The Hilary Silver Podcast - Start Being Honest With Yourself And Others

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Episode #8: Speak Your Truth & Stop Betraying Yourself   Introduction In this episode, Hilary dives into the intricate dynamics of trust within relationships, emphasizing the often overlooked ways we may inadvertently betray ourselves and others. She discusses the distinction between factual honesty and emotional truth, and how failing to express the latter can deteriorate trust and intimacy in relationships.   Episode Highlights Understanding the foundational role of trust in relationships. Identifying the subtle ways we break trust without realizing it. The impact of not sharing our emotional truths. Practical advice on how to be more honest and trustworthy in personal and professional relationships. Episode Breakdown [00:00:01] - Hilary opens the discussion on the importance of being honest in relationships. [00:00:36] - Introduction to the topic of trust as the foundation of relationships. [00:01:00] - Discussion on building and breaking trust. [00:01:17] - Self-reflection on personal trustworthiness. [00:01:47] - Encouragement to consider how trust applies in personal contexts. [00:03:01] - Exploration of factual honesty vs. emotional truth. [00:06:02] - How unshared truths sabotage relationships at work. [00:10:31] - Real-life examples of how we lie to avoid discomfort or conflict. [00:17:01] - A case study on a couple dealing with smoking and trust issues. [00:20:55] - Closing remarks on the importance of honesty and how to improve communication in relationships. Listener Takeaways Recognize Trustworthy Actions: Be aware of the ways you might be breaking trust, even unintentionally, and take steps to become more trustworthy by aligning your words with your true feelings. Value Emotional Honesty: Understand that sharing your emotional truth is just as important as factual truth for maintaining healthy relationships. Communicate Clearly and Honestly: Encourage open and honest communication in your relationships to build deeper connections and trust. Reflect on Personal Contributions: Regularly ask yourself how you are contributing to either the strength or weakness of your relationships through your level of honesty and integrity. This episode encourages listeners to be more mindful of their interactions and the importance of honesty in fostering genuine connections and trust.

It feels terrible to be lied to, acting like it's okay and just saying no thank you. Is that truly you? I want to know in my relationships, and I don't think I'm alone on this, I want somebody to just tell me who they are, share with me who they are, let me see who they are. I want that honesty. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Hillary Silver podcast. Welcome to the conversation. We are talking about trust. Trust is the absolute most important element in a relationship. It's kind of like the foundation of a house.

If you don't have a strong foundation of trust, you really don't have much of anything. It's a requirement for building intimacy and depth and connection. And so we are going to be talking today about the many ways that we can build trust and ways that we inadvertently break trust or destroy trust without even realizing it. So I want to start by asking you this question. Are you trustworthy? Are you worthy of someone's trust? Okay, we're going to come back to that question, but think about it.

Um, and as I'm laying, laying down, you know, the pieces of the conversation, I want you to be thinking about it. I do this. Oh my gosh, I do that. I don't do that. That's not me, but I want to see if I want you to be like self-selecting. I want you to identify where in all of this conversation, can this be applicable for you specifically. And I also want you to think right now about someone in your life who you're close to and how you learned that you could trust this person. Was there a moment in time where you finally felt like you could trust this person as you got to know them was there an event was there something major that happened or was it kind of

something that just built for you with this person over time so um things like this is this is what happens in our relationships. So people tell the truth, they tell the truth, the truth. So fact, factual truth-telling is when somebody speaks about something that they've done and you can verify it somewhere. I was born in 1972. Yep. Check. I deposited a hundred dollars in the bank. Check. I can see it. Okay. Over time, you learn that somebody's a truth teller, that they are in fact an accurate reporter of fact. That's important in our relationships. It is. Also, things that happen over time. You tell them something, and when you tell them, you are met with a safe response. You are held in that space. They're not attacking you, judging you, yelling at you, dismissing you, ghosting you, all kinds of things can happen when we share something.

So, and that it's held in confidence. When you tell somebody something in confidence, and then you know that it's not been spread amongst your group of friends or other people that you work with, you learn that this person can keep a secret. I can share something with them and it's kept safe. That's really important too, isn't it? And it's not just that this is happening one time. It has to happen again and again and again over time.

But one of the things that we don't think about is not just the telling of fact, but also the telling of feeling. And this is where most of us don't realize that we are actually not trustworthy. And if we're not trustworthy and we're not telling the truth, then what are we telling? Lies. It is a form of lying when we aren't sharing our truth. Our truth is not the same as the truth. The truth is the stuff that I was saying earlier, factual-oriented, data-oriented, scientific-oriented information. That's important. But also to build trust in our relationships, it's the telling of feeling. Okay. So think about that. I want you to have that as a cue. Telling the truth is not just the telling of fact. It's also the telling of feeling. It's a big difference. And not just telling the truth, but telling your truth, my truth, our truth.

And this isn't always fact. It's truth for me, meaning I am feeling this. This is my perspective, my point of view, my opinion, my worldview, my paradigm, how I live in this world. It is my truth. And when we don't share that in our relationships, it is destructive. It really keeps our relationships very surface level. It keeps people at a distance and it keeps our relationships shallow, which as you've heard in my other episode about loneliness, that creates a disconnect in our

relationships. We're not truly seen. We're not witnessed when we're not being honest like that. There's a lot of reasons that we are not sharing that truth, our truth with people. And we're going to talk about that in a minute, but it's, it really will sabotage your relationships at work too. Like it just does. And it's in work relationships are really no different. So let's talk about the ways that we lie. And before we do, I just want to make this distinction. Some lies are told with the intent to deceive. That is true. To be misleading on purpose, to misrepresent, to stay out of the doghouse, to not get in trouble, whatever, a lot of people will lie. They do. That's not what I'm talking about because a lot of the lies that we're

telling right now are not the intent to deceive at all. And so that's what we're going to talk about first. We're going to talk about why, why do we not tell this truth in our relationships? Well, there's a lot of reasons and I'm going to list them and I'm not going to get them all. So if this starts to resonate with you and I'm not hitting on something that feels exactly right for you, then just ask yourself, well, what is right? The first reason that maybe we don't tell the truth, our truth is because we don't want to hurt somebody. Okay. Like that's well-meaning, right? It's not the same as the intent to deceive. If you don't speak your truth about something because you don't want to hurt somebody. You're protecting them. disappoint them. You don't want them to be upset with you. And so you maybe like withhold some of that.

You're not exactly forthcoming. And so maybe you appease them. Maybe you placate. Maybe you, you know, gloss over, whatever. So you don't want to hurt somebody. Who can argue with that? Nobody. It's all well-meaning. Number two, maybe you are afraid of being rejected. You don't want them to

judge you, ridicule you, or reject you because of what you are thinking or feeling or experiencing in any moment. So you just keep it to yourself, okay. Even if they ask you, if you think that your truth will not be met with approval or acceptance, you might not share it. Number three, to avoid conflict. Conflict can be very scary for a lot of us. And a lot of people will avoid it at all costs. I'm not saying that's a good thing. It's a way of moving in the world. But if you're so conflict avoidant that you can't even speak up for yourself in case somebody doesn't like it and it leads to some kind of disagreement or confrontation or outright conflict, you're just going to bite your tongue and keep it to yourself all the time. Okay. Can you see how some of these ways of, you know,

holding back, like the thinking that's going on that keeps us holding back is a problem. I personally don't ever want to be lied to. I don't. When I am in a relationship with somebody in any kind of capacity, any kind of relationship, and I am asking for somebody's opinion or asking how they are, I don't want to be lied to. I don't. What's the point in having a conversation? What's the fucking point in having a relationship with somebody who's not going to be honest with you about who they are? It just tells me that they either aren't that invested in me, aren't that invested in this relationship, that they're scared of me, that they don't care about building any kind of meaningful connection with me at all, or that they personally just have so many of these issues within themselves. And that turns into me just thinking it's somebody that I

don't really want to be in relationship with. So it's destructive. It's very, very destructive. So now let's talk about how we lie, how, what this looks like. And again, not an exhaustive list by any means, but just some examples. And so if there's more to it for you and I'm not hitting on one of them for you, then just, you know, be thinking about how this does relate. So an example is saying yes to something when you really want to be saying no. Ultimately, people pleasing is the biggest form of lying. And again, like most likely they mean, well, who's going to argue with somebody who just wants to make other people happy, but it's completely inauthentic. And it is not an accurate representation of who this person is. Saying yes when you want to say no

to a favor, to helping somebody, to putting yourself out there in any way. Okay. That is one major way that people are lying, omitting or withholding parts of the truth. So maybe the whole truth isn't what you're going to share. You're going to just keep some of your cards close to your chest and just share the good parts, right? You're only going to share the parts that make you look good or that won't rattle the, you know, rattle the cage or upset the apple cart. You just kind of share little bits instead of all of it. Acquiescing without objection. So, you know, I don't ever want any of you listening to acquiesce without allowing first your opinion or truth to be known. And a simple example, I love to keep the example simple, is let's just say a friend asked you out to dinner and they want to take you to Thai food

and you don't really love Thai food. Acquiescing without objection is telling your friend, sure, that sounds good. When should we go? I'll see you there. And meanwhile, you're like, I hate Thai food. I hope I can find something that I like to eat. Okay, that would be acquiescing without objection.

You can think of all the many ways that that might apply to all of your relationships. It happens all the time in our intimate relationships with people that we live with, because there's so many of these opportunities to be happening. Acquiescing with objection might sound like, oh, I don't really love Thai food, but I know you said this restaurant is just so really good, so I'm willing to give it a try. Or, okay, I don't really love Thai food, but let's hit the Thai food this time and next time I'm going to pick and we'll go to Thai. We'll go to Italian food or something like that. That's what that looks like. And it's a big difference.

If somebody, if you, let's just say that you invite somebody to go to dinner and you invite them over and over and over again to your favorite restaurant and they keep saying yes. And then you find out later that they actually hate Thai food how would you feel you would feel horrible it feels terrible to be lied to right in this capacity too yes it sucks being misled on purpose when somebody is lying, intending to deceive you. In this case, that lie is not being told with the intent to deceive. It's being told with the intent to please, to avoid conflict, to make somebody happy, to just go with the flow. So that's the next one is really just going with the flow, changing your opinion to fit the mass, biting your tongue and not speaking up when you disagree in a room of people

who think differently than you. That's not easy to do, but that's kind of lying in a way because you're not representing yourself as you are. It's an important way to be thinking about this because when you do these things, you are betraying yourself and then you are betraying the people that you are in relationship with. It's not honest. So appeasing, capitulating, glossing over bits of the truth. So only telling part of it instead of all of it,

which is similar to omitting. But glossing over is just like minimizing. So if you're not, if you're really upset about something, but you really just minimize how upset you are about something and you just say, well, that didn't work for me, then you're really not expressing yourself. You don't have to. I'm not advocating yelling or screaming or whatever. I'm just saying, let somebody know just how upset you are by something. And you can just say, I was really upset by that. Or that really makes me upset to hear that.

And then blah, blah, blah. But acting like it's okay. And just saying, no, thank you. Is that truly you? If you're not that upset, fine. That's your truth in the moment. But if you are, it's okay to share that. I want to know in my relationships, and I don't think I'm alone on this. I want to know in a situation that, or an experience that I'm sharing with somebody, I want to know what it's like for them in this very moment. Because to me, that allows me to feel close to that person. I see who this person is. I expect that in my relationships, in my life. I want somebody to just tell me who they are, share with me who they are, let me see who they are.

I want that honesty. It may mean that this person maybe isn't for me, but that's okay because then I can go on to find other people who are for me and so can they. It may not be a fit. Ultimately, when we are afraid of rejection, we will withhold. When we have shame or fear of people discovering the things we're ashamed of, we will not tell people who we really are. Share with other people who we really are.

And this is a form of lying. It just is. And it's destructive to our relationships. It destroys the trust in a relationship. I want to give you an example from a couple that I worked with years and years ago, but I love this example because it's probably something that's happened in your relationship. So I was working with this husband and wife and they had a new baby and they came in one day and we talked about this issue a couple times, but the issue was he was a smoker and she hated the fact that he was a smoker. She hated it.

And they made a deal that he wouldn't smoke anymore. She was, she had said, I really don't like that you're smoking. I don't want you to smoke anymore. You have to stop smoking. We have a baby now. You cannot smoke. And he said, okay, yes, I'll stop smoking. And guess what? He got busted smoking in the garage. And now it looks like he's a liar. It looks like he can't keep his word. He disappointed her. He let her down because in the front end of this exchange, he's telling her what she needs to hear. He's telling her what he thinks he needs to say to make her happy and avoid conflict, right? Sure, honey, I'll quit smoking.

Sure, honey, don't leave me. Don't divorce me because I smoke. Sure, honey, don't yell at me. Approve of me. I'll stop smoking. Sure, honey, don't leave me. Don't divorce me because I smoke. Sure, honey, don't yell at me. Approve of me. I'll stop smoking. But in reality, he probably didn't ever really want to stop smoking or he would have. So he lied and I know he wasn't thinking about it this way, but he lied to her face saying, I agree, I will stop smoking. And now he looks like the bad guy, okay? Because he didn't hold up his end of the bargain and he didn't follow through.

Like I said at the beginning, when someone doesn't follow through. So what should happen instead? Well, what should happen instead in an exchange like this is in the initial conversation, she says, I don't like that you smoke. I, we have a baby now. I don't, you know, it's not good for you. I don't like it. Blah, blah. And he says, I know how much you hate that I smoke. I know you worry about my health and I know you think it stinks and all these things. And I like smoking. I like smoking and I'm not going to give it up, but here's what I can do. I promise I will not smoke in the house. I promise I will not smoke around you. I promise I will never smoke around the baby. I will keep it contained and I'll brush my teeth and blah, blah, blah. Can you see how

much more honest that is on the upfront? And now she just is in a part in a relationship with a partner who is showing up equally represented in this exchange. She states her desires, wishes, feelings, opinions, whatever, and so does he. They are two distinct individuals in this relationship, and they have to navigate this relationship together. And the only way that's going to happen is if both people are showing up in truth. Not the truth only. Yes, that's a part of it. But in their truth. Equally important in building the trust and the foundation of a relationship.

So obviously, what the couple was talking about was the smoking. And what we realized through using this as an example is they were able to build more trust, more safety, the ability to communicate and deal with conflict and how to compromise and how to both truly show up in this relationship where they both are seen and they're getting their needs met. How amazing is that? And learning how to do that in an intimate relationship or any of your relationships is critical for the longevity and the health of the relationship. Okay, so these lies that we tell, thinking that they will protect us, actually end up harming us. That is the lesson. The lies

that we are telling by omission, by appeasing, you know, all those things that I said, ultimately harm us and harm our relationships because it's just not the truth. There's always a way to say something. There is, there's always a kind and loving and compassionate way to speak your truth so that it doesn't backfire and hurt you or hurt the relationship. There just is. And we have to learn how to do this better. We all do. So that was part one of the conversation. We're going to continue this conversation into our next episode and talk about how we invite people to lie to us and what the flip side of this actually looks like. Okay, that is it for the conversation today.

I will see you next time. But before I go, I want to remind you to please rate and review us. That allows other people to find us and join the conversation. And subscribers only get to share their comments with me, their questions with me that I will address. So if you want to be part of the conversation and contribute to these topics, please subscribe and then share what your thoughts are, what your questions are, and I will bring them to the conversation on our episodes in the future. See you then. Thanks so much for joining the conversation today. I hope you learned something new

or heard something that inspired you to take action in a new way as your greatest champion and someone who truly cares about your love, happiness, wealth, and success. I always want to encourage you to ask yourself this question. How have I contributed? You are the only person who can ask this and the only one who can answer it. This doesn't just change your life. This changes everything.