The Year of Radical Honesty

It’s the last day of what has been, for many, the longest and strangest year of a lifetime. A year of paradox: isolation and connection; fear and hope; helplessness and empowerment; uncertainty and decisiveness. Symbolically, it seems this year has been what the researcher Jack Mezirow would call one big ‘disorienting dilemma’. In Mezirow’s thinking, disorienting dilemmas are life crises that force people to question assumptions and transform their beliefs. If 2020 didn’t do that for us, I don’t know what will.

2020 has thrown out the window countless things we had taken for granted. Travel. Hugs. Getting out of the house whenever we wanted to. But it’s also been a year that forced many people into deeper introspection. It’s shown us the value of the little things - a good laugh with your family. Sharing a meal. The feel of the sand beneath your feet or that of fresh air in your lungs.

2020 has made us strip our lives bare to the essentials. When much of what we thought was our birthright is denied to us, what is left? This was the year when we came to really tap into one of the greatest pieces of wisdom of all time, best summed up in Viktor Frankl’s famous saying: “Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” And choose our attitude we did.

Paradoxically, this year of restrictions also came with unexpected freedoms. Work from home. No more commutes or long hours on planes for business trips. We discovered that, if the emergency is big enough, many things considered impossible suddenly become possible. Companies shifted thousands of workers into home offices in a matter of days. Procedures simplified. New digital means were created to solve countless problems that before could only be tacked in person. Work relations were humanised as boundaries between professional and personal blurred and we were invited into each-other’s homes on a daily basis.

Some of the shifts spilled over into our social lives (a gift for introverts and perhaps a curse for extroverts!) - no more need to skilfully and diplomatically avoid tedious social obligations - solitude or time spent with a very small circle of people who really matter suddenly became the norm. The dark side of this was that many had to face the truth about their closest relationships. There was nowhere to hide to escape a home that hadn’t felt like one for perhaps too long a time.

Rivers of ink have been spilled analysing and dissecting this incredible year, both on a personal and collective level. For me, it came down to one thing: 2020 was the year when self-deceit no longer worked. Forced to huddle up inside, to spend time with ourselves, our options for distraction sorely limited, our relationships few and heavily tested - everything this year has been an invitation to radical honesty.

Here are the three lessons I have received this year, all of which forced me into practicing radical honesty towards self and others. None are completely new. I’ve learnt them before. But this year has taught them in new ways. I don’t think they are unique to me either. So hopefully sharing them will get you thinking about your own or about other pieces of wisdom you might gather from these strange twelve months and carry with you forward, as treasures from a dark cave, out into the light of a new day.

You can’t control life. You can only control your intentions and responses to it.

You can’t anticipate a pandemic (or if you can, you still can’t anticipate all its implications). There is in fact so much you can’t anticipate: Your kid breaking an arm. Getting an amazing job right when you need it most. Being in the best possible place during the worst possible time for everyone. Your business being shut down. The blessing of a beach nearby when everything is in lockdown. Accidental poisoning. Providential people coming into your life to open doors you had only dreamt about.

What you can do, in-midst of chaos or joy, is to embrace it all. Use the clarity of your intentions as a rudder to navigate the waters, knowing that they will be at times rough and at times peaceful and learning to love ‘the whole river’, just as it is.

Love requires an acceptance of suffering

As parents, we try to protect our kids from all the harms of the world and we tell ourselves we do it for love. As lovers we hope our beloved will never suffer because we care so deeply about them. But that seems just half the truth. The radically honest whole truth might be that we work very hard at protecting ourselves from the excruciating suffering that will befall us if the object of our love were to come to harm. The kind of suffering that makes you feel like somebody is ripping the meat off your bones and the heart out of your chest. The kind of fear and dread that make you want to crawl into a hole and disappear forever.

But then the moment comes when they do come in harm’s way. Often in front of your very eyes. When you least expect it (what a cliché that is - when do you ever really expect it?…). And the pain comes - theirs and yours. And then you have a choice. Face the pain, live it fully, let it engulf you, burn you to the ground, while you breathe in and breathe out and keep on giving them all the love you have stored deep inside your charred ribcage. Feel the pain while you sing gentle songs or whisper words of encouragement through the night and hold them tight, giving them the strength you don’t think you have, but you do. Feel the pain when you don’t know if they’ll ever be well again or if tonight might mean you’ve lost them forever. And, knowing that, keep on loving them with all your being.

It is at times like these that you realise there is no end to your love. And also that you can’t really feel it or give it completely if you don’t embrace the pain. And then, after the crisis passes, and they’re back with you, and all is well, you might find you’re fearful and over-protective and it becomes, yet again, an act of profound courage to keep on loving them without stifling them. Yet you choose to let go, honour their freedom, while knowing you might yet again feel that excruciating pain. You do it because you know that if you don’t, you’re not in fact loving them, but selfishly shielding yourself. And to lower the shield, to allow yourself to feel it all, is to be human.

Congruence between your thoughts, feelings and actions is a royal pathway to inner peace

Many times over the years I paid the price for not listening to my inner compass of values. Most often I veered off course out of fear: I said YES when I meant to say NO for fear of losing an opportunity. I kept quiet when I had something to say for fear of upsetting an authority. I talked too much when I should have listened for fear of not being visible enough. I complied when I wanted to push back for fear of disappointing someone. Every single time there were consequences for self-betrayal: guilt; feeling stifled and limited; losing the joy; getting stuck out of flow; feeling how life turned into a chore and myself trapped in it.

Every single time my default was to convince myself I wasn’t really being incongruent. I was just being pragmatic. Or I had no choice in the moment. Or others were responsible for pushing me into acting towards what ‘should’ be done instead of what I truly thought I wanted to do or needed to be done. Every single time there came a moment when something forced me to snap out of the lull of self-deceit.

At times it was an external event. A project lost. A broken relationship. A harsh feedback. The other person walking away. Other times, when I got stubborn and refused to face my truth and live it, my body forced me into honesty. I got sick. I got burnt out. I was taken out of action and made to reflect and face my fears.

And every time, when I did find the courage to return to what I knew was my guiding light - have the difficult conversation, make the difficult decision - inner peace was restored and I could breathe again. And, incredibly, with inner congruence always came outer opportunities. Doors opening. People showing up. New pathways being revealed beyond what I’d thought was a dead end.

Behind all of this, there’s always the same choice: inner truth over fear. I choose inner truth over and over again, knowing I’ll never be rid of the fear. It doesn’t go away. But neither does that gentle pull of the soul that always says: don’t betray me, for that means you’re slowly dying inside! Listen to me! Take your fear by the hand and live your truth, for that is what it means to be fully alive.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash