Honesty and Relationships… Honesty builds Trust in all of our relationships. When we are honest, not only do others trust us, but we trust ourselves. Trust builds confidence and helps us feel secure in our life. On the flip side… Without Honesty, Our Relationships are Doomed for Failure.
This is the first ever episode of the Awakened Living Podcast. I hope you enjoy!
>>> Click here to listen to this episode about Honesty and Relationships Spotify <<<
(00:00) – Introduction and Importance of Honesty and relationships
(04:25) – Explores the significance of honesty and relationships
(07:21) – Examines the role of honesty in spirituality and spiritual relationships
(12:01) – Shares a personal experience of talking with a cedar tree
(15:03) – Discusses the need to confront insecurities and acknowledge shadow aspects with an honest heart
(19:12) – Conclusion and a challenge for your journey with honesty and relationships moving forward
Welcome to the Awakened Living podcast with Robbie J. Bone. Through ancient & modern spiritual practices, we offer valuable tools, practices & wisdom to enhance your Human Experience.
In today’s episode, Robbie discusses how to be honest in your life, so you can build trust and confidence. Specifically he speaks on honesty and relationships. He shares some personal experiences and stories to help highlight this topic. This is episode 1 of “Wisdom of the Week”, Where Robbie shares the wisdom, stories, and lessons from his week. Enjoy!
Follow Robbie on Social Media:
Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube | Website
>>> Click here to listen to this episode on Spotify <<<
Overview
In this episode of the Wisdom of the Week podcast, host Robbie J. Bone discusses the importance of honesty and relationships in various aspects of life. He emphasizes that honesty is essential for healthy relationships and that infidelity, in its many forms, can erode trust. Robbie also explores how honesty impacts spirituality and our connection to nature and creation. He shares a personal story about his concern for dying cedar trees and how his fear revealed deeper insecurities within himself. Ultimately, he highlights the power of being honest with oneself as a path to true confidence and selflessness. In this part of the transcript, Robbie J Bone discusses the importance of honesty and self-reflection. He emphasizes that being honest with ourselves allows us to acknowledge our insecurities and validate our inner child’s need for love and acceptance. Robbie highlights how many people were raised in an authoritarian parenting style that instilled feelings of inadequacy. He suggests that as adults, we can give ourselves the love and validation we seek from others, leading to transformation and a deep sense of security. He also points out that relying on external factors like status or money for confidence is fleeting and can lead to underlying insecurity. The key is to be honest about our insecurities, explore them through journaling or reflection, and examine their impact on our relationships with others. Robbie challenges listeners to be honest with themselves throughout the week by examining lies they may have been living or fears holding them back. Finally, he encourages sharing his podcast with others who could benefit from its message of healing and awakening.
Outline – honesty and relationships
Chapter 1: Introduction and Importance of Honesty (00:00 – 04:25)
- Host introduces the podcast and the topic of honesty
- Discusses how honesty is foundational to living a spiritual way of life
- Emphasizes the importance of being honest in all relationships
Chapter 2: Honesty and Relationships (04:25 – 07:21)
- Explores the significance of honesty in relationships
- Reflects on the reality and truth of relationships
- Highlights the impact of honesty on personal growth and spiritual path
Chapter 3: Honesty and Spirituality (07:21 – 12:01)
- Examines the role of honesty in spirituality
- Considers the different forms of relationships in spirituality
- Discusses the connection between honesty and spiritual existence
Chapter 4: A Conversation with Nature (12:01 – 15:03)
- Shares a personal experience of conversing with a cedar tree
- Recognizes nature’s honesty and the lessons it offers
- Reflects on the importance of honesty in personal growth and spiritual journey
Chapter 5: Honesty with Oneself (15:03 – 19:12)
- Explores the significance of being honest with oneself
- Discusses the need to confront insecurities and acknowledge shadow aspects
- Encourages self-reflection and journaling as tools for exploring honesty
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Challenge (19:12 – 19:39)
- Concludes the podcast episode
- Challenges listeners to be honest with themselves throughout the week
- Invites feedback and encourages sharing the podcast with others
- Please note that the timestamps provided are approximate and may vary slightly depending on the speed of speech and pauses in the audio.
Notes – honesty and relationships
- Episode: Wisdom of the Week podcast
- Host: Robbie J. Bone
- Topic: Honesty
- Honesty is foundational to living a spiritual way of life
- Being honest with oneself is important before being honest with others
- Practice honesty in relationships, especially with close ones
- Honesty affects spirituality and spiritual path
- Relationship with oneself, friends, family, partners, community, nature, creation, spirit, and God influenced by honesty
- Story about a prophecy of cedars turning brown as a time of purging or new beginning
- Reflecting on fear and worry, working to overcome them
- Talking to a cedar tree brings clarity and realization of selfish fear
- Honesty is important in nature and spirituality
- Being rooted in fear and lies may hinder good intentions and movements
- Acknowledging and managing insecurities leads to transformation
- Challenge to be honest with oneself and explore lies and shadows
- Reflect and contemplate on honesty throughout the week
- Share the podcast with others for their healing and awakening journey
Here’s the full transcript from this episode…
**Robbie J. Bone: 00:00**
Hello, and welcome to the first episode of Wisdom of the Week podcast. I’m your host, Robbie J. Bone, and thank you so much for joining me today. It is Friday, September 22, and in today’s episode, we’re going to talk all about honesty. We’re going to talk all about honest living and what that means, how that influences your relationships, your spiritual path, and your relationship to nature and to the creator, as well as how it influences in your personal heart and soul.
So honesty is foundational to living a spiritual way of life. If we can’t be honest, it brings chaos and distrust into our lives, into all of our relationships, including our relationship with ourself. And so one of the really interesting things about honesty is when we cannot be honest with ourself, we can’t be honest with others. To be honest with another, first, we have to have that clarity with ourself.
One of the ways this influences our relationships is that infidelity is basically the destroyer of all relationships. And when I say infidelity, I don’t necessarily mean cheating on your partner. Infidelity can happen in many different ways, and not just in intimate relationships. Infidelity is when we go back on our word or we break an agreement or we do some action that begins to deteriorate trust.
And so in relationships generally, it’s not like someone just goes off and cheats on their partner. That would be an extreme version of infidelity. Often there’s many little moments that lead up to that. And so when we look at this in relationships, it is so important to be honest 100% of the time to practice honesty in our relationships, especially those closest to us. If we can’t be honest with our partner, our lovers, and our best friends, then this is a serious problem and we need to reassess our life, really, because those are the people we’re meant to be the closest to. Those are the people we’re meant to be able to trust the deepest.
And it’s a good barometer for a relationship. Can you be totally honest with that person? Unhealthy relationships? If you’re honest, sometimes it doesn’t go very well. Codependent relationships, that can be a serious symptom. And that’s a very big insight. And then we got to be honest about that whole relationship, right? What is the reality and truth of this whole relationship, this codependency?
So honesty is so, so important in our relationships. When we look at this from a spiritual standpoint, how does honesty affect our spirituality and our spiritual path? So it’s funny because relationships are everything. They’re the foundation for our whole existence. What is your relationship first with yourself, with your friends and your family, your partners, your community, with nature and creation, with spirit and God, right? These are all different forms of relationships.
And so when we look at spirituality, whatever you call that spiritual path, whether it be your relationship in a religion or in an esoteric way, however that is, right? There’s many ways to connect spiritually and how does honesty affect that? It’s foundational.
So I’d like to share a little story with you guys that I think you’ll find interesting. So I was walking this morning. I live here on Vancouver Island, and it’s very dry here right now. We haven’t had a lot of rain. And this is concerning because there’s a lot of wildfires, there’s a lot of droughts, and it’s unsustainable. As we all know, water is life. And here on the coast, there’s a lot of cedar trees. Big, huge, western red cedars. Just beautiful trees.
And for me, they feel like my friends, truly. I love the cedar trees above all the other trees. There’s something about that cedar, that grandmother cedar, that speaks to my heart. And I love her so deeply. And I’ve gone to her many times and she’s helped me to heal. She’s taken negative things from me. She’s supported me to understand how to walk in a better way and how to clean myself when I take on negativity.
What I’ve noticed this last week, everywhere around where I live, the cedar trees are dying. I would say about maybe 15% just to give a random number of the leaves are turning brown. And that’s normal for other trees. It’s fall, right? Everything’s dying. But in the way of the cedar, the cedar is an evergreen. The cedars don’t drop their leaves, ever, unless they’re sick. And so these cedar trees are becoming brown. And it concerns me, right? It concerns me because I remember many years ago, maybe ten years ago, when I first started my path, I met an indigenous woman who lives here on the coast.
And she shared with me a prophecy that her people talk about, which is that when the cedars turn brown, it’s a time of another great purging or a great cleansing or a new beginning on the planet. And some people might call that the apocalypse. Who knows what the reality of that is or will be? Maybe there’s a literal apocalypse and cleansing like the Great Floods or the Ice Age. Maybe it’s simply a metaphor for the transformation that we’re all going through, not just humankind, the whole planet. Who’s to say, right? We’ll all find out, right? That’s the fun part and the scary part.
So I’ve been thinking about this prophecy that she had told me. It’s funny how you hear something ten years ago. And I mean, how many things have I been told and how many things have you been told on your path? And we forget them, and then one thing sticks. And here I am reflecting on that, and there’s medicine in it now to this day. So I’m watching these cedar trees, and I’m concerned. I feel worry and fear in my system every time I see them.
And in this awareness, I’m being honest with myself. I’m like, Man, I’m feeling fear and worry and a lot of the path is to overcome those things, not to push them away, not to deny them, to confront them and to free ourselves from them. Because for me, that’s true liberation, is to free oneself from fear, insecurity, doubt. And so when these things arise, I contemplate them.
And so I’m sitting with this worry and fear, and this morning it was arising again. I got up early and was off for a walk, and I saw this one tree walking by it, feeling worried. And then I’m aware that I’m kind of just like no one likes to be worried about, right? Like, do you like when people worry about you? No, it’s not a very good feeling, right? So I’m standing here, walking past this cedar tree, and I’m all worried about the cedar, and I feel that negativity.
And it’s not that the cedar was upset or anything. It’s a cedar tree. But I felt the incongruency there. This is a form of honesty, right? The incongruency. So then the cedar talks to me, right? Because we all have that ability to hear nature speak. The plants talk to us. We just have to quiet our mind enough to listen. And so the cedar said, Come talk to me. Okay. Why not? So nothing better to do, right? Let’s go talk to a cedar tree.
So I walk up to the cedar tree. I begin to talk to it, and right away, she shows me something inside of myself. She says, you think you’re afraid for me? Meaning the cedar tree. You think you’re afraid for me, but you’re afraid for yourself. This is a selfish fear, and that may sound harsh, but the truth is sometimes a little harsh. Nature is truthful. They call the grandmother cedar a grandmother for a reason. Sometimes grandmothers can be really sweet and kind, and sometimes they can be harsh and ruthless.
And as soon as she said that, I felt it in the depths of my being, in the rootedness of my connection to the earth. And I realized I’ve been telling this story, oh, I’m worried for the cedar trees. I’m concerned for the cedar trees. They’re my friends. I love them so much, and I want them to be healthy. And this whole story I was telling myself, and in reality, when she showed me that, I realized I was far more fearful of myself.
What if all of nature is dying? What if I don’t have the cedar trees anymore? I need the cedar trees. They’re my friends. They help me. If I lose them, what will I do? What if the apocalypse is coming and all these worries and fears that kind of masquerade as genuine concern and love for another, when in reality, they’re very self absorbed. And I don’t say that with judgment. I don’t say that like it’s a bad thing. It is what it is.
And it’s a matter of does that align with my intention for my life? Does that align with the path that Spirit has laid before me? And I say no, because I’m working to cleanse those things from my system. So when she said that, it was like, whoo. Okay, interesting. Thank you. And it brought at first, it was like a sting, and then it brought a sense of clarity. It brought a sense of peace that it’ll be okay, that this cedar is unconcerned in the grand scheme of things. It will be okay. We’re going to be okay. And it’s safe to let go of that fear.
So you can see how being honest is so important. Nature is honest. The spiritual path is about honesty. And to portray another example of this, someone may feel this type of fear, and they may then have a whole cascade of actions in their life, like, we need to save the cedar trees. We need to create a movement or I need to go out and pray for all these cedar trees and Sure, here’s the continuation of your text:
—
I need to save the cedar trees and have this epic mission that feels so virtuous and so spiritual and so enlightened and yet it’s rooted in fear and it’s actually rooted more in selfishness than selflessness. And the lie that we tell ourselves saying I’m part of a cause. I’m part of a mission. I have such good intentions, I’m such a good person.
And it’s not to say that if you’re selfish, you’re a bad person. It’s just, is that truth or is that an illusion that we tell ourselves because we don’t want to be honest? Right? And can we make a truly good prayer, and can we create a truly good movement in the world if we’re rooted in fear and a lie? Maybe. Would it be more effective if we rooted ourself in unconditional love and selflessness and truth? I believe it would be, because that just seems to me to align with the principles of God and the principles of the universe.
So those are some thoughts for you. And I have one more thing I want to share. Insecurity. So this is number three, right, of how honesty applies to our life. Number one, we have in our relationships. Number two, we have in our spiritual path. And number three, we have in this form of insecurity, which ties into all of this, which is perhaps more about our relationship to ourself.
So everyone has insecurities. It’s this taboo subject, especially for men. We don’t want to admit we’re insecure somehow that seems vulnerable or wrong or weak, and it has nothing to do with that. It’s just part of the human conditioning. And so based on this belief and this perspective that insecurity is bad, that it’s weak, that it’s wrong, we then choose to deny it and live in a lie. We live a lie because we lie to ourselves. We say, I’m not insecure. I’m a big, strong man, or, I’m a big, strong person, or I’m confident and all these things which we can be insecure and have confidence.
It’s not black or white. And at the same time, the more we acknowledge and confront and learn to manage and be aware of our insecurity, the more authentic and real confidence will arise within us. And so we can see how when we want to believe something, we often can deny the truth. So honesty is about really looking inward and being brutally honest, like that cedar tree with ourself shining that light of love and truth and realness and reality into us and say, wow, shit, I am pretty insecure. What am I going to do about that?
Wow, I’m not as confident as I thought. What am I going to do about that? Right? Because we all got a little boy and a little girl inside of us and that little boy and little girl, all they want is to feel loved. All they want is to feel valid. All they want is to feel acknowledged. And they just want to feel good enough.
And a lot of people in their life were fed a big lie. Their parents were not honest with them. Their parents said in one way shape or form, sometimes directly or sometimes in a passive way, just in the way they relate to you. They say you’re not good enough, or you’re only good enough when you succeed at school or when you do what I say or when you behave, or when you’re not bouncing off the walls or having a temper tantrum. You’re valid when you do what we say.
Based on this form of authoritarianism, a lot of parenting is rooted in this kind of dictatorship, this tyrannical way of trying to control a child. And that’s not judgment, it’s just what it is. And the result of that is often a woundedness. And so we’re adults now, and so we can validate ourselves. We can give that love to ourselves and to that child within us. And when we do that, there’s deep transformation. There’s deep sense of security and stability and safety and confidence that’s from the inside out rather than from the outside in, right?
Because most confidence is based on status or power or money or different things that are part of life and also very fleeting. Those things are not going to last forever. And therefore, if we build our confidence on that, there’s always going to be an undertone of insecurity being like, oh, man, I’m scared I might lose that.
So this is about honesty, right? This is about how do we be honest about our insecurities? Just see them for what they are. Explore them. Stop pushing them down and take tabs. Journal it out, write it out, reflect on it. Ask yourself, right? How am I insecure? How are my insecurities showing up? For men, if you want to know your insecurity, look at your relationship to women. That will show you a lot of your insecurities, whether you’re a ladies man or a player or whether you’re in a long term relationship or you’ve been in a string of committed relationships, whatever it may be, it’s going to show you a lot.
And so I want to end this podcast with a challenge for everyone listening, a challenge for you to be honest with yourself this week. Ask yourself, how am I honest and how am I dishonest? What lies have I been living? How have I let fear hold me back in my life? Be honest about your shadow. Explore it. How am I insecure in my relationships and how is that interfering with my relationships?
So I invite you to really reflect on that this week, really contemplate it and let me know how does it go? I’d love to hear from you. And so thank you for listening to Wisdom of the Week. I’m your host, Robbie J Bone, and it’s been really lovely to share with you today, and I really hope that this has brought value to your morning, to your day, to your life, to your week.
And if it has, I’d love to have your support. Share this podcast. Share it with someone who can gain value from it, like it, subscribe to my channel so that this podcast can reach more people and support more people on their path of healing and awakening.
