We are only as sick as the SECRETS we keep.
This is a mantra reminding us that the shame in keeping SECRETS long term will make us sick. These words are repeated often to those like me recovering from drug and alcohol addictions.
Emotional transparency is the cornerstone of respect and trust in all our relationships with ourselves and with others. It is an inconvenient Universal truth none of us can hide from.
Privacy and SECRECY are two very different emotive states. Privacy is about sacred time alone or with others that builds intimacy, trust and respect. Privacy is quality time away from the rest of the world that builds a robust state of intimacy. Privacy creates connection.
But SECRETS on the other hand destroys quality connections.
What defines a SECRET is something that’s done, made or conducted without the knowledge of others, then kept from the knowledge of others except those asked to carry the SECRET. Sometimes great, complex and tragic things happen that we need to digest and keep to ourselves before deciding what step to take next. Sometimes we need to share the big news with another, but we would ask that our privacy be respected while we process the event. This is what confessionals were designed for. Sacred elders, therapist and healers are skilled in respecting privacy and upholding confidentiality. However, whatever the event, emotional ownership, personal empowerment and emotional transparency are the cornerstones of Emotional Fitness and maturity that we will need to eventually express.
When fear grows like an infection around a life event shame magnifies the event and SECRECY can become a burden to carry over a lifetime. So emotionally unloading all of our SECRET shame around thoughts, feelings, words and actions has become a lifestyle for many of us who wish to be free from our past.
There are some elements of ourselves we do like to keep PRIVATE but share with just one or a few. There is nothing new under the sun that a healer, minister, sponsor or wise elder has not heard before.
If I had a dollar for every Emotional Fitness client that has said to me …
“Cynthia, I’ve never told anyone this before. So if after I tell you this SECRET you don’t want to talk to me again and continue working with me I will understand, but I have to tell you because keeping this toxic SECRET is killing me”
And then they confide in me. And it will echo something I’ve heard over the past 23 years many times before from a client in a rehab, jail, in a high society celebrity circle or from an international sporting hero.
I will always uphold my client’s confidentiality and anonymity, however, I am able to comfort those who lay down their toxic SECRETS with validation and healing techniques that have worked from those that have gone before them.
“You mean it’s not only me that has done, endured or perpetuated this horrific, shameful experience?” they ask with tearful relief.
Of course not, we all visit dark places within ourselves and this world in our journey. We are all learning as we go, and therefore, we all make many mistakes along the way.
If I can offer one suggestion when it comes to SECRETS and our Emotional Fitness it would be to minimise them. If we focus on shedding shame and sharing our burdensome, heavy SECRETS with a trusted other, we become more lighthearted and free. And if anyone else asks you to carry their SECRETS, offer privacy and confidentiality short term, but long term let them know you will be encouraging them to get help and dissolve the shame around the life event.
When we enable those we care about to carry shame-filled SECRETS long term burdening their heart we are not helping but hindering their emotional health and growth. There are very few SECRETS that don’t come tangled up with an emotional price tag that initially we may not see, however, at some point we all have to pay the emotional cost of hiding the truth. Hiding the truth long term is a very expensive price to pay. In a court of law it can be considered a crime itself for it is living a lie. The currency we pay for keeping SECRETS is our integrity, trust and respect. The ultimate currency in relationships is respect. Without it we are emotionally bankrupt.
A quality relationship built on integrity offers our heart a safe place to rest and trust, which means no SECRETS and no lies. We all deserve no less with those we love. So our relationships with ourselves and others therefore truly are only as sick as the secrets we keep, and only as healthy as the trust, respect, love and emotional transparency that we share.
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2016 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift just click on the SHOP tab and place your order.
