Learn How to Be Easy to Tell the Truth To

Matthew Gottesman (0:05)

Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast where I create short, quick-hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.

Welcome to episode 872, Learn How to Be Easy to Tell the Truth to. Learn how to be easy to tell the truth to. Why trust depends partly on how we respond when someone tells us something difficult. That's right, we're gonna look at how we respond. It's also about how others respond, of course. It's about the relationship between us and another in any dynamic, in how are we easy to tell the truth to? Are they easy to tell the truth to? And this is an important topic because this is much deeper than you realize. This is, you know, like most of us would probably say, oh, we want honesty in our relationships. Of course we do. Everybody wants honesty in the relationships. We want people to tell us the truth. We want our partner to tell us what they're feeling. We want our friends to tell us when something is wrong, right? We want the people we work with to tell us when they disagree. We want the people closest to us to feel like they can come to us with something difficult instead of hiding it, avoiding it, or allowing resentment to build. We're seeing conversations about this everywhere online, and that's why I thought it'd be a good time to address this.

There is often a communication breakdown happening. And what I think happens is somewhere along the line, maybe when you were, maybe you were in an environment, a work environment, a friend environment, or a partner at the time, whatever it might be, you told the truth, it was maybe met with resentment, punishment, whatever it might be, you're less likely to want to tell them that thing, tell them something the next time.

What's, that's number one, that's a difficult situation because of that relationship, but where else do you carry that into other relationships? I've been thinking about another side of this honesty that I just don't think we talk about, as much as it's needing to be talked about.

Are we easy to tell the truth to? Wanting honesty and knowing how to receive honesty are two different things. So are we easy to tell the truth to? Wanting honesty and knowing how to receive honesty are two different things. What happens when someone tells you something you don't want to hear? And so for this episode, that's what we're going to examine. Do you immediately defend yourself? Do you explain? Do you interrupt? Do you punish them emotionally? Do you withdraw affection? Do you make the conversation about how their honesty made you feel? Do you remember what they told you vulnerably and use it against them later? Do you become so reactive that eventually people learn it's easier not to tell you? And then months or years later, we find ourselves saying, why didn't you just tell me?

I've had this conversation with friends over the years about how honesty is one of the highest forms of intimacy. And when you really think about it, really think about it. And I remember years, so many years ago, I remember being told this. I was in my 20s, and a friend of mine in my 30s said, always be honest and say the thing. And yes, a person in that moment may not want to hear it, but they will respect you more than you realize. And it was just about emotional maturity, and it was about like, hey, yes, people don't always want to hear something you have to say right away. But don't they find almost kind of a sense of, there's a lot of things in there. One, they find a sense of relief of like, because maybe they were feeling something underneath all of it, like, that's what it was. Or like, thank you for finally telling me the truth. And you could still be upset about it, right? But at the same time, you know, you almost feel like the relief of, okay, I knew something in my energy could feel it.

And so, but also, wow, they were willing to tell me the honest thing they were feeling. Let me tell you something. In life, somebody willing to tell you the honest thing and to be open about it, regardless of what your reaction is going to be. Now, obviously, we're not talking about the nuances of like, the delivery style. I don't think you should be, you know, whatever adjective you want to put in there about it, but honesty with grace, you know? And so, you know, when I brought up a few minutes ago about, you know, that, you know, do you immediately defend yourself? Do you explain, you know, and that do you become so reactive that eventually people learn it's easier not to tell you, and then months or years later, we find ourselves saying, why didn't you just tell me? So the better question is, what happened the last time they tried?