The Truth about Honesty

“Speak the truth and the truth will set you free”, these are the words echoed in many homes or any place where children are being nurtured into being respectable human beings, who would display strong moral and ethical principles, integrity and a strong sense of pride and honesty.
But is speaking the truth as liberating as it is promised to be? And who receives freedom, the truth teller or the truth receiver? Let’s take a moment to look at the psychological impact of being honest.

In his book, the (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty, Dan Ariely (2013) offers evidence “that we’re able to believe we are honest even though we lie or cheat by doing so only in little ways. We’re therefore able to tell ourselves we’re mostly honest—that is, we are only dishonest in ways that we think don’t matter. It is suggested that we all lie; admittedly, most of us do so only occasionally. But occasionally or not we still all do. Yet most of us also consider ourselves honest.”

Psychologically, we are therefore able to tell ourselves on a general basis that we are honest- that is, we are only dishonest in situations or on matters, that we think don’t matter and apparently this strategy works.

Most of us don’t suffer serious cognitive dissonance (the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time) over our integrity. Thus, it seems we can have the best of both worlds without too much work: we can lie or cheat in little ways that place us at an advantage but still get to view ourselves as fundamentally honest.

The first step towards achieving the status of being truly honest is to be honest first and foremost with ourselves. As the saying goes, “to thy own self be true”; this honesty involves not only learning how to express openly to another person the fullness of your immediate inner experience, but also, on a personal level, identifying and setting aside all your characteristic psychological defenses. And to do that, you must come to terms with the emotional pain that has caused those defenses to come into being in the first place. When a situation causes us to react in a defensive mode, we ask ourselves what triggered this response? Did the interaction with the other person cause us to realize a truth about ourselves that isn’t very pleasant? Is it something we have been trying to hide about yourself that has now come to the forefront?

When most people come to a psychologist for a psychotherapy session, they most times come with some part of their inner lives wrapped in dark secrecy. And, consciously or unconsciously, they do their best to hide this reality, during the session. They will go all out to present themselves to the psychotherapist in the best possible light. Usually, it doesn’t even occur to them that they should be talking about those things which lurk in the dark corners of their minds. Nor does it occur to them to speak about their emotional reactions to the psychotherapist, to guarantee the success of the psychotherapy process. All of us, in fact, have grown up with denied experiences. The classic case is the alcoholic and/or abusive family that pretends brutality and incest are not occurring. Even in family systems with lesser levels of dysfunction, the process of “keeping secrets”—from others, and from yourself —can, soon enough, lead to mental distress or illness.

There is this very simple thing we are all guilty of doing. When asked, how are you doing? In our minds, we often rationalize, accommodate, and negate all our previous experiences, and after that quick analysis, questioning subconsciously whether we should describe all of our troubles in response to that very simple question, we then turn around and in the simplest words respond, “I am okay.” These very simple words then negate the reality of all our troubles to others.

From a psychological standpoint, I would suggest that the first step to honest living is to speak your truth. Are you really, okay? What does “okay” even mean?

Does “okay” mean that you stuff the feelings associated with all the negative things you are experiencing for just a few minutes, to get through the pleasantries and small talk, when in reality, the stress of everything shows up in other ways (e.g. drugs, over-eating, alcohol, gambling, shopping, anger, etc.)?

Maybe “okay” means that you acknowledge all the difficulties going on in your life, but that you also acknowledge that there are some pretty good things too (e.g. good health, satisfied relationships, a good friend, money, etc.). If this is the case, why not devote some attention to these instead of swiping it under the broad category of “okay.” It’s so easy for our focus to drift towards the negative, but it can be just as valuable to focus on the positive. What are the things that are “okay”? The positives can often be great teachers for the negatives. How you get to the positives in one area of life can teach you how to get to the positives in other areas of your life.

Whatever “okay” means, speak your truth. If something is difficult, sit with the difficulty, acknowledge it by name, and describe it. You don’t have to live in pain, but you also don’t have to deny it. It’s easy to jump from situation to situation without taking time to realize what
is going on. Life happens. We’re betrayed. We’re lied to. A loved one dies. We’re fired. Where we get into trouble is that we ignore all these hardships and say things are “okay,” but then the hardships show up in ways that we didn’t realize. They show up in our relationships, in our
anger, in our impatience, how we talk to other people, and more importantly, how we talk to ourselves.

The second step to honest living is to speak the truth of your experience for better AND for worse. If you’re having a hard week, nothing can be more satisfying than saying “I’m having a really difficult week because of X, Y, and Z, and I don’t know how to get through it.” It’s okay to
not have the answers. An alcoholic would know that an aspect of what the path of sobriety, and life in general images, is having the tolerance to experience life’s difficulties and finding ways of dealing with them in healthy, and ideally, productive ways. Research suggests that our lack of tolerance to life’s difficulties may partially account for alcohol and marijuana problems (Buckner et al., 2007).

If you’re having a good day, what is going well? If you’re having a hard day, still what is something that is going well or has been going well? Speak your truth from both the positive and negative perspective. The balance comes in asking ourselves, “How can I effectively
navigate and deal with all the stress in my life, while still realizing, appreciating, and savouring all that is going well?

It’s hard to acknowledge the hardships because once we acknowledge what is happening, it’s out in the open. And when it’s out there, we often feel like we have to do something about it.

However, it often takes time to realize what to do. There are things that can help though, such as journaling or talking to a trusted friend or therapist. Whatever path you choose, let honesty drive you through it all – honesty in your experience; honesty in your difficulties; honesty in
your accomplishments. Don’t be confused by the word “accomplishments.” It doesn’t have to be some grand accomplishment of lifelong sobriety in the case of an alcoholic, but it could be being sober for one day.

Let me propose an exercise to assist us all in being honest with ourselves. When asked how are you? Be bold enough to be as exact as you can, about how you are truly feeling. Try to avoid the use of the response, “I am okay” if you are not at that moment feeling as “okay” as you are claiming to be. Please don’t get me wrong; I totally subscribe to the idea of using positive words to motivate ourselves out of the ‘rut’ life may present at times, but I am daring each of us to face our true thoughts and feelings in a deep and examining manner, so that in the end we can be open, to make the corrections we need to turn things around.

Prepared by
Dr. Jozelle Miller (Ph.D)
Health Psychologist