Resect Your Secret

Resect Your Secret

I have a few minutes in the morning when my thoughts can go anywhere. This morning I noticed I was thinking about secrets. I won’t go so far as to say that secrets are the opposite of intimacy, but there is a correlation.

There are some secrets that I love to keep; what I got you for your birthday or winter holiday gift, for example.

I also love to keep your secrets. The image I get is that I put your secrets in a box, and lock it up tight.

My secrets are for telling.

I am doing my best to tell all my secrets to at least one other person. This takes trust, something I really stunk at for a long time. One thing that really helped me start to trust was realizing that there were people out there who had jobs where being trustworthy was in the job description. They have to keep secrets, you know, lawyers, clergy, therapists.

It was a good place to start. And there are some really good reasons for telling.

When I am living my natural life, I am relaxed, in my muscles, in my thoughts, in my emotions.

When I am harboring my secrets, I am clenched in my emotions with fear that someone will find out. I am clenched in my thoughts with trying to hold it down. And those things will often clench up my body. Ow.

When I am harboring my secrets, there are usually some big feelings attached, and when the thoughts of those secrets cycle through my unconscious mind, I will often end up feeling crazy because I don’t know why I am feel so bad, or scared, or angry. As I tell my secrets to trustworthies, that feeling of crazy subsides. Not only that, but I get better and faster at noticing when I have a lot of unconscious material whanging around in my head, and can address more effectively.

When I am harboring secrets, I am also disconnecting from my life. Ow. I cannot have a loving and respectful relationship with myself if I am denying my experience. That’s a big and controversial idea there, so give it a moment.

Why do I own my life? How am I responsible for me? What makes me feel connected?

If I am denying my experience, I am putting conditions on loving myself. Dang. I want to love unconditionally, but as long as I say “no” to my experiences, I am putting limits and boundaries on my love.

As I tell my secrets, and feel the feelings, I remove those edges. I can release the fear, or shame, or guilt, or anger I felt, and now I have more room inside for the nice stuff, loving myself, compassion for me, and you, wisdom, insight. My capacity for connecting with me, and connecting with you, grows, and I enjoy more intimacy, sweeter, and more profound, than I could have imagined before.

How have I changed from clamping on my secrets to feeling free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05312014

Hopping on the Proud Cloud

Hopping on the Proud Cloud

One thing I like to do that really helps as I grow up is to look back and see where I’ve come from. Twelve Step groups use this technique and call it “Telling Your Story.” Sometimes, when we are moving through a rough patch, it can feel like we’ve made no progress at all ever, and it’s always been like this. Looking back can really help.

These days, I feel pretty great most of the time. It seems miraculous to me, but it’s really just the predictable result from the work I’ve done. There have been times when my home was plastered with reminders on sticky notes, Creative Questions cards tucked everywhere, rubber bands on my wrist.

I sought out teachers, always finding the perfect teacher at the perfect time. Sometimes it took a few tries, but then they would be fantastic, and I would emerge from their tutelage happier and wiser.

I didn’t always like it, what they wanted me to try. I didn’t always do it. Sometimes I was a little bit kicky and screamy about it. But the bottom line was this.

I wanted to be happy. I didn’t know what that even meant, but I wanted it. I thought it was the opposite of suffering, self-loathing, and self-abuse, if I thought about it at all. But I felt like I would do almost anything to get there.

We get so good at pretending that things are alright, that we are alright, that our relationships and work and families are alright. It takes a ton of energy to pretend that. We talk a good game, and people may suspect, but they don’t know for sure how bad it is.

Why do we keep it a secret? (That is a bad creative question, just for the record.)

Sometimes we feel ashamed, or scared. We think it’s no one else’s business. Sometimes we tell ourselves that everything is fine, and we choose to believe it even though we are in a bad situation. We convince ourselves that everything is normal and fine.

And we hate ourselves. Or at least act like we hate ourselves. Or we try to act like we don’t hate ourselves, and end up feeling like we are going crazy. And going crazy seems kind of attractive, especially if it means a few weeks in a hospital being taken care of by someone who is nice to us.

We don’t want anyone to know what it’s really like, and so we pull back a little, or push harder, and either way people end up not wanting to be around us very much. And that seems kind of good because then there aren’t as many people to convince that things are okay.

And then we decide we’ve had enough. And we get help. There are so many people, and agencies, and services, and healing modalities, that want you to be happy and healthy, that want to help you climb out of that smelly pit of your life and back into the fresh air and sunshine. Why do I choose to be happy? What makes me choose to take care of me? How do I make room for joy in my life?

When I take this step, when I seriously address the crap in my life with a competent, trustworthy helper, things get better. I can take better care of me, and of you, and all the yous that matter to me.

How have I changed from wanting to hide to being proud of myself?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved. 09302013