Secrets don’t serve us, they engross us in the flames of anxiety, depression, and mask-wearing. Secrets protect sometimes but they also hurt your soul. So what is the Balance between keeping some things private by keeping your secrets, and letting the flag fly? Truth-telling is not always socially acceptable. You may lose friends, you may steer away from your original plan which feels unnerving, you may feel exposed, judged, hated, worthless, unlovable. But when the smoke clears, what could you possibly gain?
A sense of your higher self? A vulnerability that attracts people into your life that are the right people? An awareness about your wants, needs, desires, and abilities that seem more truthful than before? A better understanding of the direction you want your life to go?
Change is hard, change is not without excruciating pain sometimes, but with great change, comes great clarity. A new beginning, a sense of connectedness and grounding. A feeling of being present.
Secrets may have their place when they don’t belong to you. You can hold a sacred space for a close friend or family member if it doesn’t affect your own well-being. If it is causing you to lose sleep, to not eat correctly, to not do your normal activities of daily living such as your job, exercising, feeling “all there”, then the secret is not healthy for you and you should do anything in your power to shed it, to restore balance.
How do you give away your secrets? Talk to someone that’s close to you. Have no one? Find a counselor. Find an online community. Talk to a spiritual leader, talk to your yoga teacher, pray about it, meditate about it, journal about it, make art about it, work it out of your body by moving your body. Talk to anyone that is willing to really listen. You don’t deserve to suffer. No matter HOW MUCH YOU THINK you deserve to suffer in silence, you do not. Get it out. Secrets have a way of eating us up into nothing. Both physically, spiritually, and mentally.
The truth is that YOU WILL BE LOVED. YOU ARE ALREADY LOVED. You are accepted, you are wonderful, you are unique, you are worthy, you are able. You will get past this, whatever “This” is. Just please, my dears, don’t hold it in anymore. You don’t deserve that.
Amy Schillinger, LMFT, AT, EMDR
Clinical Director, Balance Stress Management & Therapy
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