Gentle Honesty vs. Brutal Honesty
These ideas are so much better Shared!!
Honesty
Honesty is an essential tool in The Toxicity Toolkit. In fact, it may be the most important tool in the whole program.
Without honesty it’s impossible to recognize toxic behaviors and change the script. Honesty is crucial to letting people know when their behaviors have hurt us. Honesty is vital to understanding the effects of our own behaviors.
Not all honesty is created equal.
Gentle Honesty, and Brutal Honesty may cover the same information, but with different goals.
When we use Gentle Honesty, we take the role of teammate, on the same side as the person we are giving our honesty to.
When we use Brutal Honesty, we stand in opposition to the recipient.
With Gentle Honesty, we hope for health and good outcomes for the recipient.
With Brutal Honesty, we frequently achieve diminishing the recipient for our own self-validation.
We use Brutal Honesty when we need to feel “right” more than we need to help someone or a situation.
We use Gentle Honesty to help grow and heal.
Think about how you invoke honesty in your home.
Do you invoke honesty for your own righteousness, or to assert control? Do you invoke honesty to help those around you heal and be vulnerable in a safe space? Do you tell yourself you’re doing one of these things while you’re doing the other?
Does your honesty require that people lose face? Does it help them save face?
Remember that when we lose face we become defensive. Being defensive invokes self-defense mechanisms (many of which are toxic in return).
You are in control of how you apply honesty to your situations. You decide whether to be gentle or brutal. In doing so, you also are responsible for the outcomes.
Speak gently.
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