The Secret

If you decided to read based on the title "The Secret" I'll be honest - this has nothing to do with the movie/book phenomenon by the same title. I've watched it and I have to tell you that I found it to be so materially focused that it completely missed the opportunity to invite viewers to look closely at themselves and how they create their reality. Abundance, wealth, affluence are all by products of our relationships with ourselves and our perceptions. Ahhh.... but I'm on a rant and this is not what I came here to talk about today- at least not directly. I do want to discuss the power of secrets.

I came here today to tell you about a secret that I had been harbouring and how it nearly ate me alive - and it really was an insignificant thing in the big picture of life. You see, in my last entry I didn't completely come clean with you. Everything that I wrote was true for me but I left out something that was, in retrospect, the underpinning of it all. My big secret? - I thought I had lost my wedding rings and the fear and shame of it was eating away at me.

It doesn't seem like a big deal right now. Maybe its because I've found them. However, I think it has even more to do with the process I went through before I found them. Incidentally, I found them in a place that I had searched several times before. Clearly, my higher self was at work creating a situation that would help me resolve an issue that has been dogging me for a while. An issue I have repeatedly told myself that I wanted to move beyond. Be careful what you ask for - wink!

When I was pregnant and rapidly swelling in the humidity this summer, I took off my rings. These rings were not my original rings but ones that I "grew" into over time. Engaged and married at a relatively young age, my husband and I have given each other new rings over the years - and we each have lost them for a period of time. Hmmm .... wonder what that's about?

In my husband's case, he lost his ring while closing up the cottage one fall. We frantically searched the fire pit, the piles of raked leaves, under the cottage, in the lake by the dock -everywhere, and that was a lot of outdoor space. We finally gave up and just let it go. Although disappointed, there were no recriminations on either of our parts. I remember telling him that I was sure it would show up. The next spring, as my husband was using the outdoor shower, he glanced down where a drain pipe had become disconnected and noticed a glimmer. Curious, he put his glasses on and investigated, only to discover his wedding band. It must have come off when he washed his hands outdoors the previous fall.

In my case, I recalled removing my rings and putting them someplace "safe". Who among us hasn't done this, only to undergo complete amnesia within days?! I completely put it out of my mind. Now that I'm settled into life with Baby S, I decided it was time to celebrate my shrinking fingers and put my rings back on. So I went to my usual "safe" place - no rings. Shrugging it off, I decided to take the opportunity to start decluttering and cleaning up our bedroom as I looked for them.

Several weeks later, nearly every drawer, nook and cranny of my bedroom and bathroom had been cleaned and sifted through. I was getting more and more uneasy. I was now putting off cleaning the last few small drawers - afraid to face the possibility that they were gone. I wondered if I had inadvertently thrown them out. I went through the list of people who had been into our home to do repairs as we prepare to put our house up for sale. Was it possible that they were stolen? I was feeling a growing sense of dread. I didn't want to tell my husband, so I kept it to myself and spent a few hours every day either obsessing over it or re-tracing my steps.

This thing was taking on a life of its own. I found myself having difficulty falling back to sleep after getting up in the night with Baby S. I was feeling desperate and secretive.

The whole time, quietly, in the back of my mind, there was a persistent voice scolding me for being so careless. The "voice" berated me, telling me how unworthy I was of such expensive baubles. It meted out all kinds of punishment and penance for me to prove just how undeserving I was. It ground away at me in the background of my daily routine, only to get louder when the house became silent at night. I felt like I was about 7 years old. I dreaded telling my husband, having cast him in a role of adult/parent/judge and jury - none of which he deserved. It was all a construction in my own mind.

Finally, after a long and rambling discussion with myself in my journal, I began to see how I was creating this incredible drama, built out of pieces of the past. By keeping it a secret, it had begun to fester and grow. There was no reality check. I was creating my reality based on a collage of past experiences. I was making myself small and powerless. Crafting perceptions that were illusions.

My body never lied. Whenever I would get caught up in this vortex of my creation, I would feel the heat rise to my face. I would break out in a cold sweat and my stomach would be in knots. I would try to breathe through it and relax but frequently found myself unable to stick with the uncomfortable sensations, choosing food to numb it out and comfort myself, or seeking some other form of distraction.

So, after this straight talk in my journal, where I realized just how out of hand I had let my secret become, I had a talk with my husband. Well, it was more like a complete meltdown full of snot and hiccups! Somehow, he understood what I was trying to say. And that was when I discovered where the real "gem" of my marriage lay!

The secret was out. My husband created all the space I needed to move through the layers that my secret had created. I had managed to make it a huge, multi-tentacled monster that had implications about my self-worth, my value, my capacity to move through the world as a powerful woman rather than an itty-bitty victim. To my husband's credit, he said all the "right stuff" and just let me unravel in the safety of his non-judgement. Its quite likely he wondered what the heck that was all about!

By finally sharing these thoughts and fears, I had set myself free. My energy increased exponentially! I had no idea of how it was sucking me dry. I realized that I had begun to withdraw from my family and especially my husband, for fear of revealing my secret. I saw myself with new eyes and had to wonder just why I had let the "voice" of this secret take me so far down a path of self-destruction. What I had unconsciously created was an opportunity to reclaim and heal my 7 year old self. I had an opportunity to remember that I am actually a 38 year old woman!

All this from a relatively minor incident! Imagine the toll that other, bigger secrets take on our lives. Imagine how, for some of us, we have been taught from early ages to keep secrets - often with very real and frightening consequences if we don't. Secrets don't have to be big deals to exact their toll. I know women who move through the world keeping secrets in the name of privacy, compartmentalizing their lives to the point that it takes a master plan to keep it all straight. I can only imagine how exhausting it must become - especially when its runs as a strategy out of awareness, just the way they have been taught to live their lives and they have never questioned it.

The voice of secrets is an insidious one and the only way to dismantle its python-like subtle and deadly stranglehold is to listen. Listen by paying attention to our bodies and our thoughts. In fact, our bodies are the expressions of our thoughts - the over-eating, the flush of discomfort when we eavesdrop on our inner conversations and then quickly seek distraction. I even found myself humming out loud at times to avoid listening inside! For me, breathing and writing get me through the layers of secrecy. Even if I don't choose to share it with anyone else, at least I'm not keeping the secret from myself any longer. Sometimes the course of action in the wake of telling myself the truth, is to share it with another.

This experience has made it clear to me that our secrets have the power to harm us. I would even venture to say that our secrets have the power to kill us. Certainly, we are more likely to be harmed by keeping secrets than we are by revealing them, no matter what we have been taught. Its quite likely that the people around us are aware of our secrets anyway - if not the particulars, then at least the essence. If my little secret has the power to sap my energy and isolate me, and leave me feeling depressed and unworthy, then what about other secrets? What about the accumulation of a bunch of little secrets? Who says it has to be one big one - it might be the slow drain from all the things we hide from ourselves and others habitually.

There have been a lot of conversations lately in the WEL-Systems blogs about weight and health and I have been wondering how many secrets lie within the layers of our "fat". How we stuff ourselves to plug the holes. How we lie to ourselves and to others about what we eat, how much, how often. How, in this way, our secrets, perhaps ones we have yet to reveal to ourselves, are killing us slowly in the guise of obesity and poor stewardship of our physical expression in this world - our bodies. Strict adherence to punitive diets and the penance implied in that way of living is just the other side of the same coin. Perhaps the balance lies in finally letting the truth of who we are stand alone, without insulation or apology. Only then would the "secret" of who we really are be out - and we would be free to just "be". The Secret is not really a secret at all.