We all have needs: real, legitimate, have-a-right-to-have-them needs. One of these needs is for closeness. Another need, it turns out, is to have privacy. It’s not hard to imagine that these two can be tricky to weave together. Unlike secrecy, privacy is not a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have. We need to have some time to be by and with ourselves. We need some me-time…Being oblivious to this reality, we may find ourselves alone and then immediately set about cluttering up our inner landscape with noise…
So where does secrecy come in?…Take apart any secret and we’ll find the wish to hide something that we think will be unpalatable to someone…We may rationalize our secrets by saying, “If I reveal myself, I won’t be understood,” or “People will criticize me unfairly”…In truth, when we’re standing in truth—or attempting to get to the bottom of it—we’ll make an effort to help others understand…
What’s happening when we keep secrets is that we fear we’re not in truth. Better yet, we often know we’re not but we have no intention of changing. So then we’re really being dishonest…And hey, we also sort of like the way it keeps things lopsided. We don’t have to work at finding equitable, honest solutions that allow others to participate in the party. That’s how secrets become such killjoys for relationships. And that’s why secretive people are never emotionally fulfilled…
When we follow a spiritual path, we are on a direct mission to eliminate all our secrets…When we find ourselves sitting with suspicious opinions or accusations about someone, we need to pause and notice how we want to secretly nurse them—or worse yet, share them with someone who will hold our secret with us…
It’s also important to realize that when we hold negative things in secret, we also keep a lid on revealing the best in ourselves. The lid of secrecy is one-size-fits-all, so when it’s on we begin to feel embarrassed about our best ourselves. Our dreams and innermost desires will feel shameful…
The real way to reveal ourselves is by following the will of God, and then we need to let go of the results. The false way to go about self-revealing is to childishly say, in the warped way of the Lower Self: “If I share my secrets with you, no matter how destructive they may be, I demand you approve of me”… We need to be careful about giving ourselves credit for opening up if we’re going to do it in such a way…
Think of transparency as the new black; it’s a habit that looks good on everyone. But we’ll need some patience and perseverance to wear it well. And we’ll need to devote ourselves to learning this fine art…Communication is essential to self-revealing. If we want to be open, effort will be required. But the rewards are fantastic…
Living in complete openness is the goal for any relationship: intimate partnerships, friendships, business colleagues, and even relationships between countries…This means we need to be willing to take a risk to lay everything on the table…The problem is our false belief that we’re not good enough. We have to keep challenging this, over and over, every time it surfaces…
Like an engine in which gunk builds up over time, we’re going to find some residual crud in the pipes. Once we clear out the sludge though, making all of ourselves known, a new process will automatically take over…When it comes to our friendships, we don’t do them justice if we feel there is anything we must keep hidden…
Even the interactions between countries are often enormously impacted by secretiveness…Opaqueness, it is believed, makes for sound diplomacy…Just as individuals need to go through the painstaking process of learning to be open, so must countries…We can’t get to peace and harmony any other way. It’s like trying to live life while projecting a false version of ourselves, basically saying, “Please see me only as I pretend to be.” It’s going to be hard to forge an authentic, trusting connection on top of that.
Return to Nutshells Contents
Return to Pearls Contents
