REsources for Living
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What does it feel like when you have a secret? We asked folks on the CLF Facebook page: How does it feel in your body to carry a secret? Here are some of the answers we got:
- Antsy.
- Like being stuck in a glass box.
- …always ends up affecting my stomach… twisting and churning… then my brain won’t turn off so I can sleep…
- Always wondering if I should have said something differently.
- The biggest issue is that it can take over everything. My mind and heart don’t have room for anything else when it expands and permeates everything.
- It feels like a panic attack to me, chest tight, unable to take a deep breath, pinching.
- If it is a joyous secret, it makes your heart lift up and shoot sparks out of your eyes. If it is one too painful to share, it catches in the back of your throat, your shoulders tense and droop, your breathing is halting and shallow.
- A certain tightness in the throat that spreads to the shoulders and upper back and won’t go away. Even if the secret is something there are good reasons to keep.
- It’s electrifying, like energy racing through my body. I have to keep moving and avoid eye contact. Breathing is something I have to remember to do and I wind up sighing a lot.
- Like energy racing. It can take over everything.
Clearly, how it feels to have a secret depends a lot on the kind of secret you have. If you got the lead role in the play or a new job or you’ve fallen in love but aren’t ready to tell your family and friends yet, you might feel kind of tingly and bouncy and butterfly-ish. If you’re planning a surprise party or a wonderful gift you might be a bit jittery, but in a happy, maybe almost smug, kind of way.
But then there are the unhappy secrets. If you know you’ve done something wrong—something that will hurt another person—you might feel heavy and tight. If someone has trusted you with an unhappy secret of their own, you might feel squirmy with the knowledge. And, worst of all, if someone has done something bad to you, but is making you not tell, your body can feel caught in a trap or a cage, where you want to struggle, but can’t go anywhere.
The thing about secrets is that there isn’t really a rule about when you should keep a secret, and when it really would be better to share with someone. Not everything in the world needs to be out in the public. Sometimes a person tells you something in confidence, so you need to live up to their trust and keep the knowledge to yourself.
But some secrets are flat-out damaging. Someone you love can be just as hurt by the fact that you lied and hid things from them as by the fact that you did something wrong to begin with. And people can convince you to keep secrets in a way that protects their doing wrong, and keeps you from stopping their bad actions.
So how do you know when a secret really shouldn’t stay a secret? Like I said, there isn’t a rule that works for every part of life. But I would suggest that you start by asking your body. What does this secret feel like in my stomach? What does it feel like in my chest? What does this secret feel like in my throat or my back or my hands?
And then imagine telling the secret. Imagine the person’s reaction. And check in with your body and see how it feels. When you imagine telling your secret, does your heart race, but then some of the heaviness in your stomach goes away? Or does your heart feel like it sinks in your chest when you share something you said you wouldn’t?
There are always plenty of things to think about when you consider sharing a secret: Who will this help? Who will this hurt? Why am I holding this secret to begin with? Who is this secret keeping safe, and who will be safer with this secret out in the open?
But sometimes it feels like your brain just keeps going in circles, giving you the same unclear answers over and over. And then maybe it’s time to ask your body. Often the secrets that really need to be shared are the secrets that we keep because we feel shame—shame about what we did, shame about what happened to us, even shame about who we are. Shame has a way of making our bodies feel tight and closed in, trapped and heavy.
Sometimes those feelings in our bodies are the best way to tell that shame has gotten a hold of us, and is telling us stories that very likely aren’t true: that we are not good enough, that no one will care, that no one could possibly love and accept us the way we are.
If you are carrying around those untrue stories, heavy as rocks in your stomach, it might just be time to tell someone, to make the secrets not so secret, and let some lightness and space back into your body and your life.
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