What Secrets are You Keeping?

Deception is a dangerous game. What begins as a “little white lie,” withholding information, or the omission of information, may grow into something far more negative.  Secrets may start innocently enough, but they are ultimately damaging for all concerned. 

“The Body Says What Words Cannot” 

Amy Cuddy, researcher and author of “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges” says, “That it’s much easier for us to lie with words than the physical actions that accompany what we’re saying. Negative or positive, emotion is authentic.” Put simply, when deceit is in play, what we are doing and what we are saying no longer match. 

Deception may live in many areas of our lives, certainly, but not limited to, relationships, infidelities, family secrets, money, addiction and gambling. No matter the secrets, they all carry the same hazards.

Hazards of Secrets 

1. We start to believe our secret and lose the opportunity for real personal growth. If we are honest with ourselves and others, we have to decide a course of action, rather than practice avoidance of the truth by living the secret.

2. We lose our connection with our authentic self. Our brain becomes confused between what is true and what is secret. The result is that we lose the opportunity to be fully present in the moment.

3. Our secret becomes a barrier between others and ourselves. Consequently, we miss opportunities to make rich connections with others. 

4.  Secrets are a burden to carry. We may think that we are lightening our load by confiding our secret to someone else. Instead, we are burdening that person with our baggage. For children this can be especially damaging. It may even freeze their development, because they don’t know how to reconcile deceit.

5. Secrets compromise our health. Keeping secrets can create stress.  Stress can harm not only the secret's creator but also those living with it who may never have wanted to know it in the first place. Anxiety, headaches, digestive problems and backaches are just some of the physical and mental effects that may occur when secrets are internalized. 

Guidance for navigating deception:

1. Explore why you are keeping secrets?  Is it based on an ego need to have others think well of you?  Are you creating a facade that is not the real you?

2.  Who, other than yourself, would benefit from being free from your secret?

3. What would it feel like, mentally and physically, to reveal your secret, move forward and live authentically?