Messy truths
Radical authenticity is the key to healthy relationships
What if the biggest blocks to a healthy relationship aren’t miscommunications, incompatibilities, or bad timing - but the stuff we avoid facing?
What if the key to connection isn’t a better you, but an honest you?
The mess
In the beginning of my current relationship it was impossible to be myself.
I was drowning in fear. Anxiety ruled me. Panic attacks and all. My inner landscape was filled with a fog so thick, I couldn’t see my feet.
Before her, I dated a lot. And when she said “if you slept around I wouldn’t see myself in a relationship with you”, I stopped. I wanted to be with her. I felt grounded and at ease in her presence.
A month in, she said: “I’m not ready for a relationship.”
And that’s when I fell in love with her.
Something about her unavailability triggered a magnetic pull I couldn’t turn away from.
It was the secret spell that cracked me open.
But it wasn’t love. It was a pattern.
The pattern
For years my scenario was:
• date a lot - chasing sex and validation.
• meet that special someone.
• keep dating around but fantasize about a relationship with her.
• she says “I’m not ready”.
• fall in love, hard.
• my desperation pushes them away.
I kept bumping into the same problem over and over again. And my mind was stuck on repeat:
“What if she leaves me? What if I’m alone again? I’ve opened my heart and I’m going to be heartbroken again? Please answer my text so I know you care.”
The anxious loops didn’t stop. But my therapist helped. So did breathwork. My heart was bleeding but I didn’t hide the damp cloth.
Magically, because we lived an hour away, and only saw each other on weekends, she didn’t break up with me. But the fear stuck. I was left with little choice but to work through my issues.
It wasn’t rosy. It demanded that I face my deepest insecurities.
Defense mechanisms
I started digging.
Saw healers, cried all my despair, attended workshops that stripped me raw, and I understood:
I had manipulated her.
Not because I had malicious agenda. But because I was desperate.
I told her stories to fit what I felt she wanted to avoid rejection.
I told her things I believed in the moment but only said out of fear, like: “If you were ready, I’d marry you in an instant.”
I told her pretty stories to avoid my grim ones.
I wasn’t lying. I was just terrified.
There was a black hole inside of myself, so vast it sucked the air of the room.
A despair so big and so wide, I could’ve drowned in it.
I was using my partner as a life raft instead of facing it.
Things shifted when I looked at fear in the eye and said: “I see you. You are me and I am you. I am not running away this time.”
When I admitted how much I had manipulated her, she wasn’t happy.
Admitting the truth was tough. But I felt liberated. Weight had lifted from my body.
We didn’t see each other for a month. I sat with myself, aligned in integrity. Truth by my side, looking at how fear had shaped me.
What did I learn?
Many of our behaviors are not rooted in the present but in the past.
The hurts. The traumas. The unconscious wounds.
Addictions, manipulations, avoidance, suppressing emotions, and control are all strategies we developed to reclaim power over situations where we once felt helpless. And they show up in our lives until we address them.
And you? Where do you hold back from telling the truth?
Radical honesty
In Radical honesty, Brad Blanton suggests dropping all filters in interactions.
No white lies, no bullshit.
Expressing your thoughts and feelings. Dropping all filters or manipulations in conversations.
It sounds simple, because it is. And it’s also terrifying.
It means telling your partner when something doesn’t sit right instead of swallowing your tongue.
It means admitting when you feel scared, insecure, or when you need space. Without sugarcoating.
At work, this might not fly.
Imagine saying to your boss when she asks you how the project is going: “I procrastinated all morning, had an existential crisis for lunch, and now I’m scrambling and scrolling. ”
Yeah, but no.
But in relationships? It’s a game changer.
It has helped my couple establish a solid foundation based on truth and transparency.
Radical honesty shakes up dynamics, triggers insecurities, and challenges unspoken agreements. Saying, "I find your friend really attractive" or "Sometimes I fantasize about being alone in a cabin for a month" carries real weight.
But if the truth scares someone away, if your partner isn’t ready to grow, at least you’ll know.
Relationships are mirrors. They reflect our strengths, our glorious selves and bring up our fears, insecurities, shameful desires, and our wounds - even the ones we aren’t aware of.
Love asks us to strip naked, to let ourselves be seen fully.
To be seen in our messy humanity.
Here’s the gift: when love brings up shadows, there’s your opportunity to work through them. To grow with, instead of against them.
Embracing the mess
At first, facing my own chaos overwhelmed me. Anxiety, rejection, childhood wounds - all the threads unraveled and showed where I had not been seen or supported.
Initially, I turned to my partner to save me.
But true healing happened when I stopped running from hurt. When I surrendered to my imperfections instead of trying to burn them away. When I softened instead of punishing myself.
I healed when I surrendered.
I understood that water came before fire.
I understood that I needed to be kind toward myself. And that slapping my own wrists wasn’t helping.
Real love isn’t about avoiding the mess. It’s about acknowledging it.
It’s about meeting as two messy humans. Perfectly imperfect. Meeting as two humans who acknowledge who and what they are and do not use the other to patch up the rough bits.
So talk about everything.
Start with something shameful. Something awkward. Say it out loud.
If they can accept and love you despite all your scars. If they can love you messy as you are, then you know you’re safe.
Safe to be real. Safe to show up as you are.
If you had to be radically honest with someone right now, what would you say?
Write it down. And decide: do you have the courage to share it?