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Living
Boldly® e-Zine Archives
Speaking
the Unspeakable - How keeping secrets is costing you
February 02, 2003
Have you ever stopped to
notice just how EXHAUSTING it can be to keep certain secrets? It's like living
in fear, all the time!
Everyone has secrets. And in our society, we
tend to place a high value on privacy and on people who can "keep a secret".
And certainly, there are times, places, and situations where it is both
appropriate AND advisable to keep certain information to yourself. We don't
need to be blabbing every minute detail of our lives to the world (and the
world probably isn't all that interested anyway!) And certainly if someone else
trusts us with personal and private information, we should do our best to
maintain that level of trust by NOT gossiping and telling tales about other
people.
We keep secrets about our lives because we want to protect
ourselves. But sometimes, we may find ourselves keeping certain secrets from
certain people in a certain way, that may be doing us HARM rather than
protecting us. If you have a really BIG secret, something important you are
really afraid that someone in your life will discover and you are going to
great lengths to hide it, then you may be paying a very big price, because you
are putting a huge amount of energy into continuing to hide the truth.
How do we pay a big price for
hiding our authentic selves?
-- Addiction: drinking, drugs,
overeating, overspending, overworking.
-- Health problems: colitis, back
pain, ulcers, anxiety/panic attacks, high blood pressure, heart conditions.
-- Unsatisfactory relationships, feeling isolated.
-- Being stuck in
an unfulfilling career.
-- Financial problems.
Why are we afraid to "speak the
unspeakable" in our lives?
Why are we so afraid to be authentic, to
tell the complete truth about ourselves? The primary reason seems to be that we
crave acceptance from others, and we believe that "if they really KNEW me and
knew about my secret, they wouldn't like me anymore". We believe that we have
to be someone else, other than our "real" selves, in order to get love,
friendship, the job, approval, business, time, money, or support from other
people.
Sometimes, we've spent years investing in a certain "image" or
lifestyle that we project to the world - the image isn't who we really are, but
we're so stuck in the habit of trying to BE that image that we often lose sight
of the truth of who we are and what we really want. We literally lose our
SELVES by hiding behind the protective walls we've put up around us to keep
those secrets.
And sometimes, our "secret" is as simple as being
afraid to voice an honest opinion about something, for fear of upsetting or
displeasing someone else. We pay an equally high price for these types of
secrets, too.
The
rewards of being willing to speak the truth
Recently, I have had
several opportunities in my own life to speak the unspeakable, concerning some
bad habits I've developed over the years as a means of insulating myself from
pain or as a coping mechanism. Because there has always been some pain attached
to these habits for me, I rarely am willing to discuss them openly with other
people - even the people I love and trust the most. But in recent months, I
have felt a definite inner shift taking place, and have started realizing that
in order for me to resolve and overcome these habits, I needed to become
willing to really tell the truth about how they have been impacting my life.
After all, how can I be truly Living Boldly in my life -- and coaching others
to do the same -- if I'm not willing to do the boldest thing imaginable:
telling the complete truth about what's really important in my life.
As I began first telling the truth to myself, and then selectively sharing my
thoughts and feelings with with one or two people, a little at a time, I was
pleasantly surprised to find that not only did these people NOT judge me, but
they expressed that they felt I really was courageous, Living Boldly, by being
willing to face myself so honestly. In fact, it was during one such
conversation that the idea of "speaking the unspeakable" came to light!
Speaking the unspeakable has begun to open possibilities for me where
before, there was only pain. Although I am still in the process, I am already
feeling lighter, less weighed down by the burden of trying to "hide out" behind
some image I thought I needed to project. And little by little I am seeing
things change in my life, such as the bad habits I leaned on for so long! It's
a wonderfully FREEING feeling!
Imagine a world where we all tell the
complete truth, where we feel no need to withhold our opinions, where there is
no fear of retribution or shame or disapproval for being who we are.
Individually, we would lead happier lives, lives without the fear and stress
that comes from hiding behind a fake persona. In businesses, we wouldn't need
to worry about "corporate ethics" because we'd KNOW that everything was out in
the open, totally above-board. In cultures and in nations, we might not need to
fear the unknown of what our neighbors are up to, and we might not need war to
try and soothe those fears. In the words of Louis Armstrong, "And I think to
myself, what a wonderful world!"
Living Boldly in Action
-- Start by
being honest with yourself, even if you never share your secret with another
living soul. At the bare minimum, if you can be completely truthful with
yourself about the things that are most important in your life, then you will
be able to free up a significant amount of energy and some of your current
problems may begin to solve themselves as a result of your commitment to being
100% in integrity with yourself.
-- Look at the effects of keeping
your secret on your life. Are you suffering from physical illness or
depression? Do you have ulcers, back pain, colitis, acid reflux, frequent
colds, etc.? Are you significantly overweight (carrying too much weight is a
form of "hiding out" from something we don't want to face)? Are you in serious
financial debt? Are you reluctant to get out and meet new people and try new
things because you are afraid of what would happen if people get too close to
you? What kind of price are you paying for not speaking the unspeakable?
-- Identify who else, besides yourself, you may need to speak the truth to
in order to resolve this situation, or merely to get some much needed support
for yourself.
For permission to reprint this
article, please contact me.
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