“I’ve been reading this great blog lately,” a friend was telling me the other day. “This woman clearly hates being a parent and is always going on about how she hides cans of gin and tonic in the toilet so she can get ten minutes peace. It’s hilarious!”

Well yes, I’m sure it is, but exactly how hilarious is it going to be when that woman’s children get older and read what she has written about them?

How might you feel for instance if you found out your mum had been posting pictures like this?

"Child fashion"

Now that’s just cruel.
(It’s me. I’m so stylish.)

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I’m reading a book at the moment called Radical Honesty.* When I showed Boyfriend he snorted a bit and said ‘as if you need that!’

He’s probably right – I do have a tendency to just say what I think, even if it’s a little brutal – but it’s interesting all the same.

The idea behind the book is that our lack of honesty is at the root of pretty much all our stress. This doesn’t just necessarily mean actively telling lies – leading a double life or pretending you have a job but actually just sitting in the park – it includes keeping feelings and thoughts hidden, for fear of how other people will react.

The author, who is a physcotherapist, says that most of the people he sees are stuck in this adolescent state of living their lives according to how they think other people think they should be living them. The stress comes from this fear of judgement, from trying to maintain a persona that you believe to be socially acceptable, and from not being open and honest about your true feelings.

It makes sense doesn’t it?

Think about a source of stress in your life. Maybe it’s work. Why is it stressful? Because you’re afraid that your boss will realise you don’t know what you’re doing? Because you put yourself under pressure to earn as much as your friends? Because you worry that your colleagues don’t like you?

All of these things boil down to typical teenage anxieties don’t they? They are all about not being honest.

What about if you went into work and just said to your boss ‘look, I feel really unsure about how well I’m managing this piece of work, can you give me some feedback or guidance?’

Or how about if you were just honest with yourself and your friends, and admitted that actually money just doesn’t matter as much to you, and that you were going to judge yourself by your own standards?**

I find it fascinating to think about honesty in terms not of the active lies we tell, but of the thoughts and feelings we keep hidden. Wouldn’t life be much more straightforward if you never had to worry about what you said and could just be yourself all the time?

How honest are you?

*I am about five pages in to Chapter One. To be honest (see what I did there?) this is probably as far as I get. I am honest, but flighty.

**Don’t forget I’ve hardly read any of the book. This is all pure speculation on my part as to what the book would ACTUALLY tell you to do.

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A second post! A great start. (I have never written a blog before – is it the kind of thing you are supposed to acknowledge, or is that terribly uncool? Should it be like a shy, new relationship, where you just sort of do it, without anybody mentioning what is actually happening?)

So…

With only 18 days left of the year and a shiny new blog to exploit (I mention it directly at the risk of breaking the Rules of Blogging), it seems like a good time for some reflection. 2009 has been an interesting year in lots of ways. I’ve left two jobs, launched myself into the scary world of self-employment and been on a string of dates – most notable only for their blandness. Friends call me fussy, but frankly it takes more than a bag of yogurt to impress me. But that’s a story for another time.

So as the end of the year approaches, I am feeling the urge to capture some of its highlights. Partly just so that I don’t forget them – I have an appalling memory – but also to celebrate my achievements, learn from my mistakes and hopefully make some plans for the year to come.

To do this properly, I am going to need to be honest, both about the things that happen to me and my feelings about them. I understand that this may not always show me in the best light, but surely that is part of the process? Sometimes I make stupid decisions and behave badly, put that is a part of me, and I will have to accept that. I could write a flattering version of events, pretend I have never said or done anything hurtful, but that wouldn’t teach me anything about myself. Plus it would be terribly dull to read…

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