Radical Honesty: Letting Yourself Be Known

Matt Landsiedel (00:02)

Welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gay Men’s Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I am your host, Matt Landsiedel, and joining me today is my cohost, Michael DiIorio. Welcome, brother.

Michael DiIorio (00:19)

Hello.

Matt Landsiedel (00:21)

All right, today we are talking about radical honesty. We’re having some real talk about radical honesty. So I want to just introduce the concept of radical honesty and what it is. So it is a communication and self-awareness practice that encourages complete honesty in the present moment. So this is with yourself, being honest with yourself, radically honest with yourself, but this is also a lot about being radically honest with others.

I want to give you guys a breakdown of what this means. So the core idea of radical honesty is it is about saying what is actually happening inside you at any given moment. So thoughts, feelings, and sensations just communicating from this place. It’s about owning your direct experience rather than telling stories, being transparent instead of people pleasing, managing others or hiding ourselves. So this is like mask is coming off and I’m just going to share with you what’s coming up for me. So what’s alive for me in this moment.

So it’s not brutal honesty, okay, or being mean. This isn’t about using authenticity as a mask for being mean. This is about how we can do this with, with tact and with also being aware of how our, well, taking responsibility for our impact, right? What I say has impact on people, especially if I’m a person of influence, a leader. So I want to be mindful the way that I’m being honest and authentic is actually going to be tactful. So this might look like, ⁓ instead of saying,

But you know, or instead of trying to say the right thing, it’s gonna, or saying what you think someone wants to hear, it’s going to be about shifting to speaking your truth. What is, what is a lie for me? Like I said, that’s usually my sentence stem when I’m, when I’m being radically honest is, you know, what’s a lie for me right now is I’m noticing that whatever I’m feeling angry from what you just said, or I’m right. And you just go there. You go to that place that most of us are dancing around. We just go right into the heart of the matter.

⁓ some of the core principles of this are going to be to tell the truth, about what you feel and think in the moment, express resentments quickly instead of holding onto them. Express appreciation often, cause we’re not just being radically honest about the things that are upsetting us. We’re being radically honest about our feelings, right? So if I’m feeling appreciative of you, or if I’m feeling like I have loving feelings for you, I’m going to be radically honest about that. Right? So we can use radical honesty in a beautiful way too. ⁓ we stopped pretending to be more together than we are.

That’s a common one that a lot of gay men we carry. ⁓ And we differentiate between facts, feelings and stories. So really actually getting radically honest with yourself and saying, this a story I’m telling myself? Am I making assumptions here? Or is this actually a fact of what just happened? ⁓ These sorts of things. And then a lot of it is about owning our reactions. So others don’t make us feel things. We are responding to what somebody has said to us. So we have to really own this.

And then just want to share a few reasons why people do practice this, because you might be thinking, well, geez, why would I want to do that? That sounds so scary and so revealing. But when we start to practice radical honesty or authentic relating, we ⁓ are going to experience less anxiety because we’re not hiding. And when we start to reveal what we’re feeling, then we start to get connection in what we’re feeling. And then we can start to alleviate it. This can lead to deeper intimacy. So because we’re making ourselves more known.

more integrity and alignment in our relationships, fewer resentments, stronger boundaries, and just more present moment awareness, being present with whatever is happening for us. So this will be good for people who, if you’re an over-thinker, right? Like ⁓ in relationships, you overthink things, you become suspicious or whatever, radical honesty is gonna be really good to help with that. If you’re a people pleaser, if you fear abandonment,

If you get stuck in rumination or you’re somebody that tends to hide their needs out of fear of whatever judgment or rejection, these sorts of things. So, yeah, so I wanted to paint that picture because I think it’s really important to just frame what I mean when I say radically honest. ⁓ But I want to know from you, Michael, just to kind of kick us off, what… ⁓

Can you think of a time when you were radically honest and it was difficult to have that conversation?

Michael DiIorio (04:44)

my gosh, so many. But I’ve used this example so many times already recently. I don’t want to use it again. ⁓

me think here. Yeah, I mean, in a lot of my relationships, think it’s incumbent on the relationship, the success, the health of a relationship to practice everything you just said. I mean, it works in all relationships, but definitely for sure for me, I always want to be the person who is radically honest with my partner, even in the hard things. So that might be ⁓ if I’m feeling jealous or insecure, know, saying that and opening up and saying, hey, this

the situation or whatever is happening is bringing up a lot of jealousy within me. And I want to share that with you. That to me feels very vulnerable and scary. Yeah, right. Especially because I’m the person who’s like, I’m not jealous. I’m until I’m not. And then also like, what’s this feeling I’m having right now? This isn’t you. that’s jealousy. those are some. And then the example that I was thinking that I’ve used a lot recently was telling someone that you

love them and then putting your heart on the line for it to be rejected. ⁓ That has been another time, but I had to do that just because it felt worse holding onto it eventually.

Matt Landsiedel (06:13)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m hearing, well, and similar. Actually, that was going to be the other topic that I was possibly going to bring into today’s conversation was navigating jealousy and relationships. So it’s funny that you brought that up. ⁓ think, ⁓ yeah, what else would you say would be, like, hard things for you to talk about? What is it hard for you to be radically honest about?

Michael DiIorio (06:42)

In terms of my feelings, was jealousy, anytime I’m feeling jealous, insecurity, oddly enough, not so much. I think I talk about it so often that it doesn’t even phase me anymore. But jealousy for sure still is something. And I think, yeah, love, like when I actually have feelings and I’m not sure if the other person feels the same way. That’s really hard. What other feelings?

I guess love in the sense when I don’t know for sure if it’s reciprocated that way. Otherwise I’m very loving and I’m very okay expressing that with people that I feel safe with and that I know love me. But yeah, jealousy, some insecurity, I guess. Like we had that episode recently about body. What was the one we just said about body? Has it been released yet? has it been Oh yeah, all right. I don’t know you guys heard that one yet, but anyway, there’s an episode about body perfection, but that was a vulnerable conversation for me.

Matt Landsiedel (07:28)

Body perfection.

Michael DiIorio (07:37)

talk about that. Yeah. Have a free.

Matt Landsiedel (07:39)

Same. Yeah,

I was nervous before that episode. yeah, I’m, this is very alive for me. This, ⁓ cause I was just, ⁓ navigating a relationship that lasted for about a month. And, ⁓ you know, as people know, I’ve been very open about this and in, ⁓ on this podcast that relationships tend to throw me for a loop. They’re, challenge me in so many ways. ⁓ but.

Something that’s hard for me to be radically honest about is when I’m feeling scared in the relationship and this was a relationship where I was able to actually talk about that and like the person was able to hold space for me and we were able to talk about why I was scared and it really came down to a lot of trust issues. I have a lot of trust issues with bringing my fear to somebody because I think most of my life my fear wasn’t held and contained. It was met with more fear and it made me, right, more afraid. So…

bringing fear into conversation is tough, but I’ve had to practice radical honesty because I’m like, the other outcome is going to be that it implodes and it starts to seep into the relationship in these unconscious ways. And then the part my partner is left being like, wait a minute, well, why are you suddenly, why is the texting frequency shifted? Why has this happened? Why? Right. And that’s what mostly happens. We start to just like, when we feel scared, I think we start to ghost.

In the slow fade, that’s another episode that we’ve done, right? We do the slow fade because of fear. And then we start to notice these behaviors and then it brings up fear in us. Right. And this can all be mitigated with radical honesty and just saying, I’m scared. I’m scared. We’re moving too fast. I’m scared that I’m not enough for you. I’m scared that you’re going to betray me. All the things that come up in relationships that are normal for human beings to experience. If we can practice radical honesty, then we actually foster connection.

And if we don’t practice radical honesty and we repress or conceal what we’re feeling, then we create disconnection, right? And we leave people wondering, why did they ghost me? Why did they slow fade me? Why did all these things happen? And then what ends up happening is we often internalize that stuff. And then it just creates more stuff for us to be scared of in our next relationship. So I just really want to highlight how radical honesty can be such a beautiful tool to healing.

intimacy, connection, these sorts of things.

Michael DiIorio (10:10)

My experience has had benefits, but not those ones. The one that I was talking about were I was honest about my feelings, having developed strong feelings for this person I was dating. And I was honest about them because I don’t want to hold onto them anymore. That actually ended up having the opposite effect, less intimacy, less connection with him. I will say this, the benefit was that I got to be true to me.

And while I may have lost that, was blossoming there, obviously it was never meant to be, but I was very true to myself and looking back at it, even though was in a lot of pain for a while, ⁓ it felt really good to get that off my chest and to let my heart be free and to speak my truth. And that was a beautiful act of self-trust and self-respect, I think, because otherwise I was in this thing that I just had all these feelings that I wanted to give.

this person just doesn’t have the capacity to handle the love that I wanted to shower all over him. He just doesn’t have the capacity. It didn’t work out so well. So there was no connection or intimacy, but yeah, there still are benefits to it. I think truth and honesty is a value that I like to live by no matter what.

Matt Landsiedel (11:30)

Yeah, I like that. And we can never control what we say, how it’s going to land on somebody else. And I find when you practice radical honesty, you’ll notice levels.

of our own emotional maturity, but others emotional maturity too, because this relationship that I was in, it was contained and it was held. There was an emotional maturity in the sense that he didn’t become defensive over my fears. My fears were mine. I owned them as mine, right? So when we’re radically honest, we have to own and take responsibility for what’s ours. And, sometimes if we don’t do that, or if we do the person that’s receiving it can still become defensive.

Right? Like, well, what do you mean you’re scared? What did I do? I didn’t, I didn’t do that. Right. And we can, they can start to become defensive because they’re making your truth means something about them. Whereas we can still share our truth and it can still be our truth and there can be relational impact and there can be relational influence for sure. But I think, the relationship is going to be better served anyway, because if you can’t be radically honest with someone and they become explosive or defensive, that’s just a sign that the relationship might not have the maturity that it needs in order to sustain.

long-term depth and growth, right?

Michael DiIorio (12:41)

Yeah. There is a time and a place though. That’s one thing that I’ve learned. I have not historically had a hard time expressing my feelings. Maybe it’s the Italian in me, but there is a time and place and that was what I was not good at. I would let things out, not in the right places, times, environments when the person wasn’t ready, when I didn’t have permission to like, can we have a conversation? Which now I’ve learned. I’ve learned you have to, at least for me, have to get the

and sent to have the container, are you ready for this? Here’s what I want to talk about. Are you in a space? you in an energy for it? Versus, here’s what have to say to you because I want to say it. I think that radical honesty has to be within a container. That is more likely to enable the outcome that you want.

Matt Landsiedel (13:20)

Thanks.

Such a good point. Yeah, such a good point. ⁓ Yeah, you’re definitely not pausing sex to have a conversation about, know, I’m really scared and I’m having all these feelings, right? So timing is everything. And I think timing is everything in all contexts of communication, because you want to read the room. You want to give the person a chance to, ⁓ you know, but what I will say is not don’t text your partner in the morning and say, we need to talk tonight.

Just leave it at that, okay? Provide context. I’d love to practice authentic relating tonight. I’m feeling like there’s some things I want to share and I really want to enrich our relationship. Can we talk tonight? Right? Versus like just leaving them with a cliffhanger. Cause I know for me, my ruminative brain would go monkey wild with that one all day. I’d be like, what do they want to talk about? They’re going to break up with me, right? These sorts of things. So it’s really about ⁓ finding a way that you can share yourself.

And like you said, in a context that’s gonna, it’ll be more likely to be received.

Michael DiIorio (14:31)

Have you had any negative experiences with radical honesty where you did everything right, textbook right, but the outcome was not maybe met with what you were expecting or what you wanted?

Matt Landsiedel (14:46)

I have, I could write a Bible ⁓ thing. Like I have so many, I’ve been practicing authentic relating, which is pretty much radical honesty. They’re very similar, ⁓ for seven years now. And that’s just, that’s like the modality I’ve been practicing, but prior to that, I was very authentic and speaking my truth. So yeah, like in dating, it’s such a big thing. Like I, I tend to, like people feel like I’m, off putting, ⁓ because I just speak.

my truth or if I’m on a date, I’ll ask questions and you know, I’m a therapist for a living. literally listen to people’s intense things all day long and their vulnerabilities. So when I, like, I have to rein myself back a little bit when I, when I’m dating or when I’m meeting people that don’t have that capacity or want to have that capacity. Um, so yeah, definitely there’s been, there’s been instances where, where people feel maybe intimidated or put off or something like that, but

At end of the day, I just know that about myself and I know that I want to attract people who can match that. And I love it when people can match that. There’s nothing juicier and yummier than somebody that’s like, they see my vulnerability and my authenticity and they’re like, yeah, hit me. Let’s go shot for shot here with being able to just reveal ourselves and be open with each other about how we’re experiencing each other. And it can…

Yeah, I feel like I’m an ⁓ intimacy addict. I love intimacy and not just romantic. Like I love intimacy of all forms with friends, with my clients, with, you know, like there’s so many forms of intimacy that I’m just addicted to.

Michael DiIorio (16:24)

I would never think of you as off-putting or what’s the other word? Intimidating? I want to go be a final on your dates and see what’s going on because I would never use those words. Either of them.

Matt Landsiedel (16:38)

Yeah.

Yeah. I think this has shifted for me because I’m no longer attracting avoidant men and avoidant men have such low capacity for emotionality. And that’s what’s happening when you’re being radically honest. You’re revealing your emotions. Essentially, you’re revealing your thoughts and thoughts contain energy for emotion, emotionality. So now that I’m no longer attracting avoidant men, well, I say I’m not attracting him. I’m no longer tolerating being like in relationship with them. So

It’s less and less. find the last handful of guys that I’ve been connecting with romantically have been ⁓ either anxious or ⁓ secure. have capacity for emotionality, right? So I don’t take it personally because I know the context of the people that are off put by me. it’s like, there’s just a lack of capacity there, right? In my opinion.

Michael DiIorio (17:36)

listeners, because I think at the beginning you had talked about like, you know, there are many benefits to this, but you’re right, is being honest, being authentic is very scary, brings up all of our old wounds. ⁓ Because we have lots of baggage and we have lots of trauma around authenticity and honesty, especially as gay by queer folks. ⁓ You know, we learn to hide, there’s safety in hiding, there’s danger in being honest. So

What would be like your sales pitch if we were gonna sell radical honesty? Like what’s the main benefit to folks considering we don’t know what the outcome is gonna be with the other person. They could handle it as we’ve learned any which way.

Matt Landsiedel (18:18)

Yeah. So in my experience, it gives people permission to be honest as well. in most 99 % of my encounters when I practice radical honesty, the other person is like, like their ego might be threatened, but their soul is like,

thank God. Like I can finally, you know, reveal myself too, because all of us are holding back. All of us have shadows, all of us have biases, all of us have this crap that we carry. And, you know, a lot of it is storytelling. We tell ourselves all these stories and when we can start to reveal those things, then we give other people permission to do the same. Right? If you really want to learn about somebody, you really want to build intimacy with them, then practice this practice showing up because

You know, otherwise what ends up happening is you get two guarded people coming together and they just tell stories to each other and they just keep it on the surface. Right. You need one person that’s going to step in and say, you know what, I want something a little deeper. And when you do that, you get deeper back like nine times out of 10, 9.9 times out of 10. I’ve really never opened myself up. And the other person has just been like, you know, like they just stay at that level. Right. They either hit the road or they match me. Right.

And if they hit the road, it’s like, it’s nothing to do with me. Like this person’s just revealing their own capacity. That’s it.

Michael DiIorio (19:38)

I completely agree with everything you said. don’t want to repeat it because you said it so well. Another one though that I would add is they even if they don’t feel the same way or it doesn’t go so well, eventually when the dust settles, if it doesn’t go well, ⁓ there is a respect. So I talked about like a respect for myself. Like I would be very proud of myself. Like Dan, girl, like you did a good job putting that out there and respect from there and as well. They’re like, I think it’s a rare.

for men to practice radical honesty. ⁓ And so when people can do it and navigate those tricky waters, other people will see that and respect you for it and see the courage that it took. And we’ll be like, wow, that was pretty amazing. So there’s another benefit there. Self-respect and respect of others.

Matt Landsiedel (20:27)

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. ⁓ I just in this last relationship that I was navigating it, ⁓ I was able to cry in front of this guy. And it was like so beautiful because he was able to hold that and he was like and then he also got emotional.

at points in the relationship with me too. Like we just have this really beautiful bond and we were able to just be ourselves fully with one another and express emotionality. So again, radical honesty leads us to those more tender parts within us. And I think those are the parts that need love. And if we have relationship fears, which is everybody, everyone listening, hi, you have a relationship fear because no one’s immune to them. It’s in through radical honesty that we can reveal those and we can start to get those.

held and like loved and ⁓ that’s what we need right that’s why we fall in love with our partners and and stuff is because we are there to experience love and not just the parts of us that we deem lovable but the parts of us that we deem unlovable those are also going to get loved in a know in an unconditionally loving relationship as well so and that requires us to have some sort of capacity to reveal those things and radical honesty is a vehicle that we can use to reveal those things.

Michael DiIorio (21:43)

And the main ingredient is courage because you can’t do any of that without courage and courage feels scary. Courage feels like fear. you might like when you hear the word courage, you’re like, courage. But like anyone who’s actually practiced courage or done something courageous, think to the last time you did something that was courageous, your body felt like fear. If you went in and I was like, ⁓ my palms are sweaty. I’m shaking a bit. My breasts are shallow. Like I’m panicking a little bit. Like, yeah.

That’s courage. And so I think that’s why a lot of people don’t do it because it does, it is fear. It’s feeling the fear and doing it anyway. That’s basically what courage is. But everything that I just said there, if you want that connection, that level of depth, it’s going to require courage and vulnerability. All the things that we love talking about here on the podcast.

Matt Landsiedel (22:29)

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. one question for you is what are things in your life that you need to practice radical honesty? Like what are some things that like, you know, you’ve said like relationships when you’re feeling jealous, these sorts of things, what are some other things that you would need to use this modality as like a way to just

Michael DiIorio (22:55)

you say that I was just journaling about this. This is like super raw because I was just journaling about this two days ago with myself. I think I’m in a phase in my life. I haven’t quite distilled all this yet, so I don’t know if I’m ready to share it, but ⁓ I was thinking here, I mean, I’ve been traveling alone for a while, a few weeks now, and ⁓ got a good time. It’s been a really good time to get to know myself and really look at myself in the mirror and take stock, which I do when I go on these big, solo trips every year.

a few things came up and I was like, huh, this is something I really need to be honest with myself with, like, let’s say habits or behaviors or things that maybe have snuck in and I have justified them, but they are not serving me. Yeah. That makes any sense? Yeah. So I think I need some radical honesty with myself and that’s key. Because if you can’t do it with you then…

it’s gonna be harder to do with others.

Matt Landsiedel (23:59)

Yeah, I like that you’ve that you turn that on yourself because I actually intended the question the other way. And, it’s, it made me think too, like there’s such an element of challenging our, well, we can’t actually be radically honest with other until we’re radically honest with self. Cause we all have so many blind spots and radical honesty is about pausing, checking in with our emotions and getting clear. So jealousy is like.

I feel inadequate. I’m scared of losing you, right? So when we are radically honest with ourselves, it’s like, okay, I’m going to identify what that fear is. It’s underneath my jealousy, which is that I’m not good enough or that I’m going to lose you because I’m not good enough. And then how can I practice revealing that, right? As opposed to revealing the anger that might be sitting above it.

So it’s like getting honest with ourselves. And for me, that’s looks like challenging my own ego because my ego is like, fuck you. Like, you know, how dare you do that to me, blah, blah, blah. Like whenever I’m jealous, but really it’s actually like, no, there’s something that’s really tender that’s underlying this. And when that tenderness gets met with acceptance and love, that’s when it heals. That’s how that’s when the parts underneath the jealousy can actually learn to receive the love. So we can feel like we are enough.

But if we just become defensive and blaming, then we just create defensiveness in the other person and it perpetuates the wound. If I’m not good enough, I’m going to lose you. Right? So I do think radical honesty creates a safe place for us to be able to reveal the parts of us that need love. can’t emphasize that enough because that’s really been such the main thing for me with, with radical honesty, it dispels fear. And then it allows me to be loved in the tender parts that are like contained within that fear, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Michael DiIorio (25:46)

those reacting, did you just say? Blaming, was the other one? Criticizing, blaming, defensiveness and all that. It’s such a shame because you just need to go below that to get to the core source. When someone’s doing that, they’re reacting to the core pain, but they’re not getting to the pain by sticking to the reaction. have to go to like what’s causing that, whether it’s shame or fear or something. Something’s always below it.

Matt Landsiedel (25:52)

Anguria. Yeah.

Michael DiIorio (26:14)

And that honesty is exactly what allows you to access it. once you can access that level, then you’re cooking with gas, I said. Then you’re at the, okay, we’ve reached the core ⁓ issue here. Now we can actually solve a problem. Whereas when you are at that above layer, you’re not, it’s just, you’re not solving the problem. You’re just going to keep repeating yourself over and over and over again.

Matt Landsiedel (26:33)

Exactly. Yeah, you stay in cycles, relational cycles of destruction. The bottom layer for 99 % of people that I’ve worked with in my practice is with gay men, especially is shame. It’s under fear. It’s even under inadequacy. It’s the bottom layer for most people. most people have so much shame in revealing that we’re scared or that we’re jealous or that we’re all these things that we will never reveal that. So if we can learn how to reveal

and be radically honest about those things, it leads us to that bottom layer, which is shame. And we can only heal shame when we can name it and when we can learn how to have it within our window of tolerance, right? Our nervous system has the capacity to process it. Then that way we start to develop resilience to it. So, but it does, it all starts with naming it. If you can’t name the shame because you’re not able to bring it into your awareness, right? Then it’s gonna be very, very hard to heal toxic shame. So.

Radical honesty can be a beautiful, beautiful way to start to connect with the things that sit above the shame, which once you start connecting with those, it allows you to go deeper and get to that shame part too.

Michael DiIorio (27:39)

call out to our Healing Your Shame course.

Matt Landsiedel (27:43)

Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been a slice. Is there anything else percolating before we wrap up that you’d like to share?

Michael DiIorio (27:50)

It’s been great. Thank you for the topic. This was a fun one. Fun for people like me. I’m sure for other people, they’d probably be devastated and terrified. But I like this kind of stuff. And if it was me on those dates with you, Matt, I would be the one going back and forth with you.

Matt Landsiedel (27:55)

Yeah

I love that. Well, that’s why we’re, that’s why we’re business partners and friends. We have that. It’s nice being in flow with you. I like this inflow session that we were able to have. And, ⁓ I want to invite the, the YouTube viewers to drop in the comments. ⁓ what are you, what, what, what came up for you in this conversation? What might be difficult for you in sharing, ⁓ and being radically honest about what’s that? What’s that content for you? What’s that thing?

that you find, it setting boundaries? Is it revealing fears? Is it revealing jealousy? What are the things that make it really hard for you to share that you might want to start to practice radical honesty with? I’d love to hear that. And yeah, until next time, much love everyone.