Secrets

Hey, who doesn’t have secrets?

There are secrets that we keep from others—even secrets we keep from ourselves about our own lives. You can claim to not keep ANY secrets from others (or even from your conscious self), but I’m pretty sure you have something deeply stashed somewhere that you aren’t comfortable sharing or even seriously considering as an aspect of your actual being, because we all do.

There are likely facets of our personalities or of our behaviors that are perhaps a bit too sensitive to expose to the light of day or to the scrutiny of others who might judge or condemn us in some way. In our minds, those facets represent a ‘lesser’ feature of who we are as living, breathing animals that occasionally don’t adhere to social confines or guidelines—especially around others.

We may feel there are secrets that if exposed to our friends might make them reconsider our friendships or scorn us for our imperfections, so we don’t risk sharing those more hidden parts of ourselves with anyone—but seriously—we ALL have them.  You are not alone in that.

Sometimes ‘secrets’ drive our waking lives, and have likely driven them for the entirety of our existence from childhood onwards.

Those secrets are often the fodder of counseling sessions to uncover reasons for personal neuroses or persecution complexes or paranoia or deep, ingrained fears of exposure.

We might even develop TRUST issues because of the secrets we hold—but there are usually good reasons for doing so. Trust is earned, not freely given to any who claim to be ‘trustworthy’—as many folks do, but prove they actually weren’t.

How about this: Have you ever been physically ‘threatened’ for who you really are?   

Personal safety is a main reason for keeping our deepest secrets. Sometimes the threats can become actual assaults against us—simply for being the person we were born to be.  So to avoid serious altercations that can threaten our lives or livelihoods, we keep our secrets secret.

Parents may withhold love or affection if we don’t conform to their expectations, so we often keep our deepest feelings secret even from them for as long as we can.

It can take a lot of soul searching and personal examination to work through WHO we really are as opposed to who our parents had wanted us to be—again, more counseling fodder.

So if during your journey to find out who you really are on all levels of your being, you encounter some sudden ‘secrets’ erupting from your subconscious into your NEW conscious awareness, be gentle with yourself. You are the only one who truly has to live with YOU in all your personality’s multi-facets and struggles for survival in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Examine your secrets without judgment, but determine WHY you keep them hidden from others or from your conscious self to see if those secrets are even worth hiding. And if they aren’t, then they aren’t really SECRETS any longer. They are simply another aspect of your life.