Hi friends, Marvin here.

I had a few secrets I wanted to take to the grave.

A very big one was that I stole at work.

At age 18, I did my social service. That summer, I worked as a guardian in a full-time school. One day, I walked down the hallway. I saw a black Playstation Portable sticking out of a backpack. I grabbed it and stuffed it into my jeans. Then I walked to my car and put it in the trunk. My heart pounded and in my mind I justified this to be a right action somehow.

As you can probably guess, I had some really serious issues in my teenage years.

I went back to the school and walked into a turmoil.

“Kevin’s Playstation is missing,” said the head teacher.

“Really?” I asked.

“We need to find it. Will you take charge of that?”

“Sure,” I said.

The culprit was never found.

To shorten this story, I sold the Playstation on eBay to buy myself new Nike shoes. And I lied to my parents about the whole thing. At that time I had a collection of 35 pairs. I did not wear most of them. They gave me some sense of self-worth and boosted my “gangster ego.”

Years went by and I was committed to taking this situation to the grave at all costs.

I buried this memory deep down and kept myself busy.

I now found myself working in auditing for investment banks in New York City. How ironic.

Somehow, I never trusted myself. I also never had money. The shadows of my past kept haunting me. Like boogeyman, they were there but never in plain sight. I tried all sorts of self-help. I donated money. I watched a lot of Tony Robbins. I woke up at 5AM. I talked to women on the streets. I tried to reprogram my mind. And did forgiveness meditations.

Nothing really helped in the long run.

One day in New York, I was severely depressed and saw no way out.

That night, I lay awake in some sort of half dream-state. Suddenly, I remembered all the situations in my life where I had stolen, cheated on girlfriends, lied, etc. I was not looking for them on purpose. These memories just came to my conscious attention.

That was before I had ever been to any Radical Honesty workshop.

If you ever wanted to know why I got into this work, this is the reason.

I jumped up and grabbed a notepad. I wrote these memories down. That was seven years after I had stolen the Playstation at work. I knew that I had to confront this situation and tell the truth about the theft. I did not yet know how. But one thing was clear to me right there:

Energetically, I was already halfway in the grave due to the weight of my secrets.

And if I wanted to be happy, I had some serious cleaning up to do.

Fast Forward

Roughly a year later, after my first Radical Honesty workshop with Brad Blanton, I found myself sitting in the car in front of the school. I was so scared, I could not move for minutes. On my first attempt, I just drove to the school and circled around, feeling all my feelings. Heavy stuff. This time, I was committed to coming clean. I knew that this fear pointed towards the path.

I counted down from 10, got out of the car, and walked towards the entrance of the school.

That was the most scared I had ever been in my life up to that point.

I went to the principal’s office. She remembered me. I told her the whole story. The words just came out of my mouth somehow. My senses got sharper. To my shock, she actually was encouraging and nice. I cried. That was the last thing I expected.

In my mind, I thought I would be expelled from society, or worse.

She said: “Of course what you did is shitty, and I am happy you are telling me.”

That night, I slept like a baby.

Later on, I talked to the mother of the child whose Playstation I had stolen. The principal gave her my number and she was kind enough to actually call me. I’m getting sad writing this now. She said that I can forgive myself and stop carrying that load around.

Something shifted for good in my system.

Those two talks transformed my life and especially my relationship to money.

I had dug myself out of the grave I had been in for years, one truth at a time.

But we don’t even have to look only for big secrets. Many times, we deaden ourselves in the moment by withholding important aspects of ourselves from others. It’s important to understand that hiding and withholding are active energetic acts that cost us a lot of aliveness.

At any point in time, being honest about what’s actually going on with us is freeing.

Unless you make it a new rule, but that’s a different story 😉

Marvin’s Advanced Radical Honesty Retreat this past August in Greece

If you want to experience Radical Honesty with me, I have a lot of workshops coming up this year. See all of my upcoming events below.

Marvin Schulz started his Radical Honesty journey almost a decade ago and learned directly from Dr. Brad Blanton. He is now a Senior Certified Trainer, co-founder of the Radical Honesty Institute, and helps train the next generation of trainers.

Upcoming Workshops Led by Marvin:

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