00:00.00
calltocourage
In a relationship if you're not being completely yourself, your partner is getting to know somebody else.
01:00.22
Matt Dahse
All right y'all welcome to the call to courage podcast this is Matt Dahse coming to you from Thailand I'm joined with by Gareth Pickering coming from Guatemala how you doing today. Gareth.
01:13.28
calltocourage
Hi you Matt good to be back here and creating with you again. We've had a little break since we did the first 3 episodes and jazz to get into episode 4 called get clear on who you need to be in partnership.
01:25.90
Matt Dahse
Yeah, this is episode 4 of our 6 part miniseries where we are giving practical tools and advice for you to easily implement into your relating lives and yeah in preparation for this episode Gareth I was really meditating on this idea of authenticity. Of if you're trying to be somebody that you're not or if you show up in an inauthentic way to your relationship. You're doomed. You're doomed from the start because your partner First of all is getting to know a version of you that's not real. That's not authentic and. As long as that relationship is in place you're going to have to keep up this story that you've created this lie that you've sort of woven for for the length of the entirety of the relationship and that's that's a ridiculous task especially if you want to live live a. Ah, peaceful, harmonious joyful type of type of relating and then the longer you wait to come clean on whatever that piece of of of inoffic ah inauthenticity was the more it digs in and erodes into the trust that you build up in relating. So yeah. Important piece of the puzzle here showing up as your full authentic self from the beginning.
02:44.74
calltocourage
It's it's something I recognize in my own relating style and it doesn't always reveal itself as a inverted commas lie for me I recognize that being inauthentic I sometimes dressed up as a. Ah, story around caretaking and what that looks like in practice for me is a part of me that wants to always be the Happy. Go luckycky guy yet in some of my most important partnerships or friendships if somebody asked me how I was doing I would say yeah things are Great. Um.
03:18.51
calltocourage
Show up as the positive guy that I thought everybody wanted me to be so that I didn't have to dump my shit on them is actually not being very kind at all because genuinely what forms the basis of a trustworthy relationship is being authentically you as you said and so if i. I'm sitting with you and you ask me how things are going and I'm not authentically myself I'm essentially creating a distrust in our connection that you can essentially feel and when we do that for long enough in partnerships. It eventually starts to fall apart as we pretend to be somebody that we're not so. Yeah I recognize this part of myself and it's been such an important piece for me to unwind in my relating intimate relationships but in friendships as well which is show up authentically and be 1 ah hundred percent honest with what is genuinely alive because that's really the glue. That builds the trust in a relationship.
04:16.12
Matt Dahse
yeah yeah I was I was actually looking back at some of my past relationships and trying to identify pieces of me that weren't showing up in my full authenticity and I was remembering this one connection that I got into where I pretended from the beginning that. I was okay with open relating when in truth I had never done it before and it scared the hell out of me and I ended up being in this partnership for like six months eight months something like that and it took ah.
04:36.70
calltocourage
Ah.
04:52.92
Matt Dahse
Ah, few times of her connecting with another lover and just nights and days and weeks of Agony and and suffering before I really came clean about it in a lot of different ways with her and shouting and screaming an emotional just horribleness and. It was really all because I entered into that relationship without being true to myself and without being honest with her around that because I wanted to get with her because I was attracted to her because of all the things that I wanted. Um I I bent the rules.
05:26.21
calltocourage
Um.
05:27.75
Matt Dahse
On on my own authenticity and I paid the price.
05:33.20
calltocourage
Um, what we're talking about now actually links back to episode 1 of this mini-series which is getting clear on your desires and I think there's something in your story there bro which is your desires were for connection and you gave a part of yourself away through inauthenticity.
05:50.21
calltocourage
Caretake the other person in the hope that it might work and go on the exploration but in many ways you sort of you failed yourself, you let yourself go to a place that you didn't feel safe in and it affected the relationship.
06:00.10
Matt Dahse
Yeah, and you know the more I look at it as well with that relationship and others that when you bend the rules and you bend that authenticity and you go inauthentic in one area. It becomes sort of like a plague that can that can seep through all these other different areas of the of the connection and with my with my current partnership. My wife Itana We we clear our our baggage.
06:15.75
calltocourage
Um.
06:21.79
calltocourage
Um, and.
06:32.36
Matt Dahse
Immediately like when we catch ourselves not being truthful or when there's something wrong with us emotionally or if we're upset or triggered by the other person like we own that right away and we go to bed every night knowing that we are in true authenticity with each other and it's such a beautiful way to relate.
06:52.61
calltocourage
It's like keeping it current and actually episode 5 the one that we're going to create after this we're going to go deeper into triggers. But for the purposes of this I'd like to share a story as well as a resource that really supported me in getting clear on just how important authenticity is and. It's become a pillar of my personal life. One of the values that I hold most dear now and the value is called radical honesty and it's important to me for the reasons that I shared because. In the past where I wasn't completely honest with somebody else because I was caretaking them or because I wanted to show up as the fun. Always happy guy that was the very thing that broke down those relationships and so while I was traveling probably about seven or eight years ago I read a book called lying. But Sam Harris and it's not a long book. It's more like a long essay probably about 70 pages or something like that and the book talks about radical honesty and just how even small lies or inauthenticities dressed up as kindness is. Essentially on a plane of violence like essentially being inauthentic is almost violent to the other person in a way that they don't get the truth of who it is that they're talking to and they don't have all the right information with which to form the basis of their relationship to be able to form the basis of the connection.
08:19.68
calltocourage
And as I read this book I recognized just how many places in my life I had been slightly dishonest as a way to keep my personal brand up or to caretake other people or to keep other people happy and actually instead of it being kind of was just creating a complete mess in my life and. Yeah, I'm so grateful that that book came into my life and Matt you and I have shared quite a bit of conversations around radical honesty. But as I started to look at that book and that way of being which is really owning in real time like you said you do with itana. Exactly what your needs are exactly when you triggered exactly what you want listening to the other person and continually being honest, my laugh has become so much more simple and so much more clear as a result of doing that and I'll I'll share a story that I've shared on this podcast before but it's it's really one of the best that I have that's. Think it's been important for me because it was the time where I saw radical honesty, really supporting me and my partnership and I was in Mexico and I met a girl on tinder and we went on a couple of dates and we connected intimately after about a week and Somewhere along in our relating I recognized that she was looking for really a long-term partner like ah someone to journey life with and I was at a stage in my travels where I was going to be in Mexico for a couple of weeks before heading off somewhere else and I recognized in that moment that there was a part of me that was.
09:37.65
Matt Dahse
Must be here.
09:51.24
calltocourage
Knew that my desire was to keep connecting with this beautiful human for another couple of weeks but she wasn't my long-term forever partner and so when you went for lunch one day I said to listen I need to let you know that for me my desire at the moment is to. Continue this connection for the next few weeks but when I leave Mexico um I don't see that this partnership is going to continue and the news hits her pretty hard and there was a part of me that is like um like feeling uncomfortable that I'd made the other person feel perhaps a little bit of pain as a result of my honesty and she said to me. Thank you for being honest I appreciate that I'm sort of looking for ah a more longer term partner and I think that we should stop seeing each other and we we finished the lunch and we went our separate ways and I noticed a part of me that went back into my old story that sounded like fuck if I had just not spoken about that. Yeah, could have continued to get my needs met and continue to connect with her for the next few weeks and have this amazing experience that we were having traveling mexico going surfing going camping all the things that we've been doing and there's a version of me that just would have not owned that piece and rather.
10:55.50
Matt Dahse
Yeah.
11:03.11
calltocourage
Dealt with the challenges at the end of the connection and still had the next three weeks of doing what I wanted and yeah.
11:06.99
Matt Dahse
Yeah, doing that awkward like goodbye at the airport where you don't really know if you're going to see each other again. Well you know, but she doesn't know. Yeah.
11:17.44
calltocourage
Um, ah yes that and that was essentially what what I did we left that lunch and I was like okay well at least I've been honest and a couple days later she phoned me and said listen can we go for dinner and I was like cool. We sat down at dinner and she said thank you so much for being honest and I really appreciate it I understand where you're at and I want to continue this connection knowing full. Well that you're going to go and we had the most beautiful next three weeks where both of us were on the same page and I think it's probably 1 of the first times that I've really been able to own that. And to this day her and I are still friends and we've had yeah, just such a beautiful deep friendship and the time that we spent together was so amazing because I was able to own that piece she was able to make an informed decision with all the cars on the table and I really recognized in that moment just how powerful. Being who you really are and being authentically honest is in the service of relationship.
12:12.18
Matt Dahse
So good I I think that's such a powerful story and I remember when you were going through that you were telling me it for the first time and and how that was really like ah a pivot point like a switch where you you changed your pattern because I mean we're creatures of habit were creatures of pattern and history will repeat itself if you let it.
12:27.36
calltocourage
Ah.
12:31.87
Matt Dahse
And so what I want to do real quick is just put an exercise out for all of our listeners to get out a piece of paper and look at your past connections your past partnerships and see if you can identify different areas of of yourself or the way that you showed up to those connections. That was misaligned with your authenticity or was slightly dishonest or whatever the thing might be because the work is to identify how um how we function what are our patterns. What our patterns are and to consciously change them and so. Yeah, like I said in preparation for this episode I went back and examined a handful of mild partnerships and I could see in every single one of them different ways where where I didn't show up authentically and when we identify that we can carry with us into the future into our future connections. Um a greater intention around.
13:28.18
Matt Dahse
Expressing who we are and and really doing the work to figure out what we want as we build new partnerships for the first time.
13:37.27
calltocourage
It's such a great exercise and I think and hopefully you're going through this miniseries and you've got a notebook of the notes that you're making but going back and doing these reflection processes is going to be an ongoing journey just like the declattering process that we spoke about in episode 2 you're going to recognize. Other places in your past relationships where you have run a specific pattern that didn't serve you and what I do want to say is radical. Honesty isn't easy, especially if you have a history of running these patterns where you. Where you maybe aren't authentic where you do go into caretaking where you do go into being a version of yourself that you're not actually authentically yourself. It isn't easy to break those things. It wasn't easy for me to sit down at lunch with those women and say actually I can see we want different things here that wasn't an easy thing to do for at that stage. The easy thing was. Go with what's always worked and that is yeah, let's see how we go pretend pretend pretend get my needs met and then have some chaos unfold at the end you said the awkward goodbye at the airport that was a pattern that I knew well so this process isn't easy, but it is kind and it is clear and that's really the. Basis of this miniseries is recognizing that when you're very clear with the people that you're relating with that. That's the most kindness that you can bring because then they have all the information to be able to decide how this relationship supports them and as you said Matt when you're current and clear with your partner.
15:06.30
calltocourage
You know that there's nothing between you That's going to create any energetic swirls or potential blowups in the future.
15:11.47
Matt Dahse
Absolutely, It's an amazing place to be.
15:16.60
calltocourage
All right? So we're going to dive into episode 4 which is going to go a little bit more into triggers. But for now go through the process of recognizing in your past where you haven't been authentically yourself if you're interested in that book called lying by Sam Harris check it out. We'll put a link in the show notes and if you're following along we are recruiting for our upcoming training called clear relating which is a six week relationship training camp for men which starts on the thirteenth of March we are going to be sharing. In a lot more depth some of the tools that we unpack in this mini-series and really it's done with the basis that clarity is kindness and we look at relationship through all 3 phases of a relationship phase one is selecting and engaging in a relationship that's the phase of. Getting to know somebody getting clear on what you want attracting and manifesting somebody into your life. We share tools and strategies to support you through the sustaining phase. That's where both Matt and myself are at the moment in a committed partnership and we share the tools that we are using inside our partnerships at the moment for. Clear-related and then it circles back around to relationship endings and transitions where we share a set of tools and practices that we can use similar to the one that we've used here where you go back and reflect on your past relationships to see where you haven't been authentically yourself where you're carrying old stories and old trauma.
16:48.90
calltocourage
That isn't supporting your current partnerships and as you start to integrate those you find a clear space to move back into phase one which is the phase of selecting and manifesting new partnerships. So if you're keen to find out more about that training. We'll include a link in the show notes as well. Thanks for checking out this episode and we'll see you in episode 4
17:07.22
calltocourage
Thanks Matt.
17:08.56
Matt Dahse
Um, thank you Gareth good to be here and see you guys later.
