Hi friends, Marvin here.

This is my ten year anniversary article.

It’s hard to put ten years into one blog post, so this one is a little longer.

I went to my first Radical Honesty workshop in August 2013. It was a 7-Day, part-holiday retreat with Dr. Brad Blanton in Pelion, Greece. I can still feel the sunshine, hear the cicadas chirping, and feel the avoidance.

A Radical Honesty workshop sounded like a great way to “develop myself.”

But I did not get it.

I thought I had transcended anger after reading “The Power of Now” and six months of occasional meditation. During the workshop, I asked smart questions about how to use active visualisation. In the breaks, I gossiped with other spiritual people about all those angry people.

That’s me at my first workshop (the most tanned person there)

Somehow, and I don’t remember the details, the pieces fell into place after I got home. I realised how much I was actually withholding and playing a phony role. I quickly realised how powerful the work can be and began practicing deeply.

Over these ten years, my views on and practice of Radical Honesty changed as I grew. At first, I used the work to break free from the weight of my personal melodrama, unfinished emotional business, and internalised societal expectations.

Boy, was I angry, and I did not know it.

For the better part of two years, I dove deeply down the rabbit hole and put being honest above everything. I did not care about the outcome of a conversation, as long as I told my truth.

On reflection, I see this period of my life as sometimes reckless, pretty damn exciting, very alive, and, in the end, profoundly transformational for me. I put myself, my life, and my well-being first. I told people the uncomfortable truth who did not necessarily want to hear it. That was selfish, and then again not: by putting myself first, I increased my capacity to serve and care for others.

Through this period of self-centeredness, I learned a lot about genuine care, especially that I can’t really care for others if I am choking myself internally.

With time, and especially after living with Brad Blanton in Virginia for three months, I started seeing the bigger picture of Radical Honesty. I hated him for this at first, but Brad always prompted me to work on my life purpose. He said to do the work I had to do to finish the unfinished business with my family and past, and then use this fresh energy to recreate my life, ideally one of play and service to others.

He also told me to mow the lawn and not run over golf balls.

Me living with Brad in Virginia (and learning to multitask)

“Give your mind something to chew on that comes from the heart”.

I love Brad for this sentence, and feel grateful now.

You can say what you want about him as a character, and he deeply loves human beings and cares so much. And he also does not care. Which might be part of his caring. But who cares?

I have to skip over a lot of my story to still have time for the actual 10 Goddamned Insights, but today my practice of Radical Honesty is more calibrated and integrated. It became somewhat of a second nature and I am more playful and at ease. And I just don’t get so angry any more…maybe only in my relationship when Pavla is not doing what she should in our fights…

Okay. Enough. Let’s go.

10 Insights After 10 Years of Radical Honesty

1. Buckle Up!

Radical Honesty is a profound developmental journey, taking you back home to your core.

You reconnect to the alive, feeling, expressive human being you are, to your heart’s desires, uniqueness, and strengths, to all the good stuff that’s hidden underneath your character. You challenge automated habits, and other protective layers that may have outlasted their benefits.

It’s a journey towards genuine love and presence. And it will inevitably lead through the stuff that has gotten in the way of that. In other words: it’s not just pleasant, and at times feels like dying.

Yay!

The good news is: you are in charge of how deep you want to go. Radical Honesty has the potential to completely transform your life. The degree of transformation depends on how willing you are to let go of control, have difficult conversations (yes, that one!), and trust in you and life itself.

Of course, such a journey takes time, comrades, mentors, additional support (like therapy, meditation, yoga, bodywork, etc.) and the audacity to actually be a human being. It’s not a direct flight, but a journey of ups, downs, and then more downs and ups. Any volunteers?

2. Expect a Dip

Things might get worse before they get better.

Looking at my relationship with my father prior to Radical Honesty, it was functional, very orderly, and “harmonious” (at a very high price!). We had some occasional conflict, from both sides. When I started being really honest with him, it was tough.

Our relationship broke-off for a while. I was okay with that. I did not want to continue the old way. He did not like my new way. But one day, after waves of anger, we both stood in front of each other and cried. That was a turning point in our connection. The old fortress had to burn down. I now have an amazing connection with my father, and since then he has spoken to me in-depth about many of his experiences.

I would have never thought that I could love my father so much and be so honest.

3. Start Now!

You can only be as honest as you are currently self-aware.

In other words, you can’t tell the truth about things you don’t register. And you will start to register more things as you start telling the truth. So Radical Honesty both requires some awareness to begin with and is a practice that improves your awareness as you do it.

That means two things: one, you always have to start where you are, and two, your perception of truth changes as you practice.

These changes will not happen by thinking about it or trying to be honest in your mind. Honesty with yourself is a great concept to hold onto to bullshit your way into believing you’re honest, but these changes happen by being honest with other people, right now.

Honesty is interpersonal.

You can’t think yourself out of the problem of overthinking.

4. Rules of Thumb

You can do very correct, very by-the-book Radical Honesty and still not say what’s actually alive in you and important for you to say. The sweet spot is somewhere between being attached to a specific language-style and custom of honesty, versus being too loose.

Radical Honesty is a living, breathing expression of self that does work best in some framework. Maybe we can call that freedom within some boundaries? We don’t want to get stuck in the method and there is something to gain in sticking to it, at least for a while.

5. Go Deeper

You can use Radical Honesty, a tool designed to let go of control, to become even more controlling.

Not that I ever personally did that, not once. But one of you sneaky people probably did.

Sneaky people at Marvin's 8-Day Intensive in Costa Rica

Well-cooked Radical Honesty really starts with your intention, and your honesty about that. Of course, you don’t have to start every interaction with an intention. It’s just that whenever there is an unspoken secret agenda to one-up or blame someone, seduce, get a certain outcome, or control the situation, it’s not Radical Honesty if you don’t admit this.

Sometimes we really don’t know what agenda is actually running us. Practicing will likely reveal your intentions eventually. It takes time and good noticing skills.

And it takes a willingness to keep cleaning up your mess without obsessing about your messiness.

6. No Moralism

Radical Honesty is not a new dogma or moral standard.

This was hard for me to accept. I really liked my rules (and still do!) and would love to finally have that one thing to be righteously righteous about. The real hard work is to give up righteousness and moralism, which happens moment to moment.

The truth is, you don’t have to be honest, nor should you. People make it to 85 years old without ever being honest. So why are we honest? Because knowing that we could get away with pretending and withholding, but choosing to tell the truth anyways, is quite empowering.

Your life won’t necessarily get easier with Radical Honesty, but it gets more real.

7. Radical Honesty without Compassion Sucks

Unfortunately, if we do not experience compassion, we might have to tell the truth in order to get to a more compassionate place. This is tricky, very tricky. In the beginning, especially with people who sit on a lot of hurt, like I did, there is a hardness covering the shame and the sadness and anger, and ultimately love.

There is a loving and compassionate part of you. It’s in all of us, at our very core. And at times we need to work through the layers that keep us from that place. That’s the work of Radical Honesty.

Marvin and Gudrun with participants from their Summer Retreat in Greece

8. Get a Life!

Do something else as well as Radical Honesty. Work on your life purpose. Or lie for a change.

People sometimes ask me if I would want to live in a Radical Honesty community. I don’t think I would. Well, if that means people who are honest and fun and playful and light, then yes. But if that means people who are trying to live Radical Honesty in a very serious manner, I’m out.

Very quickly, a great liberating practice can become a new jail.

Too much of anything will make you an addict. Including processing resentments.

9. Change your Mind

You can change your mind as you move along. And go from 10 to just 8 insights.

10. On a Serious Note

Seriously, it’s not that serious.

That’s Brad’s message about Radical Honesty 😊

Join my Anniversary in Greece this Summer

If you want to celebrate my 10 year anniversary at the place where I went to my first workshop, come join me and a bunch of other people in Greece this August!

If you already have experienced Radical Honesty, you can join the 7-Day Advanced Summer Retreat from August 5th to 12th. Yes, we will work there, but above all it’s a hell of a good time with a great community of people in one of the most gorgeous locations in the world. Here’s a video we filmed at last year’s retreat:

And if you want to really dive in, join the Radical Honesty 8-Day Intensive from August 19th to 27th. There will be a separate story shared about that, but my co-trainer John Rosania and I actually both met for our first workshop there with Brad in 2013. So it’s a double-anniversary-celebration! And looking at how we looked back then, our lives did definitely get better over the past decade 😃

Gudrun Graichen will be there as a third trainer. That means you get almost 3 decades of combined Radical Honesty experience. If that won’t change your life, then you probably don’t really want to change. But you can still join, give us a hard time, and enjoy the sunshine:

Love,
Marvin

Marvin Schulz started his Radical Honesty journey 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 & Retreats led by Marvin:

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