In this episode, I will talk about why honesty has transformed my life in such a beautiful way. I've been thinking about a lot in my journey and what's kind of led me to where I am in my life. And I know you guys have heard me talk about values, and...
See show notes at: https://www.thinkunbrokenpodcast.com/e201-how-to-be-more-honest-trauma-healing-coach/#show-notes
In this episode, I will talk about why honesty has transformed my life in such a beautiful way. I've been thinking about a lot in my journey and what's kind of led me to where I am in my life.
And I know you guys have heard me talk about values, and my number one value is honesty, and I'm going to get into why.
What does it mean to you, to be honest?
COME, and LISTEN as I dive into this episode!
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What does it mean to you to be honest?
I've been thinking about this a lot in my journey and what's kind of led me to where I am in my life.
And I know you guys have heard me talk about values and my number one value is honesty, and I'm going to get into why and I'm also going to talk about why honesty has transformed my life in such a beautiful way. But before I do, of course, I want to take a moment and read a review in this is from heresAsh, titled…
New listener.
One hundred out of ten would recommend.
My mother has sent me Michael Unbroken posts on IG for a while, I finally decided to follow him because his post encourage you to remove the victim mentality to heal and put things in perspective then I found his podcast. I've only listened to two episodes, and I am in such an awe of how he teaches and encourages those who suffer from CPTSD, and PTSD.
It's real, it's heartfelt, it's relatable, it's uplifting definitely recommend.
Well, thank you Ash, I really appreciate that.
You know, one of the things about the show is as I continue to make it, it's really about giving people tools and I started this show because I looked at my life and I thought, how do you really create massive change in the world? Like, how do I really build not only the life that I want to have but the world that I want to live. And it came from this place of getting really honest with myself and I remember I was looking up the definition of honesty, and it said, the definition of honesty is to be truthful, affair or honorable. And I recognized like looking back on my life and my experience, there was the vast majority of my life in which I was none of those things.
In part, that's learned behavior, I learned how to be a liar, very young, and it was a survival mechanism and the reason that it was a survival mechanism was because I came from a household in which if you told the truth about marks or scars or bruises or the fact that you smelled like pee, because your water didn't work, or if you were malnourished or exhausted because you were up all night getting beat and you told like it was game over. And so I learned how to stop telling the truth and a story, I think I've only ever shared at once on on the show is when I was molested as a child, my Mother, when I came to her, to tell her told me to never tell anyone that it happened, and that was, because if anyone found out that we were the family that caused trouble because I was getting pawned off in the church and living with strangers and different people and she said, if anyone ever finds out, well, first and foremost, in her words, it was, I don't believe you that wouldn't happen. And later I would come to understand the truth about it was her just basically being like If anyone finds out, you're going to take away my scapegoat for dumping my kids off.
And so, I just learned how to lie, I learned, how to lie in therapy at a very young age, after being molested and going to therapy; the therapist when I told him what I was thinking, how I was feeling whatever would go and tell my parents and so I learned how to stop telling the truth there then I learn how to stop telling the truth, to my friends to my family when I started doing drugs and selling drugs, when I started stealing things and breaking houses, sort of learning how to not tell the truth to people at school, to people I dated the whole nine and it just created this massively, vicious spiral. And if you can relate to this, I want you to hear this. If any part of you is like damn, yeah, I'm never honest. Part of it is a defensive mechanism and you have to acknowledge that part of it is survival because when you tell the truth bad shit happens, do you like you have to look at that an acknowledgement as much as it sucks and I wish it weren't true like at the end of the day it's the truth like yes.
The other part of this and I think, the more important part of it is knowing and understanding that, and it feels weird even saying this because it's so cliche is that the truth will set you free and it's true, it really is. I have seen the greatest changes in my life, whether it's leaving relationships or quitting jobs or starting that thing when I got in the mirror and was honest with myself and saw it through on the other side, I've seen those things, those ideas, those situations, those choices, those decisions that felt so real for me, become the Catalyst for all of the massive change in my life. I can pinpoint every time my life got better, I'm dead fucking serious. I want you to hear this, I can pinpoint. Every time that my life got better to me, choosing to be honest.
One of the more difficult aspects of honesty was specially when you grow up in traumas, that feels like the only way that you can be honest is this thing about protection and if you are honest, then you lose protection and so you stopped doing it as an adult because now, you recognize and especially hopefully of listening to this show for a while that my stance on this is very simple.
You're no longer a child.
And that means that what you have to do is start taking care of yourself today in this present moment. Look, you can't change the past; I cannot and cannot go back and change any of the lies, any of the cheating, any of the theft, none of the things that I've ever done in my life, I just can't but what I can do today is be honest. Be honest with the people in my life, be honest with my friends, be honest with myself, you know, it's that thing that keeps us awake at night.
If you're in your head at night because you're like, you have to share this thing, I promise you, if you don't do it, your life's not going to change, that's honesty. It's honesty in your values. Like, who are you really? What do you represent? What do you want in the world? And it's looking that bad and holding onto it and making it real and making it truly for yourself.
Honesty is about showing up every single day as you want to show up in the world like I think about it like this; I'm tattooed pretty heavily, right? I remember early on when I first started getting tattooed people like oh, why are you doing that? That tattoos are so gross like whatever. I'm living authentically as who I am, I'm in my honesty, I'm in my truth. Same thing, as you know, writing books and speaking on stage as and hosting this podcast, you guys would not believe the number of emails that I get from people who are like you have no, right talking these things because you don't have a college degree, like I don't give a fuck, I'm gonna do it anyway, because in my honesty and my truth, this is how I need to show up for the world.
And so, what that means is showing up not only for myself, but because of the way I show up at impacts my world because I look at this idea, this definition of honesty and fairness, 100% spent the first 26 years of my life going life's not fair whoa is me. And then I sat with and I said, wait a second, if life's not fair and all I do is complain but I feel like it's true that I'm supposed to do something about it then wouldn't the honest decision here be to do something about it and the answer unequivocally became yes, and that's what has led me to where I am in my life because I said, I'm willing to be honest with myself first and that's how this works and if you're unsure about it, it's totally understandable.
I think being honest is like a learned skill, you've probably heard me say that about patience, I fully believe that patients as a learned skill, but I think honesty is too, because it's going to take time for you to get comfortable with it. It's going to take time for you, to be okay with it. It's going to take time for you to be able to sit in it because honesty is a new identity especially if you haven't done it and we learned a lot, you have got to hear what I'm saying; we learned to lie for safety, that's where it comes from. And so when you stop lying because you recognize your environment, as a safe place, it then becomes an exercise of the willingness basically, to suffer through it.
The first times, I started telling the truth, I mean, honestly, even today like it's fucking hard when I don't meet somebody in a value system, when there's a collision of values, when I've left the relationship, when I fired an employee, when I've quit a job, when I've written a book, when I've lost on stage, when I don't get invited on stage, like – whatever that thing is, like, there's always this level of honesty I look at and I make meaning of it and I go as deeply as I can into myself to ask myself, (a) what am I learning from this and (b) how do I continue to show up more authentic every single day? That's the Crux of all this.
One of the major differences between where you are and where you want to go, is your ability to be super truthful with yourself.
If you're in a relationship where you're not respected, you need to leave that relationship because I'm gonna tell you right now, what will happen on the back side is you'll disrespect them will happen every time. If you're in a job that you hate, you will stop showing up for that job in a way that you're contributing and that's dishonest because that means you are not working and if you're not working in you're getting paid, you're stealing right? That's dishonest, that's not true. If you're in friendships where you don't have a reciprocation of value and you know, that you've started to pull away because those people have either put up a wall or they're not bringing value to your life or worse they're taking from you, it's dishonest to stay in that friendship. This applies to your church; to the kind of car you drive, to the clothes you wear. Like right now, I'm dead serious. If you're wearing clothes that you don't want to wear because you want to to fit in with other people, you're being a liar, you're being a liar.
And look, you understand the foundation of that comes from the need to be in community. And Community is one of the needs that lead to certain tea and certainty is one of the basic six human needs. And so when you have Community you have certainty and you feel safe. I see what that was, it's the circle. You get back to where you were because it started where I need to lie to feel safe in that serves you until it doesn't and guess what? It doesn't serve you anymore.
So get real with yourself and get real with your environment and get real with the world because if you don't you're going to get hurt, you're going to hurt people, you're going to be unsatisfied, you're going to break your values and you're going to have to look in the mirror and wonder how the fuck your life turned into upside down.
Step in the honesty. Be compassionate with yourself in this journey, because I promised you one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life as learn how to be honest.
I tell people all the time, ask me any question and I'm going to tell you the truth. You may not like it but it will be the truth and I think that's the key to life, that's the secret. And look I'm going to fuck up, I'm not going to be honest, 100% of the time there's honesty and that the fact that I know, I'm going to lie I'm honest in that but I do my damnedest in that moment to like – I don't know why I said that, I'm totally just made that up, that was bullshit, that was a lie, I'm sorry, this is the truth because it's autonomic and me like it's safety like shit. I'm like – if I lie if somebody's gonna I doubt something about me, that's terrifying.
And then I go, you know what, the only way that I can put my head on the pillow at night, and actually, sleep is through the truth.
So my friends challenge yourself today.
Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for listening.
Please, like, subscribe, comment, share.
Tell a friend.
And Until Next Time.
My friends, Be Unbroken.
-I'll see you.
Coach
Michael is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, speaker, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma.
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