Keeping secrets gives them power. Here’s why I stopped.

The whole reason I started a healing journey was because I was tired of lying about my life. I didn’t want to keep making up stories, then bursting into tears whenever I talked about my past.

I was tired of running from the truth, denying my past experiences & feeling jealous of all my friends with “normal” lives. I just wanted to be ok with myself and my life.

Last year when I went to the Texas Book Festival I watched an interview with Adrienne Brodeur and she said the following words which I furiously wrote in my notebook and have stuck with me ever since.

“When you deny and oppress secrets, that gives them more power. When you shine a light on it, you’re able to get over the fear and surpass it.”

I realized that by running from the truth in my life, hiding my past and keeping secrets, I gave them power. That meant anyone who “found out” about my life growing up in The Children of God cult could immediately use that information against me somehow, and people did.

I became convinced that somehow I did something wrong, I should be ashamed, I should hide my life and my past, and everyone was so much better than me.

Turns out that by hiding my past I gave that past power over me. And when others found out my “secret”, that gave THEM power over me. Not anymore. I was over it.

I no longer wanted to give away my power. I wanted to face it head on. Sure, it would be hard. Sure it’ll be uncomfortable, and sure, I’ll make a ton of mistakes along the way. But getting over my fear of talking about my past was worth it.

When you keep deep secrets, things will continually happen to get the attention of that secret. Your life will not be yours until you address the thing you fear the most.

It’s only been a little over a year since I first started openly talking about my life, and wow, what a relief it’s been. I’ve made deeper connections with others & myself. Slowly but surely I made order out of chaos and meaning out of pain. Sure, it felt vulnerable and exposing at first, but it was totally worth it.

If there’s a secret you’ve been keeping, and things continuously keep happening that force you to keep looking at that secret, consider facing it head on. Accept all possibilities of what could happen when you face it, and know that the outcome will most likely be nothing that you expect.

When you speak from the heart, when you tell a deeply personal story and share your journey, no matter how fearful you are or how scary it is, it will resonate with someone, and people will respect you for it.

I know because it happened to me.