to land and get grounded before we start the intense work.
Also if possible take a day off work and any intense duties after the workshop.
Arriving early or staying later – holiday by the lake!
The retreat center had several building and three kitchens and also wood tent (Tentsile).
You can arrive a day early or stay a day or two later in this lovely retreat center for €80 per night. You can relax and enjoy the peaceful nature, sauna, hot tub, jacuzzi and swimming. If you have a car, you can visit the national parks and amazing old forests in the region. The fee includes breakfast and help yourself meals.
Get in touch with us in case you want to take up this option!
Who can participate?
Anyone! No prior experience with Radical Honesty is required. You will, though, have to agree to the workshop’s commitments: to keep confidentiality, to tell the truth, to support others in telling the truth, to be on time and present, to allow the trainers to coach you and to ask for what you want. We also recommend you read Brad Blanton’s books Radical Honesty and/or Practicing Radical Honesty before the workshop.
Commitment
Everyone at the workshop will be expected to commit to participate in every session, including the naked work, body movement, meditation and telling of life stories. If you have any concerns with any of the program, we are happy to discuss those concerns with you.
Community
Participants will be asked to assist in the cooking, serving and cleaning up of meals/snacks as a way to help create a community during our five days together. This is commonly done in longer Radical Honesty workshops (and to help get shit done).
Team
The workshop leaders will be certified Radical Honesty Trainers—and married couple—Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan.
How does one register?
We expect this workshop to be fully booked (as have the other 8-day workshops we’ve organized and/or led in Finland, Germany, Italy and Spain). So, if you want to attend, we suggest that you book your spot sooner rather than later.
To sign up or to receive more information, please write to info@honestyeurope.com, or go here:
How does one get there?
Take the train from Helsinki to Parkano.
The train departs about every two hours and the trip takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
From Helsinki airport, first take the commuter train to the Tikkurila station and then from there take the train to Parkano. There is also a bus connection from Helsinki to Parkano, which is cheaper though takes about 90 minutes longer than the train connection.
From Parkano, we will organize a large taxi van. You can also cycle or drive to the retreat site (and if you do drive, we will probably ask you to carpool with others).
How much does this cost?
The Early Bird price is €2650 in two person room or yurt (including 21% VAT).
The Early Bird price is €2450 for your own tent, camper or tentsile (wood hammock)
The Early bird price is valid until 30 April 2025.
The regular price thereafter is €2900 for two person rooms (including 21% VAT).
The fee covers the workshop, healthy vegetarian / vegan meals and snacks available all times, teaching, daily saunas, shared room accommodation, follow up & integration call and ongoing support of the group to live out loud.
We have two discounted spots for low income earners / students in exchange of some helping.
Kindly bring your own sheets & towels. You can rent sheet and towels at the location for 20 euros, paid in cash on arrival.
We have a single room available for additional fee of €120. Email us in case you want to book it.
The price does not include travel to the location. However we can coordinate a taxi van for the participants to and from Parkano railways station.
Cancellation terms
Please note that we do not offer refunds. However you can transfer your ticket to another person. Let us know via email in case someone else will take your spot.
We advise you to have an insurance covering the fee in case of a cancellation due to sickness.
Support Available
If paying for this retreat is a financial challenge to you, then please be aware of the existence of the Honesty Europe Support Fund, which offers financial support to those who otherwise could not afford to attend Honesty Europe’s workshops and retreats. Read more about the Support fund here.
Support for BIPOC
If you are low income and are black, indigenous or a person of color (BIPOC), you can request a discount from us. Message your request to us at: info@HonestyEurope.com
Note: we might take a few days to answer your request.
Is this workshop for me?
Our workshops often have therapeutic impacts, however Radical Honesty workshops are not therapy and are not meant to replace personal therapy. This workshop is not for you if you have major untreated traumas.
Radical Honesty workshops and retreats can be physically and psychologically stressful. If you have an acute mental health challenge, please first discuss with your therapist / doctor and then with us before registering. You can reach us at: info@HonestyEurope.com
Workshop Agreements
(required for participation)
In this workshop, we will strive to create an environment and space where everyone feels safe to express their emotions, share their thoughts and experiment with each other. Therefore, we require all workshop participants and workshop leaders to agree to the below agreements.
On the first evening of the workshop, we will devote time to discussing each of the agreements and addressing any questions anyone has about them before we actually agree to them.
1. I agree to tell my truth.
(You decide how much you want to share and we do invite you to explore going a bit outside your comfort zone in sharing.)
2. I agree to support others in telling their truth.
(Being willing to remain present and willing to hear others sharing.)
3. I agree to keep confidentiality.
(No sharing things about workshop participants to people outside the workshop without the participant’s consent.)
4. I agree to be on time and present.
(You’ll be on time for the workshop sessions and stay until the end of them. You’ll be physically present and do your best to also be mentally present (e.g. by leaving your phone outside the workshop space, etc.).)
5. I agree to ask for what I want.
(An invitation for you to voice and ask for everything you want. We do not guarantee, though, that you will get everything you ask for.)
6. I agree to take more than I give.
(Keep the focus on yourself rather than on others. You are allowed to speak, take time, take space and take care of yourself. We invite the others to do so as well.)
7. I agree to only consensual touch.
(No touching others without their permission; no physical violence.)
8. I agree to be led by the workshop leaders.
(Being willing to try out the proposed language in coaching situations and join the exercises during the workshop.)
If you have questions or concerns about any of this, please contact us at: info@HonestyEurope.com.
Are you ready to live out loud and be happy?
You are warmly welcome to join us on the journey to an honest life!
Sincerely,
Tuulia & Pete
Testimonials
“The best part of the workshop was a fluffy warm feeling of acceptance and being seen.” – Tiia, Finland
“Radical Honesty gives you the keys to real intimacy with other people. I feel more alive when I have attended Radical Honesty workshops. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to find true love and happiness!” – Riina, Finland
“This was the most intensive and surprising workshop I have ever attended in my life. There was always a safe place to express myself, to listen to others, to grow, to get out of my comfort zone. And I have met people who are as weird and normal as I am. And that—together with the ever-present honesty and openness, vulnerability and the will to overcome one’s own unhelpful stories—has led to an insanely strong bond. Thank you Tuulia and Pete for your high presence, the appreciative frame, the humor and the lightness despite the often difficult topics! I’ll be back.” – Micha, Germany
Who are the trainers?
Tuulia Syvänen is the certified Radical Honesty trainer who has led the most RH workshops in Europe. She also does 1:1 and couples coaching. For two decades, she held leadership positions at international, non-profit organizations that are concerned with social and environmental justice issues. A native of Finland, she has lived in Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Canada.
Having grown up in a dysfunctional family—where difficulties and negative feelings were often swept under the rug—Tuulia became passionate about self-expression and self-awareness, and learned the importance of setting one’s boundaries. Most important, she learned the power of honesty. Her life’s mission is to help create more love and connection between people through honest sharing.
Tuulia participated in her first Radical Honesty training in 2012 with the founder of Radical Honesty Dr. Brad Blanton and continued her training under the guidance of Dr. Blanton and RH Master Trainer Taber Shadburne. She has led more than 50 RH workshops in various European countries. She has also attained a four-year certification in the Human-to-Human Coaching and Therapy Program in Finland and is a certified leader of Dr. Fischer’s Rebuilding Divorce Seminars. She earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Tampere and has an adult son.
Pete Jordan is the only certified Radical Honesty trainer in the Benelux countries. He organizes and co-lead Radical Honesty workshops around Europe with his wife, Tuulia, as well as does 1:1 coaching.
Pete has changed his life for the better by committing to live honestly, expressing his resentments and appreciations in the moment and by asking for what he wants. A major breakthrough for him was to have honest talks with his ex-wife and four siblings. He has broken the traditions of his childhood’s family and began to talk about things he was afraid of and embarrassed about and what he didn't like in his childhood.
Pete has great listening skills and he is keen on developing and learning every day. His vision is to support others to live happier, freer lives. Born and raised in San Francisco, Pete has lived in Amsterdam for almost two decades and still makes himself happy each day he wakes up in that city. A writer by profession, Pete has a passion for cycling and has contributed his writing and photographs to several Dutch cycling publications for more than a decade. He is in the midst of following a three-year training to become a Somatic Experiencing practitioner. When he is not organizing or attending Radical Honesty workshops or spending time with his teenaged son, he can be found meandering around Amsterdam on his bike. (And he feels some tightness in his stomach now as he writes this stuff about himself in the third person.)