We have all heard the saying, "The truth will set you free", but do we really understand what that means? When we have secrets that we've been hiding it impacts our life and our relationships. Our secrets separate us from people making us feel sad and lonely. Our secrets make us feel afraid, afraid that our secret might be revealed or afraid of how our secrets will affect other people. Keeping secrets in our lives ties us down and binds us to the past.
When we keep secrets, the thoughts that keep playing in our minds hold us back in our relationships because we are always wondering, "how would people feel about me if they knew the truth about me?", "would they still love me?". We are afraid of being rejected or that there may be other consequences, if we were to stop pretending to be someone we are not. There are many reasons we tell ourselves why we have to keep our secret like, "my family and friends won't love me", "I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me or pity me", "people would think different about me if they knew who I really am", "if I stopped pretending I would be rejected by society". All these reasons are based on one thing, FEAR.
So, what we need to do is take away the fear and start dealing with the truth. When we look at all the above reasons why we keep our secrets, what we are really asking are, "what if" questions, "what if, people don't love me?", "what if, they pitied me?", "what if, they thought differently about me?", but, don't just ask the question, answer it. Take it a step further to see what would happen if we were truly honest with ourselves and others. Once we answer the "what if" questions, we may find out that there isn't anything we can't handle.
By holding on to secrets that are affecting our lives in negative ways we are creating for ourselves an absolutely intolerable life. We create loneliness, struggle, feeling like we can't trust anyone and insecurity. We need to turn our thoughts around and think about what is missing from our lives that is absolutely necessary. We need to trust ourselves enough to open up and deal with whatever consequences come along, so that our secrets will not have a negative effect on the choices we make for our lives. Opening ourselves up to the truth of who we are so we can create a life of stability and close, trusting relationships.
Some of us have opened ourselves up and revealed a secret we were afraid to reveal and have reaped the consequences, and are now afraid to open ourselves up again. We are ashamed or guilty or just feel like we are not accepted. But what we need to realize is that everyone who tells their secret will benefit in the end. If we find that there are people who make us feel shame or guilt or do not accept us, then we shouldn't have those people in our life anyway. We should only accept people in our lives that uplift us and make us feel good about ourselves. If we feel like our secret would hurt too many people or someone close to us who we do not want to hurt, then we don't have to reveal it to everyone. Finding someone we can trust and confiding in them will give us the relief we need to live the truth of our lives.
I used to think what good could come from revealing a secret that could potentially hurt other people or even make me feel worse. But the truth is that by keeping secrets we are doing more damage to our ability to have healthy relationships. We are doing damage to ourselves, making ourselves feel like we are not worthy to live a happy, carefree, open, and truthful life. By opening up and sharing our secrets we shine a light in the dark place in our life. By opening up we can erasing the fear, shame and guilt that binds us to our past which allows us to really understand the meaning of, "The truth will set you free".
No comments:
Post a Comment