I am standing on a stage. My ears are hot, and my hands are damp. I feel awkward and stiff. The feeling of sweat slowly running down my back and soaking the bottom of my shirt gives me chills. My legs are shaking. I feel like a toddler who just learned to walk. When I speak my voice sounds strange, and I can’t find an appropriate volume or speed.
I heard a psychologist once say, “There is no difference between thinking about yourself and being miserable.” I never think about myself more than when I have to speak in front of an audience… and it is miserable.
As a therapist, I ask people questions like, “How does that make you feel?” and “What thoughts do you have when you feel that way?” People come to therapy and we work on investigating some of the deepest parts of them. But, if thinking about yourself is the same as being miserable, why would I encourage my clients to think deeply about themselves? Why would anyone go to therapy at all? Isn’t therapy a place for people to think and talk about themselves?
Working at the Children’s Legacy Center’s Center for Resilience (CFR) has put me in a position to see the devastating effects of trauma on a daily basis. I spend much of my days thinking about what people need in order to move through life’s hardships. Patterns have emerged in this work that I have found to not only be applicable to those with whom I work but anyone who is looking to increase their sense of meaning and well-being.
The most glaring pattern I have been pondering lately is the way radical and courageous honesty leads to positive change. I call it radical and courageous because honesty is often extremely difficult and uncomfortable. I have had moments in my life where the same physiological symptoms I get when speaking on stage will arise when engaging in an unpleasant conversation.
Often, it seems that a person has every reason to be dishonest, especially in the shadow of trauma. In being honest, you might risk losing someone you love or upending your entire life. Being honest might mean you have to face things about yourself you have buried or expose yourself to something you fear. In fact, it is almost always fear that leads us to be dishonest. This is why honesty must be radical and courageous.
In Anna Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation she says, “Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy and fosters a plenty mindset.”
In this book, she explores the way dopamine works in our nervous system and how we can maintain our body’s ability to produce it through healthy activities. One of the more surprising claims from this book was that honesty, especially when difficult, actually increases dopamine production in the brain.
She says this happens in three ways:
This is what the therapists at the CFR are working on with their clients. It is not about becoming more self-conscious. It is about becoming more self-aware. Self-consciousness is thinking about yourself, which is misery. Self-awareness is intentionally facing that misery and walking through it, in the direction of a desired outcome, using radical honesty and courage the whole way. When I am sweating and shaking on stage, I am self-conscious and miserable. However, if I were to force myself to stand up in front of random audiences every day for a year, at the end of that year, I would be less self-conscious, but more self-aware, and less miserable.
You will know you have a good therapist if they are willing to be honest with you even when it is uncomfortable. You will know you have a good therapist if they do not try to save you from your discomfort, but rather try to guide you through it. You will know you have a good therapist if they help you develop an aim toward which you can move that will make your discomfort bearable. You will know you have a good therapist if you can feel that they care about you enough to do these things sincerely, patiently, and confidently.
Honesty requires courage. It is through courage and honesty that we can face our dragons. It is through facing our dragons that we create connection, meaning, and purpose in our lives.
No matter what you have been through, no matter how easy or difficult your life has been, a true commitment to radical and courageous honesty will change your life. It will take you on an adventure through which you will learn to face your demons and love your neighbors. You will become a skilled fighter and a sincere friend. You will learn to walk through the darkness with confidence and feel gratitude for the light. You will learn to laugh when it gets hard and face every day with a spirit of play. Because now you are strong. Now you are resilient.
“That which we need the most will be found where we least want to look.” – Carl Jung
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