Are You Hiding A Secret?

Are you keeping a secret about yourself that’s killing you on the inside? If you are, understand why these secrets are poison and keep you from loving relationships. The Truth about Secrets:

1. Secrets foster shame and guilt.

• We keep secrets because we are uncomfortable with the feelings we will have to feel if we deal with our “secrets”.
• There is no way to heal, unless you are willing to feel and secrets provide us with that opportunity.
• When we work at keeping our secrets hidden, we end up feeling shameful.
• Dr. James Pennebaker says: By not talking about upsetting experiences, people don’t tie things together. They’ll think about this part of it, or that part of it, or another part of it, but it’s hard for them to see how the trauma may be affecting them in a broader sense. And by keeping big secrets or withholding trauma, they are not connecting with their friends because they are withholding a significant part of who they are from them. (Click here for more info)

2. Secrets become monsters when they are kept hidden.

• Secrets may start out small but the more they are kept hidden, the bigger they get.
• If I say to you, “Don’t think of a monkey”, what do you think of? That is what happens with secrets.
• When we hide the truth of whom we really are, our sense of self becomes mutated, i.e., confused and hidden behind a false persona.

3. Secrets isolate us from one another.

• There is nothing worse than a “secret” to keep us separated from those we love.
• A “secret” is the big elephant sitting in the room, the elephant no one talks about but everyone can feel.
• It creates a space that is palpable, that everyone can feel, but no one discusses.

4. Secrets isolate us from ourselves.

• This is the big one. Secrets keep us disconnected from ourselves.
• If you have not dealt with these unexpressed and shameful feelings, there is a part of yourself that you have not accepted.
• In the process of disowning that part of yourself, you cut yourself up into “acceptable” pieces (for yourself), that only serve to splinter you more.

5. Secrets create lies and more secrets.

• Only by being brave enough to deal with this stuff can we move on and have real relationships.
• Lies create more and more lies and secrets keep us more and more isolated from connecting in a real and open way.
• Secrets are the opposite of openness.

Comments

[James]

This Blog Emtry is featured in the Carnival of Healing. Check it out here:

http://therapeuticreiki.com/blog/2008/06/141-june-7-2008-carnival-of-healing/