Having Integrity — Truthful as Compared to Devious — Whole Being

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Having Integrity — Truthful as compared to devious — Learning the value of both honesty and truthfulness strengthens your relationships, and is foundational for living a life of integrity

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There are com­po­nents to com­mu­ni­ca­tion,
and one of the keys is what we short­hand as “Total Honesty.”

• Hon­esty has to do with faith­ful­ly report­ing what I believe to be true.
• Equiv­o­ca­tion is stat­ing mat­ters in indi­rect and polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect lan­guage, so as “not to make waves.”
• Truth­ful­ness is the open­ness to reveal every­thing rel­e­vant about who I am.
• Devi­ous­ness is out­right lying, half-truths, white lies, and “omis­sions.”

Honesty and truthfulness can also be differentiated as:

• Hon­esty con­veys what I believe.
• Truth­ful­ness con­veys what I am actu­al­ly doing.

Hon­esty and truth­ful­ness are easy to under­stand, although some­what more dif­fi­cult to implement.

Equivocation and deviousness, on the other hand, may need a little unpacking:

Equiv­o­ca­tion is “beat­ing around the bush,” try­ing to say things so the oth­er per­son won’t choose to upset him­self, or only telling part of the sto­ry. It’s saying,

“Wow. You must real­ly be hurt­ing,” as opposed to “Boy are you ever liv­ing your life so as to real­ly hurt yourself.” 

Or,

“I’m sure you’ll find some­one who will love you,” as opposed to “You’ve had all these women in your life, and it has­n’t worked out. Have a look at the com­mon denom­i­na­tor — you.”

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Being devious is about game-playing and dishonest manipulation: Let me give you an illustration. Or two.

From my client files: two clients, sim­i­lar stories. 

In both sit­u­a­tions, the hus­band had dis­tanced him­self from his wife. They told their spouse that he thought “some­thing isn’t right,” and react­ed by mov­ing into the spare bedroom. 

Not long after, each hus­band accused his wife of hav­ing an affair.

Both denied hav­ing an affair, and expressed much anger over the accu­sa­tion. “He needs to believe what I tell him, and not what he imagines!”

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Now, here’s hon­esty: both women were hav­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers.
Here’s truth­ful­ness: one was hav­ing a sex­u­al affair with a friend. The oth­er was hav­ing a non-sex­u­al-inter­course affair — some “above the waist” fum­bling about, but no intercourse.

Both women were real­ly pissed off with their spous­es for accus­ing them. 

They were adamant that nei­ther guy has any proof that they were hav­ing an affair. 

Their “log­ic” goes, 

Since my hus­band is guess­ing, I can feel safe by secret-keep­ing, while being angry with my spouse for mak­ing “ground­less” accusations.

This is deviousness, and dishonest manipulation to the nth degree.

As opposed to this scenario:

Years ago, a friend men­tioned she’d been at a bar with a friend, when a guy some 14 years younger walked up and start­ed to chat her up. 

After 20 min­utes, he said that he’d like to take her home and have sex with her. 

She admit­ted to being interested… 

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Before I tell you more about what my friend decided, here are our four approaches to this situation:

Devi­ous: my friend does­n’t tell her part­ner about any­thing. “I was out with Sal­ly.” When asked, “Did any­thing inter­est­ing hap­pen?” she replies, “NO! We had a drink and left. Why? Don’t you trust me?”

Equiv­o­cat­ing: “I was out with Sal­ly. We talked with a bunch of new peo­ple, and I had a lot of fun.” When asked, “Did any­thing inter­est­ing hap­pen?” she replies, “I met an inter­est­ing guy, who works for XYZ com­pa­ny. He real­ly seemed inter­est­ed in my career, and he said he liked my dress.”

Hon­est: “I met this guy at the bar, and we talked for a while. He let me know that he thought I was sexy, and want­ed to sleep with me. But I’m dat­ing you so I told him no.”

Truth­ful: “I met this guy at the bar, and we talked for a while. He let me know that he thought I was sexy, and want­ed me to have sex with him.
I got­ta tell you, I gave it some thought. I’ve nev­er gone home with a guy for a one-night stand.
But I real­ized that you and I have nev­er talked about this; about how we’re going to deal with propo­si­tions, or what to do when we get turned on by some­one else.
I real­ly am curi­ous about fol­low­ing through on this kind of offer, at least once.
How do pro­pose han­dling it?”

Whoa, I hear you saying. You’ve got to be kidding. No one would opt for truthfulness.

Inter­est­ing­ly, my friend opt­ed for exact­ly that choice, and said that read­ing The. Best. Rela­tion­ship. Ever. and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Dar­bel­la and me (and watch­ing us com­mu­ni­cate) led her to trust her­self enough to opt for both hon­esty and truthfulness.

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Her part­ner said, “Hmm. I need a bit of time to process it, but sure, I’d be inter­est­ed in the con­ver­sa­tion, and about set­ting up some flex­i­ble bound­aries around this. The key for me is that we are both total­ly truth­ful as things happen.” 

I’m amazed at how many peo­ple, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly, are sneak­ing around, doing some­thing or anoth­er that they are afraid to admit to. 

They’re telling half-truths and liv­ing lies, steal­ing ideas, cheat­ing on tax­es, meet­ing oth­ers clan­des­tine­ly — whatever. 

Then, they jus­ti­fy their behav­iour by claim­ing some moral high ground, or cre­at­ing all kinds of excus­es as to why both hon­esty and truth­ful­ness, while noble ideas, are not applic­a­ble to their con­text / situation.

But here’s the thing. Their indirect deviousness does not come
from nobility, but rather from cowardice.

I sus­pect the world would be a much bet­ter place if we did­n’t do any­thing we weren’t pre­pared to admit to on the cov­er of Newsweek. Which is not to say that I’m advo­cat­ing walk­ing some nar­row, moral­i­ty-based path. What I’m say­ing is exact­ly the opposite.

We are free to do pret­ty much any­thing we want to,
with whomev­er we choose,
so long as we are hon­est and truth­ful about it,
and will­ing to accept the con­se­quences or our actions.

The per­son who cheats on tax­es, or goes behind a fel­low work­er’s back, as opposed to deal­ing with the real­i­ties and issues direct­ly, or who vio­lates the tenets of truth­ful­ness with­in a pri­ma­ry rela­tion­ship, will often have a long list of justifications. 

But in the end, our bod­ies, minds, hearts and souls suf­fer for our deceit.

When we resist truth­ful­ness, when we come up with excus­es — “Peo­ple would­n’t under­stand,” or “It’s nobody’s busi­ness,” or “I’ll fill her in on who I am, but grad­u­al­ly, so as not to scare her off,” what we are real­ly say­ing is, “I am so unsure of myself that I chose devi­ous­ness over truth.” 

Our reluc­tance to be open and reveal­ing has noth­ing to do with oth­ers and their reac­tions, and every­thing to do with our own fear of the con­se­quences of our choices.

This is a hard lesson, I know.

Most peo­ple are adept at hid­ing their natures and desires and wants and needs from oth­ers, for fear of the per­ceived consequences. 

To me, it is all about choice. If I have a trait or desire that I embar­rass myself over, I can work with a ther­a­pist to learn strate­gies to express it safe­ly. Because it is a part of my nature, I can accept it as an ongo­ing reality.

Years ago, for exam­ple, I learned to deal with my rage and anger and tem­per. I found ways to chan­nel that ener­gy so as to direct it harm­less­ly away from oth­ers. But I nev­er deny, and actu­al­ly eas­i­ly admit to still hav­ing those attrib­ut­es as part of my personality. 

If I have a curios­i­ty or desire, my inti­mate part­ner should be the next per­son (after me) to know about it. Peri­od. No exceptions. 

For Dar­bel­la and me the only “rule,” is total hon­esty and truth­ful­ness. That’s not to say we have been per­fect at this. There have been instances of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but there has nev­er been any­thing, to my knowl­edge, that we haven’t been will­ing, over time, to explore ful­ly. And there nev­er will be, from my side — and I have faith, from Dar’s side either. 

This week, think about your cir­cle. Explore what you are not telling your inti­mate part­ner, your spouse, lover, and friends. Make choic­es about who needs to hear who you are, what you are about, and what you are doing.

I am not say­ing that the per­son in the next cubi­cle at work needs to know all the details of your sex life or your polit­i­cal or per­son­al focus. I am say­ing that lying, twist­ing the truth, and sneak­ing about, at any lev­el, will come around and bite you on the butt.

As far as your intimate relationships go, anything less than honesty and truthfulness is deadly.

In the end, life is enough of a chal­lenge when con­front­ed and walked with — head on. Maybe the world would begin to trans­form if we sim­ply admit­ted who we are, and spoke one less lie. It might be worth the experiment.

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On Practicing Trust and Presence

We put up all kinds of barriers to vulnerability. We dish out communication by the dropper-full, and our betrayal detector is going full tilt.

The only way we fig­ure our­selves out is through “con­tact at the edges” — through open and vul­ner­a­ble dia­logue. We then take what we learn about self and oth­er, and inte­grate it into our self-def­i­n­i­tion — and final­ly into our actions.

One thing that the founders of The Haven developed is what they call an Intimacy Project.

Dur­ing Phase 1, for exam­ple, you find an inter­est­ed part­ner and agree to spend some days in open, vul­ner­a­ble dia­logue. The prin­ci­pal “inti­ma­cy” is through dia­logue that is about rev­e­la­tion of self to anoth­er.

What comes of this prac­tice is a sense that when I reveal what I am think­ing (my sto­ries,) and feel­ing, and fan­ta­siz­ing about, and also reveal what is going on in my body (where I am tight, or relaxed, and what I want and need,) I free up the ener­gy I am exert­ing con­tain­ing myself.

Now, here’s the important part: the work has to work.

For exam­ple, if I am dis­cussing pri­vate mat­ters with my part­ner and (s)he is broad­cast­ing what we say to oth­ers, I must ques­tion what’s going on. 

I would use this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty — here is what we agreed to, here is what is happening. 

All I can do is what I can do — remain open and vul­ner­a­ble in my com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and be recep­tive to the oth­er per­son. If the terms of the project are being breached, I can choose to exit the “project,” AND begin it again with some­one else.

I have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing this way for decades now. 

I remain pret­ty much an open book — I tell friends, acquain­tances, clients, pret­ty much every­thing that is going on for me. I do this to be reveal­ing of who I am and how I see things. 

For some, this is too much, and they have cho­sen to break off con­tact, or lim­it it, or reframe the rela­tion­ship into an acquaintance-ship. 

In turn, I have devel­oped bet­ter eyes for who to engage with, and how.

As you push deep­er and deep­er into rev­e­la­tion, you’ll see how this brings you into moment-by-moment pres­ence. It does so because you are describ­ing your present real­i­ty, not telling sto­ries designed to keep oth­ers at arm’s length.

Set up a con­tract about emo­tions which arise — that they be ful­ly and safe­ly expressed — thus, the space you choose to do this in ought to allow emo­tion­al expres­sion (not, per­haps, in a cof­fee house…) 

Most folk make them­selves uncom­fort­able around emo­tions, so this is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand your tol­er­ance for express­ing your emo­tions, and for see­ing the emo­tions of your partner.

Then, add another, and another Intimacy Project. Practice, practice, practice!

Some will suc­ceed and you’ll go very deep. Oth­ers will stall, and occa­sion­al­ly you’ll real­ize that the choice of per­son to work with was not opti­mal. If so, just grace­ful­ly exit and start again.

It’s not about trust. It’s about doing it anyway!

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