Were you arrested?
“Life doesn’t happen at the pace I want, and not the way I want. Not as I expected, not as I promised myself, it’s so disappointing. I thought it was possible, I believed in myself that it would happen to me within ten years and it didn’t…”
We live life as a very intense race, trying to overcome the problems along the way until we…get stuck. I meet people at decision junctures, feeling confused or having difficulty achieving what they want, and feeling an incomprehensible impasse.
It usually starts from reality, from something that happens or doesn’t happen. There’s a great explanation for it, logical words, a neat story about why it doesn’t happen. Reasons, accusations, something that doesn’t work. But behind this story that settles us, there’s the real story, the one that sticks us. And it’s usually buried a little deeper, quite secret, the nuclear reactor. Not everyone has a key to it, we don’t always remember or know the password to get in. But when we crack it and get in, something very significant happens! Wait… we’re not there yet.
“I waste a lot of time until I make a decision. So I have to make up a lot of excuses and make things complicated because I need time. But I won’t say I need time because they’ll think I’m stupid, can’t, and I’m in a senior position so…”
“He doesn’t put me in a position, but every time he raises his voice, I shut up. I don’t put him in his place and it puts me in a bad light in front of the others. I can’t, he has that tone and he’s a big man… When he yelled at me, it reminded me of how my father treated me. I could have killed him… It paralyzed me.”
“I don’t understand why people don’t take it seriously and invest hours. It’s just me and it annoys me. So I get angry and behave badly…. But the fact is that I envy them for having a life…”
These are some of the sentences raised in personal coaching sessions for managers. Coaching for people who want to understand why their careers are not progressing as they would like.
What secrets govern us?
Secrets govern us because when something is a secret in our lives, we assume it sits quietly hidden away in a corner and that’s it. If time, we simply put it out of our minds as something related to our daily lives. Because it must be kept a secret. But…it’s worth considering The impact of seemingly small and forgotten thoughts on our behavior. Our beliefs about ourselves and the world, and our behaviors are affected by this. If we want to move from one place to another, to be more successful, to progress, we must understand what in perception does not allow this. Usually these are the things we are ashamed of…and which we keep…secret.
The fact that something is a secret should ensure that it won’t be a part of my world, day to day. After all, it’s a secret… isn’t it?! How do secrets that we are so careful to keep, not to talk about, not to share, affect life? And how does something so personal affect the professional aspects of our lives? This is a very important question.
Our professional world takes up a significant portion of our waking hours and energy, and it influences how we define ourselves. If there’s something that influences it, it’s worth understanding us and seeing what can be done, right?
Private secrets seep into our professional worlds through our worldview and behavior. This is true for every detail that happens in our lives, but we have less daily contact with secrets. The power and importance of keeping the secret doesn’t really allow us to ask honest and open questions and understand what it does to us.
The secret effect that affects
Every time I talk about this matter of secrets, the first sentence I get is – but everyone has secrets, right? Right. And everyone is hiding something…right. The big question is why, what is the reason for hiding, what does it promote or what does it protect. Because it’s not for nothing that we go to such lengths to hide something from someone.
Secret is a word that arouses our curiosity. It connects us to the story of the Illumination of the World. Even then it was – Adam, Eve and the apple. From our childhood, everything that was sweetened as a secret seemed interesting, belonging to the world of the great, the incomprehensible, the mysterious, that thing that we might reach when we grow up. So that when we are told the word secret, we are moved and excited, feeling part of something special, different from the rest. We were chosen for this role to be a secret partner. It feels great, sublime, valuable, significant, chosen and…belonging to a small group Limited, unique and therefore prestigious. Something about this learning to keep a secret made it clear to us that it had value.
This knowledge sometimes also brings a sense of control and power. We believe that it will help us when needed. The less they know about me, the more controlling or mysterious I am. Secrets that come from a place of shame and fear.Sometimes we consciously choose to hide because strategically it serves us. Sure…we have many reasons to do things. I’m not arguing with human strategies for survival. I’m just getting to the point where you pay a price for it or at least are willing to look at the price. Sometimes it’s directly and sometimes it’s indirectly.
Is there a good secret? Usually less. When it’s good, we’re much more open to sharing. Except in cases of competitiveness and one reservation – the evil eye, as a cultural matter.
My secret
There are many reasons to hide things – low self-esteem, upbringing, social perception, internal moral perception. A secret is something that one chooses to hide from the whole world or from certain people. Sometimes we try to hide from ourselves, to repress, to silence…at least for a certain period of time. Each of us has something to hide. Something he has done and is ashamed of, something he has done about himself that embarrasses him, something he is sure will portray him in a negative light. Something he would pay a high price for if he were known about it.
We ourselves determine the power of the secret according to the meaning we give to it. The same incident or event can be a dramatic and life-changing secret for one person, or it can be an interesting story that we tell lightly as part of our history. The meaning and power we give to something is what makes it one secret or another.
Personal and family secrets are a strong part of each of our lives and greatly influence our behavior. They always come up in coaching conversations, no matter what the topic of the coaching is or who the man or woman is, or what their level is. Why do I say this, if it always pops up and comes up and is an explanation for a worldview, for a certain behavior. It means that this thing, the secret, has a very great energy in it that affects us on all levels.
The consequences of secrets on our lives
Even if we think that the secret is only ours and does not belong to anyone else… we should check it out. Is this the truth? Am I sure that it has no effect on anyone else? My decisions, choices and behaviors have no effect on anyone else…? The main mistake is that we do not put the right weight on the scale, against the price of disclosure, which is the price we pay for not disclosing. Second and no less important, the conduct of secrets has a shaping effect on our personality, on our worldview, on our values, on our conduct. And more-
Keeping a secret is essentially saying that there are parts of me that they shouldn’t know, meaning I’m not okay, I’m not enough, it’s better to hide. And even if it’s with good intentions, we actually learn to shrink, shrink, hide.
Hiding wastes our energy and affects our behavior. And the fear of being found out changes my behavior. I do everything I can to keep it from being discovered because it’s a secret. Maybe I won’t try or compete for something because it will expose me.
Keeping a secret creates a sense of power and control over certain parts. But it doesn’t allow us to deal with it in reality. And maybe, just maybe, something we think is really terrible in reality or not so terrible. Maybe it’s not that abnormal, and maybe it’s a fear that many people have. It’s actually sharing and talking about things that allows us to normalize them and let the air out of that balloon and start breathing again.
The price you pay
This does not allow others to cope and respond…they do not know what it is about. Do not share, do not divide, keep it to yourself. Instead of cooperation and understanding the enormous importance of sharing and thinking together, it stems from a lack of understanding of what this does to the results.
Living with secrets and partial truths at some point affects our perception of reality regarding others – it is clear that everyone lies and hides, which of course is not necessarily true. But that is how we build a worldview. What does such a worldview do for us in the workplace, for example?
We learn a lot from mistakes if we dare to expose them and deal with them. If we are unable to talk about them due to shame or fear, the problems are not solved. They are below the surface and control us, especially in more stressful and challenging moments. This is expressed in behavior. It affects communication and relationships. We know how to recognize it in the feeling of something inauthentic and insincere, pretending to be two-faced, but we don’t know how to tell from it.
Impact on our relationships of all kinds – secrets in the family can cause division, alienation and distance. They do not encourage the individual to share outside the family and harm the ability to create intimacy in the future. They affect mental development and self-identity, self-acceptance and self-confidence. They can create short-circuits in communication, competition between siblings, partial alliances, unjustified feelings of guilt and doubt. They arouse suspicion, teach silences, and distance. Well…and these affect our behaviors everywhere, including in the workplace.
"The size of your illness is the size of your secret."
Stop paying the price for secrets.
It is necessary and worthwhile to work with ourselves in these places so that we can live more openly and more fully. From connection and self-acceptance. All of this greatly affects self-confidence, because it is impossible to love yourself and believe in yourself when you live a lie. You can present a false version to the world and think that they will love us or respect us… but can I love myself when I live with a false sense of my identity, because they are not the real thing… This does not help self-perception and progress in your own eyes.
“Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he hides” – André Melroux
And why? Why don’t we live more authentically? Accepting ourselves for our flaws and difficulties allows us to accept others a little more easily. Allows us to be more empathetic to others. If we continue like this, we will reach world peace….
What helps overcome the influence of secrets?
Sharing secrets with strangers can make things a little easier. It allows us to not put ourselves at risk, and it can be a rehearsal before we actually tell. To see what the reaction is and maybe discover that it’s not so bad or impossible.
The understanding that bonds are actually strengthened when secrets are shared. Sometimes you discover that the other person actually always thought, wanted, and hoped that way. Secrets are a currency of closeness.
We live in a different era than when shame held people with secrets and stuck them forever. Today, sharing and disclosure are part of our values as a society, understanding the importance of this as part of the healing process. Personal, national, global. It is a healing factor for traumas for people and nations. What is important is the timing, the path, otherwise it can also be destructive.
“There are two kinds of secrets: the ones you want to keep inside, and the ones you dare not let out…” Eli Carter
In training processes, these secrets that govern us emerge because there is a space that allows for open, honest, and non-judgmental discourse. What is interesting is that in most cases, when the secret comes to light, there is admiration for what I was so ashamed of hiding. Why did I waste so much energy on it and what a relief it is now.
Questions about integrity and honesty, especially in people who are involved in areas of helping others, or people who market themselves as knowledgeable. When in fact they contain within themselves the fear that people will see the gap between what I say as a professional and how I act in my personal daily life. Such gaps can really paralyze a person. The feeling is of a liar, a pretender and in a moment someone will expose me, hurt, humiliate and lower confidence.
5 questions to think about the secrets you hold:
- What will happen if he is discovered?
- How much, if not whether, does my secret affect the other person?
- Why is it a secret? What do I get from the fact that I have a secret (conceit, mystery, self-preference, lack of judgment and criticality, no dealing with the other, with reality, with the consequences)
- What do I lose by having a secret?
- In what ways will revealing the secret benefit me, what might I gain?
Yes, yes, it takes courage to overcome this fear and apprehension. But the gain is great from a personal perspective. It is living yourself more fully. Complex and interesting.
For more details, talk to me.
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