Honesty Above All Else – Introduction
What is it?
This tool is really a simple choice… I say simple, but that does not mean that it is easy.
Are you someone that is honest?
Are you someone that is transparent?
With other people?
With yourself?
Let’s start by taking a look at the difference between honesty and transparency…
Honest vs. Transparency
Being transparent is all about being open about your thought processes and feelings. Being honest is about your behaviour being free from deceit. They are almost the same, but not quite…
When we attempt to be honest, we uncover how the thought processes of our ego can be layered with deceit and misdirection (dishonesty) which manifests unconsciously as our mind tries to protect us by avoiding facing in to hard truths or realities which may be overwhelming. As such, our capacity for honesty evolves over time as we learn more about ourselves and our own mental processes by shining the light of awareness in to our own psyche.
Transparency is much more of a binary state in that you are either open or closed. Yes, really there is a sliding scale of openness when it comes to engaging with other humans, but within our internal dialogue we are either someone that is transparent or not. Do we look away from our inner world or not?
Transparency is a skill because you can get better at it over time. This skill once mastered is what allows us to develop honesty.
We need to be able to reflect on what is going on before we are able to unpick and work through any deception and/or misdirection. This means being transparent (willing to look) so we can then unpick and understand to build our level of honesty.
Honesty is Subjective
Honesty though is always a subjective thing. Let me expand on this…
This kind of sounds like I am undermining this the purpose of this whole tool, but this is where honesty really comes in. I am being honest about honesty so we can then embrace it for what it really is…
So, honesty is about being clear with yourself about the root cause of feelings, emotions and behaviours. You can only ever do this within the boundary of your current understanding of both yourself and how the world functions (both inner and outer world).
During the reflective process, we notice something (say a mental process), then we describe this to ourselves using language (labels) and the compare this to our knowledge of the world within the frame of our perception to then classify it.
In the use of language tool, we explore how language serves as an abstraction from reality, and we also looked at how we filter information in our perception to form our subjective view of reality.
What this means then is that even in our best attempt to have a fully honesty objective view of reality, we will always have an element of subjectivity due to how our mental processes work.
So, is the antidote then to avoid all comparison and just experience?
Life without Comparison
How can we learn then if we do not compare?
Take it that all plans and knowledge are tentative; meaning you can be fully honest with yourself about your experience by comparing it to what you know while at the same time developing an awareness of, then accepting that your experience/knowledge is limited and may be subject to change.
So, when we are honest in this way, we are being open with ourselves about everything we know and don’t know we don’t know.
If all plans and knowledge are tentative, then they can be refined as we learn more.
Digging Deeper
The practice of transparency and honesty allows us to uncover the base emotions that really drive us. I’ve explored base emotions as part of the emotional checkpoint tool which you can find here.
A key feature of our emotions is that they are driven by our value system in that gain or loss of what we value triggers emotions.
When we simmer down our mental processes we often find that really there are quite simple ego driven cause and effects at play. The thing to watch out for is secondary masking emotions.
What I mean by this is emotions that misdirect away from the true root of what is happening. A very good example of this is if we experience anger when someone does or says something derogatory towards us.
Now we may classify our anger as being as a result of disrespect, when in reality the root behind this is fear that other people may perceive us negatively as a result of this transgression. Our ego triggers anger to avoid us facing in to our insecurity and lack of self-worth.
This is just one example of secondary emotions, but there are many more which I will leave you to uncover through your own personal reflection.
What I can say though is that honesty serves to strip away the abstraction layer of secondary emotions thus enabling you to explore the reasons for your behaviour.
Once we strip away our mental processes, we can then connect with our own core vibration and begin to shape who we really are.
This does not just apply to us though… when we have been on this journey of self-discovery, if we retain this psychological posture while engaging with other humans the effect will be profound; this is something we will explore further at the end of this series.
Looking Ahead
This tool is all about becoming someone who chooses to define themselves as someone who is transparent and honest.
Being a truth seeker.
Someone that is always willing to look for hard truths and establish first principles.
Someone that is willing to be wrong and who is open to change and growth.
Always learning and growing.
What’s Next?
In the next post in this series, we will explore where the drive to be dishonest stems from and also look at a practical exercise that allows you to feel what honesty in action feels like….
Enjoy, for now.