Honesty Charter Introduction

Hi Everyone
Below you will find a copy of The Honesty Charter, which is patterned after the Earth Charter (www.earthcharter.com). It was drawn up in February 2008 at a gathering of thought leaders in The Honesty Movement at a 2-day Truth Summit held in Sebastopol, CA. Thought leaders present included: Brad Blanton (author of Radical Honesty and other titles), Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda (co-author of Spontaneous Evolution and other titles,) Peter Phillips (co-founder of Project Censored and co-author of Censored 2010 and other titles), Kenn Burrows (faculty at San Francisco State University), Aftab Omer (Co-Founder and President of Institute for Imaginal Studies), Taber Shadburne (Certified Radical Honesty Trainer and Founder of the Church of Soul), Liam Kirsher (Group Facilitator, Activist, Consultant), and me, Susan Campbell (author of Getting Real and other titles).

If the tone and content of this document appeal to you, please become part of this movement. To do this send a blank email with “subscribe” in the subject to truthsummit-subscribe@yahoogroups.com There will be further instructions at the end of the document as to how to add your voice to the growing number of people all over the world who stand for a new culture and a new consciousness founded on principles of self-awareness, honesty, transparency, compassion, and responsibility.

The truth summit yahoo group discussion list allows you to offer comments and suggestions or start your own thread. We welcome all feedback in the interest of mutual learning.

Susan Campbell
www.susancampbell.com
http://realselfconfidence.blogspot.com/
http://honestycharter.blogspot.com/

The Honesty Charter
Healthy communication for a healthy world.

We are the Honesty Movement, and we invite you to add your voice and join with us in making the world a more honest place—where differences can be openly explored and learned from rather than denied, hidden, or avoided. At this point, we are an ever-growing network of thought leaders, activists, authors, seminar leaders, spiritual teachers, truth-seekers, networkers, and peacemakers who stand for honesty, transparency, deep listening, mutual learning, and mutual benefit in all our communications. We believe that a healthy world depends on healthy communication processes. “The process” is our product. We also believe that consciousness evolves more rapidly in a world where: (1) everyone feels empowered to speak the truth of their own experience and has the awareness and skill to do this; and (2) people have the ability to listen openly to viewpoints that differ from their own.

We believe that the current world situation demands greater participation by all of us to solve the problems of over-population, war, over-consumption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and degradation of our eco-systems. For too long we have let materialism, greed, and corporatism dictate what we buy, how we spend our time, how we think, what we dare let ourselves think, and how we treat one another. It’s time to take back the power that we have projected onto those in positions of power and discover the fun and growth that can come from meeting with others to create a world that works for everyone and every form of life.

We believe that social activism /work for social change go hand in hand with personal growth/personal evolution of consciousness. When we become more spiritually aware, we naturally feel an impulse to serve and participate in this world, this Life, that we are part of. We feel called to take action on behalf of “the good of the whole.” Likewise, as activists, we discover that our actions are effective only to the extent that they arise out of the truth of our authentic, aware experience.

We believe that the health of a human system depends on free-flowing feedback among and between all parts of that system—whether it be an individual, a couple, a family, a community group, an organization, a nation, or a planet. When information flows freely—without secrecy, defensiveness, or censorship—an organism or system has what it needs to correct the imbalances that lead to dysfunction, denial, and domination.

We believe that most humans in industrialized nations are alienated from Nature to one degree or another and out of touch with their true needs due to the experience of having been raised in a culture that rewards and values material success, avoidance of unpleasant feelings, looking good/attractive packaging, and feeling “in control” over honesty, presence, health, and love. Industrialized civilization comes with a set of premises and requirements that are anathema to the genuine needs of humans and other life forms. We agree with David Korten, author of The Great Turning, who states: “Turning away from corporatism is the key to the survival of humankind. (Civilization is and always has been, fundamentally fascist, top down managed economic and military control, including murder, rape, torture, genocide, etc. for the sake of profit.)”

Responsible, self-aware, honest communication helps human systems overcome our denial about how much damage we have already done and allowed to be done to this beautiful world we share. When we see our situation clearly, without projecting blame, we are moved to take responsibility for what we have allowed to happen.

We believe that skillful honest communication between conflicting parties can perhaps help us overcome our sense of separateness and realize our interdependence because when differences in needs, values or views are talked about face-to-face rather than being “thought about, imagined about, and feared about,” these differences become more manageable and less scary.

We invite you to join the growing numbers in this movement to help make our world a safer, more compassionate, conscious, and responsible place.

The first action to be taken, if you choose to join us, is to add your name and your own personal statement after reading this document. Instructions on how to do this are at the end of this document. Your statement can be anything about you, your personal commitment to honest communication, or what you are currently doing to further the cause of honesty in the world. Our hope is to become a movement that can be a real positive force in the world. This movement is linked to a world-wide movement to create a more just and sustainable world through grass-roots dialogue and democratic processes. As more and more people are drawn to honest self-expression and problem-solving about things that really matter, we will witness an awakening of human consciousness that brings into reality the familiar phrase, “the truth will set you free.” We envision a world where every person alive becomes free of the conditioned fears and patterned ways of thinking that keep them feeling afraid to see what is really going on and powerless to do anything about it.

We are currently hosting a series of free conversations with “thought leaders in The Honesty Movement” that occur via telephone conference calls and internet podcasts. If you wish to be notified about upcoming events of this kind, send a blank email with subscribe in the subject line to truthsummit-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

In the future, we will be offering web-based conferences where our members can meet in small groups on specific topics of interest.

Values that we believe support the cause of honesty

-We support the Earth Charter Principles. See www.earthcharter.com. We believe that Honesty is the cornerstone of any personal or cultural change because you must be honest about your current situation before you can hope to change it.

-We value communication that fosters mutual transparency and mutual influence, that is, a genuine interest in the other’s viewpoint, a willingness to be open about one’s own viewpoint, and a willingness by both parties to be influenced by one another. Mutual influence means parties are open to and continually seeking new information vs only attending to information that supports their present position. We believe that this sort of communication fosters trust and respect for differences.

-We value communication that fosters the willingness to be surprised, stretched, and challenged over communication that seeks to control the outcome and/or stay within one’s familiar comfort zone. We believe that this sort of communication fosters the ability to adapt to change, learn from experience, or in a word, to evolve.

-We value having agreed-upon mechanisms (in groups and relationships) for resolving conflicts and clearing the air. We believe this sort of communication takes account of the fact that most people have been conditioned to avoid conflict (which often includes avoiding and mistrusting people whose views are very different from one’s own).

-We value communication that seeks to empathize with people who seem to operate at a different level than ourselves in terms of their “oneness quotient,” that is, their capacity to experientially feel their interdependence with all of life and their ability to take action in the spirit of mutual benefit. People with a lower “oneness quotient,” may exhibit rhetoric and/or behavior that results in efforts to dominate or overpower others. We believe that one’s “truth” is somewhat dependent upon one’s “oneness quotient” as well as upon one’s state of presence (i.e the degree to which our in-the-moment perceptions are filtered through our emotional unfinished business.)

-We believe that honesty about what you are feeling in the moment (which includes allowing yourself to feel it for a bit of time) leads to healing because it opens the way for feeling long-buried painful emotions that need to be attended to so they can be felt, completed, and healed.

- We value giving and receiving honest feedback rooted in one's actual experience vs feedback that is interpretive or judgmental.

-We believe that the overall measure of valid information in a system is increased when we speak honestly in group and community settings where feedback and is valued and encouraged.

-We value speaking up about a perception or a feeling, in the interest of transparency--even if we fear this perception or feeling is off base. We have often observed that when a feeling or thought is expressed, thus being given more attention or more "light," what seemed to be true is now seen more fully or with more perspective. It's like after we speak about something that was bothering us, it doesn't bother us the way it did before.


Basic Premises and Assumptions of The Honesty Movement:

1. A healthy system (person, family, organization, nation, planet, eco-system) depends on valid, open, free-flowing communication/feedback between all sub-parts of the system. This requires honest communication and genuine caring about how one’s actions affect others. A system that is balanced, i.e. where all parts are aware and accepting of one another, and where all parts listen to one another, will operate at its maximum potential.
2. Some sub-parts of our planetary system cannot speak up for themselves because they are non-human. This means some of us need to speak on behalf of “Nature.”
3. Most humans in industrialized nations are alienated from nature to one degree or another and out of touch with their true needs as human beings due to the experience of having been raised in a culture that rewards and values material success, avoidance of unpleasant feelings, looking good/attractive packaging, and feeling “in control” over honesty, presence, health, and love.
4. Responsible, self-aware, honest communication helps human systems overcome the sense of separateness and realize their interdependence because when differences in needs, values or views are talked about rather than being “thought about, imagined about, and feared about,” these differences become more manageable and less scary.

5. Shared intention has power.

6. Honest talking and deep listening lead to better solutions than any
single person could arrive at.

In addition to the basic premises noted above, we also hold the following values:

1. We value communication that encourages a willingness to be surprised, stretched, and challenged over communication that seeks to control the outcome and/or stay within one’s familiar comfort zone.
2. We value the ability to change one’s mind based on new information vs sticking to one’s position.
3. We value having agreed-upon mechanisms for “clearing the air” vs expecting that people will naturally speak up when they have something to say.
4. We value communication that includes the understanding that any person’s “truth”is somewhat dependent on their level of consciousness and their state of presence (e.g. whether their perceptions are filtered through their emotional unfinished business.) Thus, there is a wide spectrum in peoples’ capacities to take in and process “what’s really out there” and “what’s going on in here.”
5. We believe that the overall measure of valid information in a system is increased when people speak honestly in group and community settings where feedback and is valued and encouraged.
6. Feedback is how people learn from experience. The better mechanisms groups have for giving and receiving feedback, and for clearing unfinished business, the faster that group or system will evolve.
7. We believe that people and groups tell lies or keep secrets mainly in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of their communications—to avoid resistance, to avoid being seen as selfish, bad, or wrong. If a person or group’s motives go against the interests of “the other,” the motive to lie will be strong.
8. Therefore, honest feedback and mutual benefit are the foundational values of the Honesty Movement.

How to Join

To join the movement so you can be informed of future events or post your own web-based events, email your name, location, personal introduction, comments, and email/web address to Truthsummit@yahoogroups.com. (First you will need to subscribe by sending a blank email with subscribe in the subject to truthsummit-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)