Annette Naake

Someown wrote...< we've been focussing on honesty in our lives for about
four
years. I mean real honesty... no hypocrisy, no 'i didn't mean that'
statements either. You mean what you say in this house, you mean what you
do. If not you fix it. Apologise sincerely and don't do it again.
<SNIP>

Real, incessant honesty is a lot of effort and it can cause hard feelings.

I'm not sure how you strike a balance between tact and honesty.

I find there's no one more honest than a kid. Around here, I often
discourage raw honesty for the sake of sparing people's feelings (my 7yo
refusing to go along with the 3yo's pretending; blunt opinions of other
family members, etc) and preserving our privacy as a family ("He's not home
right now" "Tony can't play today because he's tired.") I guess I feel we
ought to be able to project ourselves as we wish, which might not always be
bare reality.

Annette



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Robin & Beverley Paine

>Real, incessant honesty is a lot of effort and it can cause hard feelings.

Yeah, especially when I reflect on my own behaviour and thoughts - I have
to be real diligent in demanding honesty from self. I think this comes
first, before we can ask it from others.

>I'm not sure how you strike a balance between tact and honesty.

I guess I go quiet. If I can't be honest then don't open my mouth at all. I
also do the distraction thing too - change the subject. This isn't very
tactful, but everyone gets the message without us all having to go into the
why's an wherefors of difference. I never 'agree to disagree'. YEp, it does
make for difficult social times. But most people who know me think I am
exceptionally tactful. I usually say what I think, but I think about what I
say first... I target what I say to my audience... I like to know my
audience beforehand.

Demanding clarification seems to really irk people.

>I find there's no one more honest than a kid. Around here, I often

Especially little ones!

>refusing to go along with the 3yo's pretending; blunt opinions of other
>family members, etc) and preserving our privacy as a family ("He's not home
>right now" "Tony can't play today because he's tired.") I guess I feel we
>ought to be able to project ourselves as we wish, which might not always be
>bare reality.

Dealing with this kind of thing honestly is extremely hard. What we are
doing is cultivating friendships with people who are willing to look at
this issue too.... finding support to keep growing with honesty in our
lives. This is really hard.

But we don't demand perfection from ourselves either and realise that yep,
we fall from grace continuously. And that's okay too.


cheers,
Beverley

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Brown

I had reached a point when if someone invited us somewhere or wanted to come
visit, and we weren't in the mood, I was able to say 'sorry, we have already
made arrangements for that day. Can I give you a ring when I can sort out a
suitable time.'

Then a few weeks ago, a friend wanted to come visit on our first fine weekend
for about 2 months. She lives in the city - a drive to the country seemed like a
nice idea. We live on a newly acquired piece of land - we needed to work on our
land and house building. So i said this - and guess what? She wasn't insulted,
just came a couple of weeks later on a wet day, and we enjoyed hours of chatting
without me feeling begrudging.

So often we do things we don't want to because we don't want to offend - and end
up feeling bad about the other person, and they end up confused and wondering
what on earth they have done wrong! And if they can't understand my explanation,
even if it is "I just don't feel like that today' then they probably shouldn't
be in my life.

One of my sons said at 11yo about not wanting to go school (after trying it out
part time): 'If you want to get on at school, you have to pretend you are
interested in the same things as everybody else, you have to do the same things.
But if they don't know who you really are, what's the point of being friends?
They are really friends with you because they don't know who you are.' And this
is from a kid who was pretty lonely at the time.

Carol