Secrets Reflect Our Beliefs About Ourselves

1. “I must hide myself and what I have a tendency to do in the future.”
2. “I must hide myself because of what I did in the past.”

Shame and guilt are the core beliefs of what underlies these statements.

Guilt says, “I did something wrong”

Shame says, “I am  something wrong”                

Both of these core beliefs leave us  powerless in the present.

If I flood the present with misgivings about  the past and anxiety about the future I won’t have any energy, time or resource to be in in the present .   

Secrets can create Two Types of Misrepresentations in our lives:

1. Conscious manipulation – portrays something better than what or who I really am.
2. Unconscious self-deception – believes what is false for so long that it becomes the truth. 

Self-deception creates the desire to deceive others.

We have many defense mechanisms we use to self-deceive. To the degree in which we self- deceive is the degree in which we can be deceived.

In ancient text there is a saying ,” You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free”. 

4 Reasons Why Keeping Secrets Can Damage A Relationship

1. It creates stress.

Most people struggle to keep secrets from their partner and suffer from guilt when they do.

It makes you tense, as you’re always waiting for them to catch you by stumbling across something that will bring your secret to light.

1. It blocks closeness and intimacy

It’ll mean you put a defensive barrier up between the two of you and are always wary of discovery. This is likely to have an impact on your closeness and intimacy and chip away at the foundations of your relationship.

1. It produces mistrust.

If you’re keeping secrets from them, what’s to say they aren’t doing the same thing? At least, that’s what you’ll be thinking.

You might start to wonder what they might be hiding from you, too, which can lead to mistrust and paranoia.

1. It can cause terminal damage. 

The more time passes, the harder it becomes to come clean.

If you keep putting off telling your partner a big secret, it’ll only get bigger and bigger, until revealing it could do terminal damage to the relationship.

The longer you wait, the harder it is to be honest about it.

After all, if the secret’s difficult to hear, it’ll be even worse if, on top of that, they discover you’ve been keeping something from them for an extended period of time.

Questions For Keeping a Secret:

1. Is the person you are keeping the secret from likely to discover it anyway.

 If you are just prolonging the outcome be upfront with it.

1. Can I live with the secret?  

Is this secret going to cause negative effects to my holistic health?     

Someone has said, “We don’t have secrets, our secrets have us.” 

1. Am I rationalizing?  

When we rationalize we tell ourselves rational lies.

Don’t dilute poison and call it poise.

Am I saying I am protecting someone from the truth when in actuality all am I doing is not acknowledging my shame and guilt openly?  

“Lies can be the sturdiest walls that we humans erect within and around ourselves, thereby keeping ourselves trapped and wrapped in a wide range of limitations.”

How To Address Secrets To Live in the Freedom of Truthfulness and Authenticity

1. Know yourself. Use tools like the Enneagram or other personality assessments. Know your propensities to self-deceive so you know how to be authentic. Awareness is a big part of your health. Don’t keep your true self on the shelf.

This is being honest to yourself and your Higher Power in the #1 circle of the Circle of Relationships

1. Know your close relationships and allow them to really know you. 

Have non-judging, gracious close relationships that know you for who you really are. 

In order to have such friends be one. 

Don’t isolate – Do intimate. 

Don’t disconnect - Do reconnect.   

In the presence of close, intimate, accepting relationships we find freedom

Sharing openly brings closure to shame and guilt 

This being honest to yourself and others in the #2 and #3 circles in the Circle of Relationships

1. Find safe places where you can share with the confidence of confidentiality.

Use the services of trained professionals and confidantes. Professional counselors or life coaches or pastors.

Find or establish an AMG group where you can be authentic and real.

Get real so you can get what you really want. 

This is being honest to yourself in the #4 circles in the Circle of Relationships.

1. Express your authentic self in what you do and how you do it

Let the people you know on the peripheries of your life see your authenticity. Again the axiom of AMG “ Be authentic with everyone and vulnerable to a few.”

Purchase things to be an expression of your identity not something that you get identity from.

This is being honest to yourself in the outer relationships (#5,6,7) circles of the Circle of Relationships  

Conclusion:

How To Address Secrets To Live in the Freedom:

1. Know yourself
2. Know your close relationships and allow them to really know you. 
3. Find safe places where you can share with the confidence of confidentiality.
4. Express your authentic self in what you do and how you do it

Questions For Keeping a Secret:

1. Is the person you are keeping the secret from likely to discover it anyway?
2. Can I live with the secret?  
3. Am I rationalizing?