Blinkist Summary Book

2021-10-14 06:39:55 Radical Honesty
Part of 12/17

does he consider each of his marriages to have been a success – his divorces have been successful too and he remains on good terms with former partners with friendly and effective relationships in place for issues like coparenting.
The real tragedy he argues isn’t that there are a lot of divorces nowadays. It’s that a majority of the couples that don’t split up have bad relationships.
The key message here is: Telling the truth – the whole truth – is vital for any relationship.
We’ve already looked at several examples of communication within relationships. But what underlies that sort of communication?
The philosopher Martin Buber suggested that people have two basic attitudes they can present when they speak. One he called “I-You ” and the other “I-It.” And they are effectively different versions of yourself.
Even though you’ll just use the word “I” in either case that word can mean two different things. If you’re saying “I-You ” you’re talking to your partner while acknowledging Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:55 Radical Honesty
Part of 11/17

r husband that she resented him not simply turning the game off. Just articulating that proved liberating – it made her realize that 30 years ago her father had done the same thing as David had. Without allowing herself to get properly angry she’d never have made that breakthrough.
Sometimes anger is less reasonable than Anne’s. Is it reasonable to resent parents for aging or babies for making a noise? Not really. They can’t really help those things after all. But you might still get angry anyway and you have to allow yourself to feel what you feel. Don’t let moralism tell you otherwise.
Repressing anger is dangerous and it can destroy relationships. Don’t let it. Instead just tell the truth.
Telling the truth – the whole truth – is vital for any relationship.
The author has been married five times and people sometimes joke to him that four failed marriages hardly make it look like he knows what makes for a successful relationship.
But he argues that actually it does. Not only Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:54 Radical Honesty
Part of 10/17

f-sacrifice – it’s just repression.
When you accumulate anger you inevitably start to resent your friends and family. You believe you’re doing them a favor by hiding your true feelings but the opposite is true. Nobody likes being lied to or having feelings withheld from them so bottling anger up only makes situations worse.
So you have to let it out. And that means letting it out as it is without trying to make it seem reasonable or morally correct.
For instance a couple once had a fight in a therapy session with the author. Anne accused David of never listening. As an example she mentioned a time when she’d come home from work stressed and he wouldn’t turn off the television. David said he’d just asked her to wait until the commercial break.
At this point both of them were looking to the author for approval wanting him to judge who was right and who was wrong. But that was irrelevant. What was important was that she was angry.
Eventually Anne articulated her anger – yelling at he Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:51 Radical Honesty
Part of 9/17

onducts the author recommends the same approach. To work through problems like this the solution is simply being honest.
One of the biggest things we repress of course is anger. So let’s take a look at it.
Holding on to your anger isn’t noble self-sacrifice – it’s just repression.
You’ve probably heard some version of this story: An enemy soldier throws a grenade into a camp. One soldier dives on top of the grenade helmet first. He dies but everyone else survives.
He’s a hero right? Sure. But not every act of self-sacrifice is heroic.
Like the soldier covering up the grenade you probably cover up your anger sometimes absorbing the full force of it when it explodes inside you. This can seem like the noble thing to do as if you’re sparing other people.
But unlike the heroic soldier you’re actually being foolish. You need to let your anger out – not just for your own good but for the sake of those around you too.
The key message here is: Holding on to your anger isn’t noble sel Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:50 Radical Honesty
Part of 8/17

to use descriptive language. Stop trying to justify your actions or waiting for your partner to judge you. Simply acknowledge that it happened and that you felt how you felt.
It’s hard to do that. But it’s better for your relationship. And in the long run it’s better for your stress levels too. Lying takes such a physical toll on us that it wears us down. Radical honesty like this can save lives.
As a society after all we’re still somewhat repressed. Sex itself is less taboo than it used to be but we’re still a long way off being truly open about our sexual desires. At the heart of all this repression is neurosis which the author defines simply as refusing to accept whatever is happening right now. If you’re neurotic you’re demanding that your life should be different in some sense. You might be denying your sexual feelings anger grief or anything else – but whatever it is it’s deeply unhealthy.
Psychotherapy is one way to attempt to relieve neurosis – but even in the sessions he c Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:50 Radical Honesty
Part of 7/17

’s best friend and now it’s time to come clean. You might think that being honest would simply mean telling your husband that basic fact. You’d probably then have a fight about it and end up resenting each other maybe forever.
But radical honesty is different. It means being real – uncomfortably real – right down to the smallest detail.
The key message here is: Radical honesty means telling the whole truth no matter how uncomfortable that is.
Radical honesty means sitting your husband down and telling him everything including how many times you had sex whether you had orgasms what you did afterward how much you enjoyed it and so on. Simply telling your husband the basic details isn’t enough – unless he has the full picture of what the experience was you’re keeping things back from him.
This is because of moralism again. Usually when conversations about this sort of thing take place people use evaluative language – they talk in terms of rights and wrongs. The more honest approach is Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:49 Radical Honesty
Part of 6/17

not enough to admit you had an affair for example – you also need to be honest about how it felt . Otherwise you’re still lying.
The third level of truth-telling is where you also start to live the truth. It’s where you can fully admit that your true identity – your being – isn’t the same as the identity you’ve been presenting to the world.
This means acknowledging your vanity your egotism your true desires in life. The author for instance acknowledges that he wrote his book because he wanted to become a famous intellectual and to help millions. He wanted to be a bit like Jesus.
It’s tough to be that unflinchingly honest about yourself. But you have to try. And in the next few blinks you’ll find out how.
Radical honesty means telling the whole truth no matter how uncomfortable that is.
Radical honesty is a simple concept – just stop lying and tell the truth. Putting it into practice is hard though. As an example imagine this difficult situation: you’ve slept with your husband Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:49 Radical Honesty
Part of 5/17

e are fixed moral rules that govern how you act. Then as an adolescent you learn to lie about your identity. And it doesn’t stop there. As an adult you keep secrets from others – even those you’re closest to.
Lying is at once a survival tactic and a disease that’s slowly killing us. Just as moralism does it encourages the mind to dominate the being .
No treatment can fully cure it – but through telling the truth the disease becomes manageable.
This doesn’t just mean owning up to minor indiscretions. It means really telling the truth. The author calls it radical honesty .
There are three levels to radical honesty. The first one is simply about putting the facts on the table. So often people are held back by the secrets they keep from loved ones. Relieving that tension by admitting your lies is good for your mental and physical health.
The second level is about emotional truth. People seldom admit how they really feel because they’re worried about how it’ll sound to others. But it’s Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:45 Radical Honesty
Part of 4/17

vertical?
According to field dependent people it’s when it’s parallel with the frame. Field independent people on the other hand realize the frame isn’t a reliable reference point and instead use their own bodies to work out when the rod is vertical.
Moralists are field dependent. But there’s a very basic problem with field dependence: it’s a lie.
We all lie our asses off and that hurts us.
We all lie. In fact we lie all the time. And not just about the little things. On a deeper level most adults are living a lie they taught themselves in adolescence.
Adolescence is when you first ask the question Who am I? And it’s human nature unfortunately to want a single definitive response. So you pretend that the response you give yourself – the persona you adopt – is actually a true reflection of who you are.
This isn’t the only form of lying people do – not by a long shot.
The key message here is: We all lie our asses off and that hurts us.
In childhood you learn the lie that ther Open / Comment

2021-10-14 06:39:45 Radical Honesty
Part of 3/17

ach them how to behave. But children also learn negative behaviors from their parents’ lessons.
The author tells the story of Stephen a young boy who made a mess while secretly making lemonade in the kitchen. When his parents found out they were angry and punished him. In response he got angry blaming his parents and saying he hated them.
This was only natural. In fact it was a survival mechanism. In apportioning blame and getting angry Stephen was imitating his parents.
The problem lies in trying to apply a fixed set of rules to the fluid and complex world around us. Lawyers do this when they try to apply the rigid dictates of law to nuanced real-life cases. They’re what’s called field dependent.
To understand that idea picture a rod inside a square frame. The rod and frame turn independent of one another like hands on a clock. The room you’re in is dark so the rod and frame are the only things you can see. Suddenly the frame stops moving but the rod continues. So when is the rod Open / Comment