I Dont Care if You Know What My Secrets Are

A friend shared Mary Lambert's song Secrets with me this morning….  I'd never heard her before and wow I honey it! And so here I am sharing it with you lot: Mary Lambert – Secrets.

Have a listen,  merely come up back here as it set me off on some musings I would love to share with y'all.

And so it got me to thinking about secrets, and how I love how Mary brings lightness to such a challenging subject – shame – the feeling that nosotros demand to keep parts of ourselves secret – the crusade of so much pain for and then many people. Particularly young people.

Yesterday was World Mental Health Day and my Facebook feed was filled with heartwarming, live-affirming letters virtually taking abroad the mask, reaching out when you need a friend, not beingness ashamed of how yous really feel. It felt good to share them. And today I am thinking about why nosotros go on secrets nigh ourselves. What is shame? What is it about this emotion that has united states of america hibernate our 'imperfections' – those shadow parts of united states that we don't feel are acceptable?

I define shame equally the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that nosotros are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we've experienced, washed, or failed to practice makes usa unworthy of connection.

Brene Brown

Brene Brown is the foremost researcher and writer on shame today. She was researching connection and, because shame is the experience or fear of assertive we're not enough, non worthy of connection, and how people described their experiences of connection with her was by describing disconnection.

She said she was curious every bit, during her research she interviewed a lot of men and women who, rather than waking up in the morning and saying, "I'chiliad not enough. I don't have enough. Aught'south good enough," woke up in the morning saying, "Yeah, there'southward a lot of scarcity, there'south a lot of perfectionism, but I am enough." What did they have in common?

She constitute that, when she went back into the data asking that question, what these men and women had in common was the willingness and capacity to be vulnerable. Every bit she says:

It's about the willingness to be imperfect, to exist vulnerable. It'southward about the courage to wake upward in the morning and acknowledge that no affair what gets done and what doesn't get washed, that I'm plenty, and that I'thou worthy of love, belonging, and joy. Those are irreducible needs for humans.

So, as I am so oft thinking virtually what wholehearted living is – as that is what I experience I am all virtually – at the foundation of the piece of work I do with people. How does shame fit into that? What is the mechanism that drives usa to feel shame? Why know more than near it and what our individual shame is, what our secrets are?

Shame is our armour, our cocky-protection. Too often our life experiences have shown us that being uncool is not safe. The kids that laughed at us… So shame swerves the beingness laughed at, mocked, isolated, disconnected. The real pain of it is that information technology serves the reverse – to proceed us disconnected, literally keeping united states of america cool – our hearts non warmed but chilled. And so often, equally we grow older, we realise that sharing our vulnerability is actually absurd! And that when we share a secret well-nigh ourselves that we are terrified someone else will laugh at, they share back – and information technology brings united states of america closer! And actually people are inspired by our backbone/vulnerability.

Cool is the need to exist perceived as completely in command, completely certain, risking no emotional exposure at all. It'due south the straightjacket of, "I've got everything managed." Information technology'southward emotional stoicism, non emotional exposure. Cool is really unsafe.

Being uncool is courageous – particularly when we are not beingness uncool for the sake of its "cool to be uncool!" Existence uncool by removing the mask is exposing, vulnerable – crying when someone hurts your feelings, continuing out from the oversupply by just being y'all, albeit you still demand a hug even though yous are a so-called grown-up.

One expanse of shame for me, like and then many women and men, has been around my weight, always has been a struggle for me, fifty-fifty when I look dorsum now and can see I actually wasn't 'overweight' at all… Recently I accept had a breakthrough though with embracing myself the way I am – and on a recent holiday I felt really gratis to swim and sunbathe – knowing that we are all beautiful bodies – all shapes and sizes! I remember a blog mail service I read some time ago by a Mum in which she said she had realised how much fun she was missing out on with her kids by being embarrased to run effectually with them on the beach and that the memories and experiences were far more precious than her warped self-image.

So – what's your uncool?! Why not reveal a surreptitious today!

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Source: https://acuriouslife.blog/2018/10/11/i-dont-care-if-the-world-knows-what-my-secrets-are/

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