Sasza Lohrey 

Thank you so much for joining us, Judi. 

Judi Ketteler  

Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Sasza Lohrey 

So in studying, or in your personal journey of exploring kind of what honesty is what it means to live an honest life, what the benefits and consequences are of that. I’d love to just start out by having you tell us, you know how you came to be exploring this space? And what your definition of honesty was, perhaps when you were younger or before you started delving into this, and how that definition has evolved into what it might be today.

Judi Ketteler  

I wrote the book or really started the journey the book is part of the book is kind of like a culmination of the journey although the journey continues, but I started thinking about all of this honesty stuff. Because I was feeling increasingly powerless in a world that seemed like it was really dishonest, like growing more and more dishonest, although in my like, internally, things going on in my life really predated that. So I had been really thinking more and more about some of my own behavior and how honest Was I being in my own life in my marriage with my kids on social media with my friends, I was starting to have a growing awareness about you know, how honest Am I being in my relationships? It’s how honest is the is the world like, what’s going on? And what is my role in all of this? So a lot of things just coalesced at once, and made me feel like I needed to explore this and, and the only way to do that was to go back to the beginning as far back as I could remember, and trace My ideas about honesty, like from the very first lie that I could remember telling, and really just trace it kind of through my life and see what patterns might be there. So that’s, that’s essentially what I did. That’s what I did with honesty journal and then in writing the book. And in terms of, you know, definitions, I don’t know that. I mean, one of my projects with the book was really trying to define all these different ideas around honesty, because when we say honesty, it means so much and yet it doesn’t mean anything, really. So one of my projects was really trying to tease out all of the different terms and concepts. So I feel like I have a much richer understanding now of all of these different elements that go into it. Honesty that I didn’t have before, just because it wasn’t a topic that I, you know, really delved deeply into. I just kind of stayed at, that level of cliche, which is where most of us are, like, always be honest. Honesty is the best policy and it’s, you know, not always the best policy but until you really engaged with it, you don’t even have any, like critical vocabulary to think about it.

Sasza Lohrey  

And so, while we’re kind of talking about definitions, I love the concept of operational definitions, I guess how you would attempt to define honesty and you know, dishonesty as well.

Judi Ketteler  

Yeah, I mean, I got on the phone with this philosopher, Thomas Carson, who wrote a whole book about deception. And he was so great to talk to and like the first thing he said, was something like, you know, It’s it’s meaningless, really to talk about honesty because you can’t it again, like it means everything and nothing like you have to parse out all of these different things. And, you know, so the two, it’s almost like we, we can define it by talking about dishonesty, it’s almost easier to look at all of the different ways that we deceive and are dishonest. So, you know, the two big like, there’s all kinds of ways that you could slice this, but the two big buckets are the lies we tell of self interest. And the lies we tell of kindness, which are called pro social lies. So not the same thing as, as white lies. White Lies are kind of trivial Little Lies we tell that you know, we think really aren’t of any consequence. Sometimes they are have consequences. Sometimes they are quite self serving so lies of kindness and white lies are really not the same thing. So, you know the lies of self interest are the lies you know the ways we deceive to do with you know money like that’s the easiest one right? But it isn’t always that it’s a lot of times it’s much more to do with ego to do with you know, a way we want to see ourselves or to see a situation it’s so it’s there’s a self interest component like we’re, it’s something that we need, we need to believe a certain thing. There’s something in it for us basically. So pro socialized, by contrast are lies we tell for the benefit of others. Now, what’s tricky is that it’s hard to know. I mean, sometimes we think something is a pro social life, but really, it’s more to do with Ego or because we’re afraid to stand in an uncomfortable space. And so we think that we’re saying this thing for the benefit of someone else. And maybe it is. But really, it’s also for our benefit. So there’s a lot of gray. I mean, everything to do with honesty and dishonesty is just gray. I feel like there’s so little, that’s black and white. I mean, after writing about this, and reading about this and thinking about it all the time, more and more, I see that there’s, there’s not nearly as much black and white as I used to think. So those are kind of the two big ways that we can think about honesty or dishonesty, however you want to spin it. And so what’s interesting is that we think that we are way more honest than we are. We think that, you know, we would all probably say oh, well yeah, sure, sure. I do pro socialized but I probably don’t do a lot of lies, self interest. You know, I’m a pretty honest person. We think that We are more honest than we are. But, you know, there’s been a lot of there’s a ton of great research out there. Dan Ariely, behavioral scientist, has done a lot of research looking at this fudge factor that we have where we lie by by like 10%. We do it like a lot, and we justify it. And but yeah, we still think of ourselves as honest. There’s this cognitive dissonance that happens. And then with pro social lies, it’s hard to have a real discussion around honesty and deception because we really, we’re very stuck in thinking honesty, good deception bad. And that is often true, but it’s actually not always true. But we get very stuck in this way of thinking about it. So it’s hard to have like a really informed conversation about it because we got all these cliches like, again, honesty is the best policy you should always tell the truth, when really that erases so much complexity. 

Sasza Lohrey 

And it’s interesting because even when, you know with these expressions honesty is the best policy always be honest, I think we’re not even really paying attention to what we’re considering. Honesty or dishonesty, or, for example, leaving out information and where does that lie?

Judi Ketteler 

Yeah. And there’s there’s so many biases at work, you know, so one of the biases is the actor observer bias, where we judge other people far more harshly than we judge ourselves. In fact, we may not even notice that we’re engaging in the behavior but if we do notice that we justify it, and so it’s like that feeds into this thing of thinking. Everyone else is so dishonest.

Sasza Lohrey 

Right in I think that just brings us to the Question, concept or reality that some of the biggest lies or perhaps most frequent ones are the lies that we tell ourselves. And so really exploring, how is it different, you know, lying or leaving out truth, or telling a different version of the story? You know, how is that relationship to being honest, different with ourselves as it is with other people?

Judi Ketteler 

Sure. So you know about the honesty journal. It’s very low tech, I just opened a Google document and started writing down pretty much every honesty decision I was making throughout the day. So, you know, like conversations I would have with my kids, you know, I give the example of, you know, my kid you know, my daughter giving her a bath. And she was like, Mom, last year, did you kill the cat? When you when you said that you were put into sleep? Did you kill him? I mean, kids are so random. It’s just like these ideas they have pop out of I mean, I don’t even remember what the context was. And so, you know, in the past I don’t know what I would have said in the past something like, probably, why would you want to know that? Or, oh, he’s in kitty Heaven, or I would have brushed it off. And so I started to, like, give us explanation about you know, when animals that we love when they’re suffering and they’re in pain, you know, it’s the nicer, kinder, more loving thing to do to let them you know, release them from that pain. And yes, it’s, you know, I took him to the bed and that that gave him drugs that made him fall asleep and, and I really only got about halfway through the explanation, and I think she lost interest, you know, but it was an interesting experience to have to really engage was something that I didn’t want to do we think that it’s just going to be this awful thing. And so often we’re wrong. I mean, there’s research that shows that we miss predict what honesty will feel like, we feel like it’s going to be this, you know, terrible thing that’s gonna ruin all of our relationships and we’re going to lose friendship or lose respect or whatever. And in reality, it turns out to be very socially connecting. So I found that over and over again, when I took the time to just engage it wasn’t as bad as I thought, or the result wasn’t like this awful thing. It still was uncomfortable. 

Sasza Lohrey 

That part with the kids is just so interesting. And when I first started reading your work that definitely jumped out because there’s nobody who will kind of hold This up in front of your face to, you know, in in a better way and a way that kind of forces you to practice and I think a lot of times people are worried about is this age appropriate? You know what, at what age can you start talking about certain themes or that kind of stuff, but there are, as you mentioned, different ways to talk about it in a lighter or more detailed manner. But a lot of these big topics be you know, life, death, relationships, sex, whatnot has to do with themes of respect of power of, you know, valuing yourself, valuing others, and those things. There’s no age at which it’s too young to start teaching people about those themes. So to help people kind of think about it from from that way And let alone as you’ve mentioned in some of your work, you know, if you’re not taking the time to fill in these gaps, they’ll find information elsewhere and who knows, where it’ll be in what it’ll say. So really trying to take the opportunity to responsibly you know, take on that scary but extremely valuable lesson both for the child and for you know, the parent or the guardian.

Judi Ketteler 

Well, and it’s such a chance, especially these these conversations around sex with kids. You know, I would I, first of all, I was raised by you like two wonderful, wonderful parents. Very lucky how I was raised very, like high functioning family, you know, but we did not talk about sex like I think my mom would have But my dad, like he did not he was just like this kind of German stoic, like, we did not talk about it. And I was dumb. I mean, like, I didn’t know, like really basic things until probably sex education and seventh grade. I mean, I guess I knew some things from my friends or, but I just remember feeling like kind of stupid and ashamed. And so I, as a parent, I’ve been really determined to not do that like to just be very, very open about stuff. And one of the things that I learned Amy Lang, who is a sex educator and wrote a book, you know, what she said is that these conversations are such a chance to impart our values to kids. So, you know, for example, if you know your kid like, and one of my son is like, he’ll just ask I mean that I have a whole section in my book about the things that he’s asked me that I know people are going to read it and be like, I can’t even believe this, but like, believe it like it’s real, right? So like, you know, so the example that Amy Lang gives, and I can read you some of the examples of what like my son asked me, but what she says is like, let’s say a kid asks you what’s oral sex, instead of just saying, like, what do you want to know? Or don’t worry about that, or you’re too young, whatever. You say something like, you know, that’s the way that people like to be sexual without having to worry about getting pregnant. But it’s not for kids. It’s for later. Like, it’s, you know, simple explanations like that, where you’re also imparting some values. And there, it’s not just like conversations around sex, it’s conversations. So like, if your kid asks like, Mom, are you and dad going to get a divorce, instead of just saying like, no or why would you worry about that? Or of course not or whatever. You know, you could say, hopefully not, we love each other. We’re committed to working on our marriage. But you know what? Marriage only works about half the time. And people do get divorced and we shouldn’t judge them when they do. It’s just sometimes it doesn’t work out, but they still love their kids. Like it’s a chance to have this conversation that brings in values versus just this knee jerk thing. And I think that we miss that with uncomfortable topics, because we’re like, why is my kid asking me about a pimp? Why is my kid asking me what an orgasm is? How How can I answer you know? How can I answer this? And it’s, it’s uncomfortable, especially if you come from a family like I did where like, it wasn’t talked about, you know. Like in the Netherlands there they talk about sex from a very young age like it’s a very open society. They teach like kindergarten or some education like it’s a whole different world over there, right? Well, I didn’t grow up with that I grew up with like the day I do like you never said the word sex and so it’s still uncomfortable for me. But if I can just remember like, this is an opportunity to talk about values. If I can just get over my squeamishness at having to explain what an orgasm is. I can maybe get a message in there.

Sasza Lohrey 

Our first two episodes of the podcasts are with Peggy Orenstein, who is the author of girls and sex and more recently, boys and sex. And when we talk about in my conversation with her, we talked about the Netherlands and the difference between the US and there, and how you know, quote unquote, sex education there is taught from a basis of respect and what does it mean to have respect for yourself for others for their boundaries It’s taught from the perspective of pleasure and people having, you know, ownership of their pleasure, the right to pleasure, this kind of mutuality versus in the US when it’s kind of fear based, you know, quote, unquote, education, if you get any at all. And it’s about, you know, don’t get pregnant, don’t get STDs. It’s this scary concept. And it’s a completely different system and set of values that is being imparted. And so again, if we take the opportunity, like you mentioned, to teach values, and if we are talking about it from that healthy, positive perspective, that is actually teaching things much, you know, deeper and more important, using perhaps sex as an opportunity to do so. But those lessons go so much farther than sex are so much more You know, there’s so much bigger and more important, versus when we think about, you know, teaching about pregnancy or STDs. That’s kind of a totally different case. But when you mentioned orgasm, what is an orgasm? Would you also want your kid to, you know, be 25 and not know what that is and not, you know, understand if they’ve had one or not, or if it’s important with a partner that, you know, people are exploring what that means and how to, you know, how that can be a way to bring people together. And again, like you said, they’ll just fill in information otherwise via YouTube or conversations with friends, which, although many times are perhaps, you know, well intentioned or filled with lots of misinformation. So it’s just a really interesting thing.

Judi Ketteler  

And the one thing I learned is that you can always say, you know, it’s not for kids, it’s like, you can always just kind of give this explanation and then you just say it’s not for kids. It’s for it’s, you know, at some point in your life, it’s a wonderful thing. You’re going to enjoy it. It’s not kids. So yeah, it’s, I recognize they’re not easy conversations, especially when you grew up Catholic like I did. And so there’s all kinds of baggage around it, but but they’re important conversations.

Sasza Lohrey 

Exactly. And even that alone, even if you don’t talk about it, saying, you know, that’s not something that is to be taken lightly. That’s something that’s, you know, very important or serious or something like that. And even with just that you’re not trivializing it, you’re at least explaining to them that it’s a big or serious topic. You know, not to not to be taken lightly, which I think in and of itself can be very valid. Dude, speaking of kids, and you know, trying to teach kids, as you’re learning yourself about honesty, dishonesty, do you think? How much do you think is inherent, versus kind of taught or influenced in terms of how we are and what our default state is as humans?

Judi Ketteler 

You know, we think that children grow out of lying, because you know, little kids, like just lie. They don’t even know they’re lying. They just say all kinds of crazy things, right. So we think that kids grow out of lying. Really, they grow into lying. So little kids are not very convincing liars at all right? grade school, middle school kids, they’re, they’re getting better. They can be pretty convincing. High School in college kids are amazingly convincing liars. Like they learn how to do it and they learn how to do it by watching us. So I think a huge part of it is learned. Of course, I think that there’s personality. I think that there’s like defaults about us that are genetic. And I mean, of course, that’s all part of it, too. But there is a big part that so a great example is my son, we were going for his yearly checkup. And he was like, Mom, when she asks me how much screen how many hours I watch screens, I’m gonna tell her the truth. You always lie. And so at first, I was like, you little shit, like, I’m like, oh, but then I was like, wait a minute, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity. And I was like, You’re right. I do I weigh underestimate it. And I was like, but do you know why I do that? And he’s like, you know, cuz it’s bad to be on screens and I’m like, no, it’s what Maybe I’m like, but it’s more because I feel guilty. Like, like, I’m not being a good mom, because there’s all this these experts who say that screens too much screens are bad. And I feel like I’m not being good mom and I feel guilty and like, I’m gonna be judged for it. And then I said, like, do you ever have times where you feel judged, you know? And he’s like, yeah, like my, when I do bad things when you know, when I’m bad. I’m like, well, like, it was such a great opportunity to talk about, like, the difference between behavior and the essence of who we are. Like, yes, you might do something like you might make a decision that’s not so great. But it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. Like it turned into this conversation that we had about the difference between like, what you do and who you are that, you know, I never would have had with him. Had I not engaged in this conversation about lying like it was this chance to say like, Yes, I do. I did lie to the doctor. And this is why I did it. And like thank you for pointing it out and I shouldn’t do it. And this is why I did it. What Now tell me like, when do you ever feel like this, but we miss those opportunities so much, and our, you know, so not only do our kids like see us engaging and all this small scale, silly deception, then they learn to do it. And then we also miss the opportunity to have a really interesting conversation around it. So I’m a big believer like I do tell my kids now like, if you see me lying, you can call me out, like, maybe don’t embarrass me, don’t do it in front of like, whatever. But once we’re back home or in the car or whatever, you can ask me about it, like call me out on it. And so I’ve really told them like, this is you you call me out on it, because maybe there’s a really good reason why and it would be a good thing for me to explain to you or maybe I need to be called out on it because it was silly and I shouldn’t have done it and You know, but you know, we don’t, by large want to do that. Because it’s, you know, it’s hard. 

Sasza Lohrey 

Right? It does just sound like it leads to so many interesting conversations and very cool and dynamic and deeper opportunities to talk and connect with, particularly children in a different way. And so I’d love to just hear about how you think that can change your relationship with with kids and then how can exploring this, then change your relationship with yourself. If you really kind of put in the work, examine things hold up that mirror to look at, you know, your own hypocrisy or judgments and kind of break down the barriers that might have You know, filter, not only the things we’re telling other people and ourselves, but you know, distort our reality and perceptions of ourselves. And so I’d love to just hear about how you think this can change our relationships with ourselves.

Judi Ketteler  

Yeah. So you know, with the kids, I mean, my kids are they’re nine and 11 now and so everything I say I say with the caveat that I don’t have teenagers yet, so I don’t even know what it’s like to parent teenagers. But I know what it’s like to parent Middle School, you know, grade school kids, and so I feel like I only have they’re only going to come to me for a little while longer. Like I only have this space of influence. I don’t have it much longer like I’m already losing it. I’m already losing it like to fortnight, right, like especially right now because all they’re doing is on screens. That’s, that’s their world right now with, you know, staying at home with the pandemic, so I only have them a little bit longer. And so I really want to make the best use possible. So if they’re going to come to me to ask questions or just conversations or whatever, I want to make sure that those are the best interactions possible, you know, and that we are engaging with these issues, these values that I feel are important, because by the time they’re teenagers, I don’t know what kind of influence I’m gonna have, you know, so I just want to make sure that I use what I have now. 

Sasza Lohrey  

And there’s also you know, you might lose that sphere of influence, or trust or being, you know, somebody to come find in. Were you not doing this work and having this relationship where they do feel like if they go to To you, they can get answers or truth or whatnot, it seems as though it would also make it easier to perhaps lose that contacting relationship sooner. You know, if you did brush off more things or hide more information, etc.

Judi Ketteler 

Yeah, I mean, so I’m a believer in like, having these kinds of conversations now, you know, I’m hoping will pay off later. I mean, so it’s related, not the same thing. But one of the reasons why, you know, I let my kids have Instagram is because I can do it with them. And I can, like, teach them about social media and, and, like, say to them things like, why do you think there’s a picture of you know, a woman in a bikini here? Well, it’s someone’s making money off of this. You know, like, I Instead of just being like, Oh my God, oh, women can’t see this, like, let’s have a conversation around who’s making Who do you think is making money off of this, you know, so like I can have, it’s up to me, I look at it as this is a chance to teach them because this is their world. It’s not going anywhere. So I can wait until they’re 15 or something or I can, like, do this work now, while they’re still listening to me. And hopefully, when they’re older, they’ll remember it. Because we’ve already had conversations. I mean, maybe I’m completely wrong and whatever. I wrote a piece about doing Instagram with my nine year old for the New York Times. And 350 people told me that I was a terrible, terrible, terrible mother like the worst person in the world. Like, they said things like Judy Kettler, you are a bad person. You are making a mistake. You are a terrible mother. Your child is going to wind up addicted to drugs. I mean, they said all these awful things, but I still stand by it is like, hey, I want to be if I can be involved right now, and do it with them. Why would I waste that? Because once they’re older, they’re not gonna be listening to me very much. I mean, then it’s all threats, then it’s just like, if you don’t do this, you’re gonna lose your phone, if you don’t, whatever. It’s all threats and fear. But right now, I’m still kind of like their pal. And we can do it together. So I look at like, I’m going to use what I have right now. And hopefully, when they are older, they’ll remember some of that because it’s too late to start that.

Sasza Lohrey  

And So in those reflections. Well, first of all, speaking of the relationship of honesty, dishonesty with kind of those other feelings, you mentioned, I had a line written down from one of your other interviews that honesty is messy and is tangled up with so many other things like shame, guilt, etc. and So recognizing, you know the motivations behind it, which is kind of I think another level if people choose to do this honesty journal, you can keep track of things you catch yourself on. But then beyond that, taking the time to really think about, well, what was that motivated by? Was it kind of for own benefit? Was it trying to be kinder to another person and not wanting to hurt their feelings? Was it shame, guilt, etc. But how does not only you know, recognizing those judgments and and kind of the hypocrisy, but how does it change our relationship with ourselves?

Judi Ketteler 

It made me like one of the things I’m much more able to do now. Especially in my marriage is let go of things for me at least it frees up the space that I was like putting all of this into this like judgment and anger and you know, it just kind of just freed it up like I’m just not doing that as much anymore and I don’t know if it’s because doing all this work has made me see that I’m not nearly as perfect as I think or like that I’ve got like, I don’t know exactly what it is if maybe you know, there’s lots of different ways to get to this lots of different kind of self development work to get to it but for me doing all this work, it just made me feel more just lighter, you know, more and more aligned with like not having to keep track of what stories Am I saying and what am I you know, what am I saying? I’m saying this but I really feel this way like just not having to keep track of all that anymore. Just is freeing so I would say I’m just I feel more aligned less kind of weighed down by all of these narratives. That’s more the kind of the benefit that I see like the real tangible benefit that I see in my relationships and conversations with people. 

Sasza Lohrey 

Yeah. And having that kind of ownership of, of your actions and your thoughts and a better understanding of it. That does sound liberating. How complicated is honesty and how blurry is the line between honesty and dishonesty. I just had so many thoughts thinking about the relationship between this and so many other things, you know, even just in terms of being optimistic versus a real versus pessimistic, you know, how much honesty is involved in each one or being, you know, like setting goals with ourselves, you know, how honest Are we being or, again, protecting other people and trying to be kinder in certain contexts or those, you know, different kinds of lies, there are just so many different nuances and angles and layers to all of this.

Judi Ketteler 

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, with in marriage or you know, when I say marriage, I just mean kind of any, like long term committed thing, whether or not people are really married, whether it’s heterosexual, same sex kind of just, marriage is just the easiest shortcut for all of that. You know, when when you look up honesty in marriage, like if you Google it, for example, because I did this most of what you see is about infidelity. And it’s kind of like statistics about it which are not accurate in any way or it’s, you know, blogs about it or religious articles about it. The conversation around honesty and marriage, it’s very To me it feels very one dimensional, like, honesty is one of the most important values in marriage. And like that is supposed to tell us anything, like what is, but what does that mean? And so I think a person who actually does a wonderful job of complicating it is Esther Perel. So she’s written a couple books. She has a podcast, which I love listening to, because she really says like, No, no, we can’t just say that like, what what does this mean? And so, you know, for me, I of course wanted to think of myself as an honest person and as being honest, in my marriage, but yet I was keeping all kinds of things from my husband mostly just kind of my own feelings. And then trying to figure out how to be honest about that. There’s so much fear bound up in it because we’re so afraid of what, what we might lose like if I am honest about you know, so for me, I was having an emotional affair with someone, which went on for kind of waxed and waned, but it went on for about four years. And while my husband and I had some conversations around that, especially early on, I never knew like until the moment where I was like, completely honest with him about it. There was never a specific reason to be honest. Like I didn’t know what would the point of being honest be right now because I don’t, I don’t want to get divorced. I don’t want like, Why? What is my end goal of honesty? And so I think, you know, I finally came to this point where I was like, well, I can’t live this, like the end goal is that I can’t, I’m going to go I’m going to lose my mind. Like, I can’t live this way anymore. Like we’ve got to have this conversation and figure out what we’re going to do. So I think, you know, one of my principles, the book, I have these 10 or 11 principles, and so one of the principles the one that applies most specifically to marriage, although it could also apply to friendship or family is when you love someone honesty is about sharing with a loving purpose. So it’s not just about saying whatever or confessing something because you feel bad. It’s about sharing something. So not just confessing but sharing something with Loving purpose. So it’s coming from a place of love not hurt saying something to make someone angry. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to love what you say. But it’s coming from a place of love and so this was kind of a thing that I came to more as I was mean I came to like I was pretty much writing about this as I was living it, which is always an interesting thing when you’re like writing about something and living it because Are you writing? Are you making reality with what you’re writing? Are you writing down the reality of it? I don’t know. It’s like a weird thing, I think but. But this was something that as I was like living this and writing this, I was like realizing that it isn’t just about like, saying whatever, or just being honest for the sake of being honest because why, like, what is that? It’s not about honesty. It’s about like the What it means in the relationship?

Sasza Lohrey  

What was your process of becoming honest with yourself in that span of four years?

Judi Ketteler 

You know, it’s interesting because I have so much distance from it now and it feels like such a different part of my life even though it wasn’t that long ago, because I’m not wrapped up in it. Now I can, I can look at it a little bit more. I don’t know if objectively is the right way, but like, I’m not caught it anymore and move. Right. Right. And so I mean, I see that I was not I mean, I was being honest. I thought I was being honest with myself. So you know, I would say like to myself and sometimes even to my husband, like, you know, you’re not like you’re not being emotionally supportive, like, you know, I, I know that when we got married, we kind of had this agreement. Like, we need to take care of ourselves and, like, you know, I’m kind of a emotional Swiss Army knife like that’s what I would think of myself as like I don’t need no one needs to take care of me like I’m independent I don’t need anyone to take care of me like that’s really what attracted I think him to me and really why we why we fell in love and but I would say to him, like, but I’m, I’ve evolved I’m different I have different needs now I’m, you know, I, I need this emotional support. I you know, and I find it in this other person. And so it was it was very much a conversation like in my head. And when we did have the conversation, it was always about kind of like, what he wasn’t doing. So it’s like, this is what’s lacking, and it’s your fault. And it wasn’t until I really dove in. Like, let me look at the situation more honestly that I saw. In fact, I had a role to like I always knew I had a role like, I’m not a moron. Obviously, I know a relationship is two people. But I didn’t see all of the conversations happening inside of our conversations are like a book that is fantastic. It’s called difficult conversations. And it’s by some three different three authors, the Harvard negotiation project. It’s not about marriage at all. But it’s really all about marriage, because it’s, it teases out these conversations that are happening inside of all these conversations, and it wasn’t until I really took a step back and looked at like, you know, what are all the ways in which I’m failing? It’s not just about how he’s failing me, but all the ways in which I’m failing him and not because either one of us are bad People that because of, you know, these experiences and these histories that we came to the expectations that we came to the marriage with, like I always said that I was really low maintenance like that’s one of my favorite things like to say, I’m so low maintenance, I don’t need all that emotional shit and all other women need. So that was like my narrative and I really wanted to hold on to that narrative because it was such a key part of my identity, but I really I had to let it go and realize it. In fact, I was very high maintenance emotionally, but that that was okay. So I think that until I until I really did a lot of this, like, all of the stuff around honesty that I was applying to the outside world until I brought it inside to my relationship with my husband. I didn’t really see it. I didn’t see all the ways in which I was being not exactly dishonest, but just saying Telling incomplete information like just focusing like selective truth focusing on the part that made me look like the one who was being wronged and Him be the one who was lacking in all these ways and of course that justify my behavior like it’s all about again, justification.

Sasza Lohrey 

Right. And so just as as we get ready to close out, I would love to just come back to you know, how complicated is this theme how blurry are the lines between honesty and dishonesty. And you know, when is honesty that the best policy when is that kind of in between space of leaving out information or not going out of your way to overshare or, you know, even as going as far as compassionate whitening Lies if and when Are those the best policy and so you had mentioned before and in that story with your sister I saw kind of, you know truth when it is coming from a place of love and not meant to be hurtful and being sure that that is incorporated into things but I’d love to kind of and having you really reiterate, reiterate the complexity of all of this. And then in terms of leaving our listeners with some actionable advice and perhaps a bit more clarity in terms of you know, when do we apply this within this deep, deep complexity, how can we know when certain things are are not appropriate or the best policy for that circumstance or relationship etc.

Judi Ketteler 

Sure. So it is complex for sure. I wrote a whole book about it. And sometimes I still think it’s there’s, you know, five more books I could probably write. I mean, it’s it is it’s very complex. But that is not a reason to not engage with it. You know. So the cool thing about if this is a project you want to take on, like, I want to work on my honest, you know, the same way you think I want to work on being more vulnerable, or I want to work on being more, you know, running three times a week or whatever, you take the same approach to this, I want to work on paying attention to my honesty. One thing I advise people to do is to tell people around you that you’re doing this work, because first of all, it kind of gives you a little bit of a like thing where if you do have to maybe deliver some uncomfortable honesty, you can say, Well, you know, I’m working on being more honest, like It kind of is this little bit of a buffer. And also, people. It’s interesting, like, that’s not a thing that everyone’s Well, I mean, everyone’s like, Oh, I’m walking, I want to lose 10 pounds. Like we hear these things all the time, right? These self improvement things, not that many people are walking around saying, I’m working on being more honest, like so it catches people like they pay attention. And then it kind of rubs off on them. And then they start to think of you as the person focused on honesty. And I know this because this is what happened in my life. Once I started having conversations about it with people. People started linking me this is even before I wrote the book, people started linking me with like, honesty, you know, and so it’s, I think it can have this, this ripple effect, but it also kind of keeps you a little bit accountable. So I really advise it like you tell people like your inner circle of people like I’m focused on paying attention to my honesty, because it can be helpful. But yes, it is. It’s it is. It’s difficult work, but you just take it. I mean, it’s one day at a time, you just start by paying attention. Just start by paying attention. Don’t you don’t need to judge like, be careful about judging yourself too much your first project is just to pay attention and even in the paying attention, because research shows that when you’re reminded to be honest about something, you probably will be more honest. So that’s a way to kind of like curb that fudge factor a little bit. If you’re just focusing on pay on being more honest, you probably will be. So probably will just just the focus alone will probably make you more honest. And then just take it really, one day at a time and write it down and just start noticing and, you know, start seeing patterns. Pay attention, not just to the actually what you said or did but what you were thinking. Thinking, like the thoughts that you have throughout the day that come up around honesty or truthfulness or, you know, whatever. So just, it’s really just, the project is really about paying attention, paying attention to your honesty choices, which would probably make you more honest. But it will also make you notice the reasons why you might choose to deceive in a certain situation, which doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do. It might be, it might not be the best thing, but you’ll never even get to that if you don’t pay attention. Once you start paying attention, you can see Well, actually, that wasn’t really a lie of kindness that was a self serving lie. Whereas another situation, you know, you might say, that was a lie of kindness. That was a lie. You know, I mean, lies save lives, right? I mean, there’s, I mean, the most extreme example is, you know, in Nazi Germany You know, Germans who hid Jewish people in their crawl spaces, right? I mean, lives save lives. So they’re not all lies are bad. But you’ll never even get to understanding any of that if you don’t pay attention to it.

Sasza Lohrey 

That kind of lies, save lives is just so interesting and brings a whole other layer into it because at first my head went to, you know, optimism and telling ourselves we can get through something even when we don’t really know let alone protecting other people. Not even with you know, keeping information from them, etc, but a third party and protecting ourselves in in others with that, you know, love and compassion and coming from that place versus anything selfish, etc. Well, I would invite artists listeners to, you know, take the time and effort to start to notice things about ourselves about other people. And as always, to continue to question everything via our you know, behavior, our behaviors, actions or reactions to things and to always be trying to better understand ourselves through different lenses in different perspectives. And to not only give ourselves that space we talked about, but to begin to create that space for honesty for growth and evolution, and hopefully as a result for a deeper connection with ourselves and with others. So thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing. Not only this information but all of your personal experiences from your marriage and family. Shift to that with your children. And hopefully we’ll be I’ll be looking at some more of those conversations you’ve had with your son as you’re entertained. Yes, it says, Yeah, I could see us having a whole conversation or we just like to do a read along and you just share I can’t even imagine how many parents would love that. So we might have to explore.

Judi Ketteler  

Yeah, yeah, I and I had second thoughts about like, oh, man, should I really put all this in here? Because at some point, like, you know, he’s Could this be embarrassing to him, but later on later on, I don’t know. I just know you do the best you can. And yeah, but yeah, it’s, it’s definitely it’s a it’s worth worth a read just for the shock value.

Sasza Lohrey 

Amazing. Thank you.