What is Radical Honesty?

Radical Honesty is a way to create connections and to stay present to our experience and bodily sensations. Radical Honesty is direct communication that leads to intimacy. It is the difference between making a performance and laughing and playing with friends. Honesty is kind of scary fun that turns out better than you thought it would. Lying is work and a pain in the ass and makes you lonesome as hell.

We claim that lying is the major source of all human stress. It wears us out and eventually kills us. When people engage honestly, energy that was wasted maintaining a performance to make an impression is suddenly available for real creativity in playing together. When we admit our pretenses we can refresh our relationships and powerfully create new ways of living together. That is the not-so-secret secret of Radical Honesty.

In Radical Honesty workshops, we practice the distinction between thinking and noticing; the difference between interpreting reality and actually noticing it through direct experience. The goal is to have noticing and sharing a basis for true intimacy—learning to love being and love other beings. In our workshops you can express yourself by laughing, shouting, crying, smiling, sharing, by asking for what you want and willing to receive without a requirement of giving back.

Workshops and retreats include teaching, directed conversations, paired exercises, small group exercises, hot seat work, meditation and much more geared towards integrating Radical Honesty more and more to a daily practice and ongoing way of life.

Radical Honesty is a body-based approach and it was developed by Dr Brad Blanton in the 1990’s.

The founder of Radical Honesty

Brad Blanton is a psychotherapist, author, workshop leader, speaker, and the founder of Radical Honesty Enterprises.

Brad Blanton was a clinical psychologist in Washington, D.C., for about 30 years. He learned that the primary cause of most human stress, the primary cause of most conflict between couples and the primary cause of most both psychological and physical illness is being trapped in your mind and removed from your experience.

“What keeps you trapped in your mind and removed from your experience is lying – and we all lie like hell all the time. We’re taught systematically to lie, to pretend, to maintain a pretense because we’re taught that who we are is our performance,” says Brad.

“Our schools teach us to lie, our parents teach us to lie. We’re all suffering from mistaken identity. We think that who we are is our reputation, what the teacher thinks of us, what kind of grades we make, what kind of job we have. We’re constantly spinning our presentation of self, which is a constant process of lying and being trapped in the anticipation of imagining about what other people might think.”

Radical honesty is about delivering yourself from that constant worrisome preoccupation of, “Oh my god. How am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing?” Then you can pay attention to what’s going on in your body and in the world and even pay attention to what’s going on in your mind.

Dr. Brad Blanton says this about Tuulia:

“Tuulia Syvänen is a very focused and committed achiever. Once she gets her teeth into something, she doesn’t let go until she has digested it! We have been trying to teach her to be more of a slob and a little less intellectually aggressive but without much luck. She has, however, a most redeeming quality. She has a heart. She has a big heart.

“Tuulia wants to help others learn to love without too much interference from their minds, and maybe even just a little bit of help from their minds, just as she has been doing in her personal life, which is the fundamental authority of a Radical Honesty Trainer. Taber and I are proud of her and happy with her.”

“If you do a workshop with Tuulia, it’ll change your life.”

Dr. Brad Blanton says this about Pete:

“Pete’s vision is to support people to get out of the jail of their mind, to get over challenges, traumatic events and conflicts in the past so they can live happier and more fulfilling lives. Pete is a calm, level-headed and compassionate trainer. He is a good listener and has a great ability to stay present and focused.”