Shhhhhhh. Can I tell you a secret?

Little Laurie holding her secret (1966)

Secrets. We all have them. We all hold them. That is, until they get too heavy or are discovered and revealed by someone else.

Recent researchers have discovered that all of us hold secrets.  

A study by Michael L. Slepian of Columbia University found that 97 percent of people have at least one secret at any given moment, and people have, on average, 13 secrets. 

His research found good and bad news about our secrets. 

The bad news is that when we hold secrets, we often think about them.  They can be there in the background all the time. And just the thought of the secret often brings up guilt or shame, harming us.  The good news is that talking to another person can make a difference even when we choose to keep something secret.

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." –André Malraux

I held a secret for the first 30 years of my life. Honestly, I didn't even know the full extent of the unknown I held and protected so dearly. I  didn’t completely own up to the “truth” until I had undergone years of therapy to uncover it. Even now, decades later,  that truth is fuzzy.

This is why being authentic to oneself has always been a value of mine despite holding onto a secret I couldn't own up to.

That is, until now.

As I finish my Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories from a Junkyard Girl memoir, I am facing and getting ready to share my truth. Not just to myself, family, and friends who already know me, but by publishing my story, my reality, I will share it with the world. And that, my friends, is super scary.

We don't always have to reveal our deepest, darkest secrets. Sometimes, it's best to keep them inside. Perhaps it's because the truth may hurt a loved one, or to own that truth, you don't need to share it.

As I've written my book, I grapple with this conundrum and contemplate what to include and what not to include.

One of the themes of my book is the power of pretend.  This is vital to my life because I believe my creative imagination saved me. 

As a child, I had a wild imagination that pulled me away from the harsh realities of life.  Fueled by my ravenous need to read, I lost myself in stories.  Stories I read. And stories I made up.  We played pretend so often in the woods and the junkyard that playing pretend was a way to soften the harsh realities of our life.

Pretending was my coping compass. The power of pretend was a mechanism that enabled me to live and even thrive because I had a heavy secret to keep as a child; to do this, I had to pretend to others that things were fine. I learned that to keep the secret, I had to act – and I had to be good at it – so good that at some points in my life – I believed what I was making up was real.

This has been a real conundrum as I unravel my life.  I trained myself to pretend everything was all right and show others the person I felt they needed me to be. Finding who I was – and am today has taken quite an effort.

I covered and buried the truth so much to protect myself than in the last few decades; as I have done a lot of healing, work, and writing, I have slowly uncovered the truth bit by bit – and word by word. It has been challenging. It's not easy to believe even the bits I remember.

There's certainly a lot of research about trauma experienced in childhood, and much of what my brain has done was for my benefit; I recognize that.

It's not lost on me the irony that here I am 30+ years later, coaching others in my bu coaching practice to live authentically and recognize their truth.

I am ready to share my truth by sharing stories from my life. Stories that will reveal who I am. 

"Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth." –Buddha

As I've written and remembered the stories I share in the book and those I chose not to include, I have uncovered many fuzzy memories, which I believe are my truth.

I've had to do the work to uncover these "diamonds" in the dirt ...to dig deep to find the gifts within the secrets I've held.

That is why writing this book has been so important to me.  It’s a way to uncover my truth.  To share it with others. As the Columbia research points out – there is tremendous relief when you unburden yourself and share your secret.  It isn’t so heavy anymore.

I hope my book will inspire others to look back at their own life – perhaps at their own secrets – and uncover them for themselves.  I realize that by sharing my secret, I will also share the secrets of family members.  This is the scary part, and I am not doing this easily.  Hopefully, I can gracefully and with care share my story without compromising or hurting those who were and are part of it.

That is the trouble with secrets. Too often, others are a part of our secret, knowingly or unknowingly.   And they may not be ready to bear their truth. Each of us has a lens through which we remember past situations. When emotional trauma is associated with those memories, we often remember them differently.

In my book, I share my stories. My truth is in the hopes that my words and stories can encourage my readers to discover their own.

Here’s to owning and sharing our stories, my friends.  The truth is that while it is difficult to do – it will bring us closer.  Closer to ourselves – our authentic selves – and closer to each other.

Ok. One secret or two secrets shared.  Eleven or ten more to go? Arghhhhhh.