The Moth Presents Starlee Kine: Radical Honesty

please welcome to the stage Starly kind I am writing a book about the self-help industry and I've been writing it for a while and the original the point of the book is that I kind of go to different seminars and workshops and I try to have them fix very specific problems in my life which are numerous and actually they're getting more numerous like the longer I write the book to the point where the book itself has become my biggest problem and it's just become this horrible albatross and I'm never going to get out or get fixed and at the longer I've written his book the more self-help begins to kind of show itself everywhere like I never was into self-help before and then it just kind of started to pop out and the boyfriend I was a dating when I started writing this book turned out to be kind of a secret self-help junkie like I thought he was just like tall and skinny and had like shiny hair but he was like a self-help fanatic and he used to when we woke up he would he would he would find a shaft of sunlight to sit in like and like a cat like he would kind of chase the sunlight and wherever it was he would sit in it and then I later read the power of now by Eckhart Tolle and it tells you to find a shaft of sunlight and sit in it every day so my boyfriend was like following Eckhart Tolle A's weird sunlight advice and finding it and then he ended up using the power of now to break up with me so like it had turned against me and like when you broke up with me I remember being like but this morning we had to do a good time and we ate breakfast and what about that and he told me that I didn't live in the moment enough and I had to stop dwelling on the past and and as ridiculous as I find that there is a tendency I have to kind of you know in bad situations like kind of I'm not a positive person I'm very negative but I do tend to like hold on for dear life to any good moment and try to make them work not like not in a positive way but like in a backward survival way and I told him I've actually I it I've actually never broken up with anyone myself I always get dumped like every single time and when he was dumping me I was just like crying and saying like why do I always get left why am I the one who always gets left and he just looked at me and was so confused and he was like because you never leave first and this same boyfriend ended up he told me before we broke up about this guy named Brad Lampton who made something called radical honesty that my boyfriend was really into and there's books and there's also like these seminars that you can go to that are eight days long and the idea of Bradford he's going to cure us of like our addiction to lying and I did like the idea of being radically honest because I kind of feel like I am radically honest but to me I just thought it was always I'm just inappropriate like chronically inappropriate and I just can't tell I can't lie even when it's going to save me like I even went would do me good like this same boyfriend we broke up and like 2 months later I saw him on the subway and he told ask me how I was doing and I was like awful you meant everything to me I'm a wreck without you and like obviously I was supposed to be like I am doing awesome and I have so many boyfriends now and I've never who are you I don't even know you are to be met but instead I just like told him like pathologically told him the truth so then after we broke up I was like I should go to radical honesty and at the very least it would kind of be like a nice vacation where there's other inappropriate people and we're walking around no one's rolling their eyes at me or sighing or getting mad at me and writing passive-aggressive notes to me and so I I found Brad Blanton's email and I emailed him and I was like can you squeeze me into your you know your September session is there any room for me and he said yes he wrote me back for my switzerland or something and he was like yes and I'll even give you a journalist discount instead of $2,700 you can only pay $2,000 and I was like score awesome I'm and I booked a flight to Washington Dulles Airport where Brad's assistant Jerry picked me up with Brad's like number-one fan this woman named Anne who'd been 35 times to these seminars and the two of them picked me up and they like immediately just wanted to like ask me all these questions and be super Sterry and touchy-feely to me and I have kind of this love-hate relationship to attention like certain kind of attention this kind of attention I love this is great but I don't like it when it's one-on-one and when it's looking at me too much and wants to ask me lots of questions and I've just gotten off a plane and I want to just like stare out the window and not talk to anybody and they just had all these like questions for me and I just was very grumpy and then I thought they would kind of like that because I thought it was radically honest but they didn't like it and I didn't like me and I kind of learned a little click to get with each other and like I was clearly like not very popular in that card I was just very confused about what kind of radically honest I was supposed to be and then we word also driving for ever like ever I couldn't believe how long we were in the car like the public the radio station kept changing hipping staticky and going to a new thing and we left we ended up driving to Virginia to this little town Stanley Virginia population thirteen hundred and seventy-nine and we pulled up this driveway and that's when I realized that radical honesty headquarters that I just paid two thousand dollars to attend with actually Brad Blanton's house like his house where he lives and not like my dentist works out of his house in Orange County California but it's like there's a dental chair and masks and you know fillings and stuff and his it's not like his TV in bed or not in there like it's a separate part but radical honesty was like in his house like there was no separation like the bathroom I use with Brad bathroom and there was like like dental floss and like rubber bands with like hair on them and grime in there and like I had a stain his kid's room and he was right down the hall and everyone else was kind of like sleeping on sleeping bags and it was like it was no order or structured definitely no room service and I I my room at least had TV and I like immediately like an old TV and I like immediately found the channel that plays law and order all the time and just kind of put it on that and then I went downstairs I was like I'll guess I'll try it I got a you know go be radically honest and I went downstairs and I met Brad and he just was disgusting like he was horrible honestly he was horrible like if he was like a cartoon character version himself he'd be a toad like absolutely like his face was all like mouth was all wide and he had no shirt on half the time and he was barefoot and he gave me a huge clammy hug and he told me he's really happy to meet me and he like led me into the living room and told me we should all get acquainted and there are only seven other people in the living room including Jerry and Ann and every single person there had been to radical honesty seminar before I was just get acquainted with Starly these people knew each other and like it seemed to like live in Brad's house almost one of them actually had a good Ted in his yard and so it was just like me there hanging out and we sat down and Brad was like the first thing the first rule radical honesty is you have to like tell everyone who you really are so we had to go around and say like our name our job what we made like how much money we made because he was all like people hate talking about money I had to do that and then crafty Brad always throwing the zingers at us and then we had to say a secret and so we slowly went around the room I'm like the first guy was kind of this outsider therapist and he said he hadn't paid taxes in 10 years and then another guy said that he'd murdered a man he like murdered like really like he was in a truck with his man and like punched his in the head and then threw him out the window and the guy was dead and then another car came and ran him over and then he didn't get go to jail and he like never told anybody except for these people which is like confessing to murder and then Brad was like next great and then and so then and he went to an and and the number one fan and she was like I don't know my secrets are so boring she's like I guess I can talk again about having sex with my cat on a regular basis and I was just like and honestly I'm such I know I'm not a very good journalist because I didn't like do any follow up questions I didn't ask logistically how it was possible and like who did what to who and why you would do that in the weather there'd be like peanut butter involved or getting asked anything and this and then the man who the murderer like looked really put out that hit that she maybe was trumping his and he like raised his hand again and he was like also I've totally felt up my cat and like it was just like just crazy things and then it got to me and like the spotlight was on me and I was like sitting there in the couch and I was like well I totally sometimes buy stuff that aren't on sale and I like shop too much in times I'll be meeting him for coffee and I'll say that the train broke down but actually because I went into the store and bought a dress and they there was like silence they're just like and they just like who I was the Freak like totally that didn't matter if anyone else said they were just like who is this girl who's like not honest with her feelings and also covering things up and has always boring problems and Brad just looked at me and he was like Starly what is wrong with you and I was just like it was not even anyone to like gesture to like no one like I didn't matter the murder and the cat they were just like they were just like he's like what is wrong with you sterling and I was like nothing I'm fine and he was like I want you to sign he pulled out this contract and he's like Starly you clearly are too in your head like you think too much and he's like it's so in order to relieve you of that I need you to sign this contract that says you will do whatever I tell you for the next eight days and I was like no I will not already I'm saying no and he was like and then he just like had the contract and he looked around the room and he couldn't believe me and then he just he just stared at me and was like you I resent you for defying me and again it was like this like I couldn't there was no one to like make connection like eye contact what I was looking and I was just like what did you just call me a and he was like you cut I resent you for getting mad at me for calling you a and it was like the jersey thing and then I was like what are you talking about and he told me he was at war with my mind and I was like I like my mind and he's like you I resent you for liking your mind and it just turned into this crazy thing or he just kept telling me to off and I was just sitting there and I really think it's because I know one because I just heard about the cat and the murder and the cat again and like no one was active and it's like within minutes I totally turned into like a cult member and I was just like okay and like I thought I was crazy and I started to cry and then Brad Blanton started making fun of me when I cried he literally was like look at the baby crying like honestly I'm not kidding like he did that and then I just like when he did that I lost it and I like ran upstairs to my room and I was like throwing ZUP into my bag and turning off the TV and like I was like I have to get out of here I have to get out of here but then as soon as I did that like I picked up my bag and I zipped it up and then like what happened the thing that happened to me was what always happens to me like in bad situation Drive but like I start to like falsely romanticize the situation and think that I have it all wrong and that it can't be as bad as I think it is and I began to feel like nostalgia for the car ride with Anne and Jerry like attached and extremely attached to like the bathroom and my new room and stuff and then like I said it's not like I'm not being positive I'm just like can't I get so attached and I just begin to like doubt so much that I'm making the right decision and I don't want to live with that regret so I just just make really really bad choices in new situation so what happened was I just didn't leave like I unpacked my bag and I kind of sat down and was like it's not so bad here it's actually pretty great I totally want to be here I my fault like I shouldn't have not killed somebody and set myself up for that kind of treatment and so I went downstairs and I apologized and Brad told me to off like eight more hours at night and then that was pretty much like how it went for the next five days like we would get up we would do yoga we would break for lunch which was like these disgusting like cheddar cheese slices that everyone was touching and then Brad would tell me to off for like the whole night and I don't even know what these people did before I got there because like the whole thing was about me like they weren't doing anything else except for like watching Brad tell me to off and finally on the fifth day I went downstairs totally beaten down and Brad was like Starly I have a surprise for you and I was like oh good I can't wait to hear and he said that normally at the end a radical honesty sessions everyone gets totally naked because they're so in love with each other and they have such a good time and it's usually this big surprise at the end but because they didn't trust me to be a member of the group they were moving naked day up to that morning and I had to decide whether I was going to like participate in naked day or not and I was like no I'm not gonna get naked and he was like are you sure it's awesome and you you but also it's a great loving thing and I was like I'm not getting naked with you freaks I'm leaving I'm outta here and I like turned around and went upstairs and packed my bag and made sure not to look at anything or think about anything and I turned my mind off and I was like I am leaving and then once I decided to leave I realized I had to get still figured out how to get out of there because I was two hours from civilization and it turned out it's very hard to flee a cult when you've decided to when you don't have like a car a rental car of your own and so then I had to like actually logistical II figure out how to leave and I like the internet was all spotty but I ended up getting like some sort of there was no cabs in the little town and I'm getting like the City Council on the phone and being like um do you guys have like a car service of some sort for me and they're like no we all know you're talking about those word don't make any sense and I was like well the thing is I'm in this guy's house and he wants me to get naked and I really just need a car now and they were like we'll see what we can do and they like hung up and I ended up having to call a town like two hours away and being like do you have any cabs that you can send to me and they're like yes but it'll cost $200 and I was like it is very expensive to flee a cult it turns out I guess I will have to do this and so I signed up for the $200 cab ride and I waited and I had why steeled myself and I was not going to back down and then like an hour later one of the cult people called upstairs and they're like stylee your ride is here and I like ran downstairs with my bag and it was actually the cops because the first person at the City Council who ID said I had to get naked had thought I was like a hostage in a house and she had called the cops and the cops were like they're outside like these two cops made like their hand on the gun and they were all like we don't worry miss we've got you or it's okay and they thought I was like Elizabeth Smart they really thought they were like rescuing me and I was like no he wants me to get naked and they would like try to go they really wanted to arrest Brad but I had to explain that wasn't like a legal kind of naked it was just gross creepy kind of naked and he wasn't actually breaking any laws and they were like they're like don't worry we'll take you we're going to take you to a woman shelter it's going to be okay and I was about to get in the car but then the cab pulled up and then I had to like mate and then it not only so I went from having no rides to like too many rides I had to choose between the cops and his cab driver who was so sweet and then I had to get in the cab because he driven so far and the cops really didn't want to leave me like they really really really wanted to arrest somebody there and then but I got into the cab and it was the cab's Draenei drivers name was James Taylor for some reason and it wasn't in the house and like we started driving away and I started to suddenly notice that I like it was really pretty there actually like I could see out the windows and I hadn't even looked at the windows before and I'd been so distracted by jeering and ignoring them and avoiding them and where I was going and it was actually this really Virginia and it was so nice and I realized that it may it was the first time I'd really like quit a situation that was bad for me like it was a cult and it may be obvious to a lot of people but to me this was like a breakthrough and like a really big move and I think the reason I was able to see everything that day was because I was finally living in the moment you

Channel: The Moth

Views: 166,976

Keywords: The Moth, The Moth Radio Hour, The Moth Podcast, Starlee Kine, Radical Honesty, cult, self-help, funny, lol, hilarious, story, storytelling, storyteller

Id: Tf0Tz0B6DC4

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 15 2012