Secrets and skeletons. Skeletons and secrets. The bane of our existence. We all have them with varying degrees of severity, but whether or not we acknowledge them depends on us. I want you to go to the corner of your mind that holds the soul-crushing events of your past. Some events are so utterly painful that they are locked behind an emotional paywall that is only accessible to a select few. The keepers of your secret. The people who are aware of what transpired, but are in on the “do not discuss” directive that is attached to it. It’s better off locked away right? At least you’ve told yourself that over the years. Lately, though, you’ve been thinking about the emotional tolls of these secrets. How is it really serving you? Are you done hiding?
Skeleton Amnesia
These particular events may fill us with anger, fear, dread, shame, sorrow, and regret. Carrying these emotions forward into our everyday lives is too painful to bear, so we tuck them away and pretend it doesn’t exist.
This selective burying of your past is almost doable until somehow your past finds its way into your present. Maybe it’s that old boyfriend of yours with a troubled past that you failed to mention to your husband. Or perhaps it’s the DUI you got during your freshmen year of college. No matter what the circumstance is, we all have skeletons, and they don’t go away. They lurk in the background of our lives, menacing our attempts at progress by dropping real-time reminders into our present.
These are our skeletons. The weight that we carry and the keepers of our pain. As we progress in our lives, we want to excise these traumatic memories, but we never can. We give ourselves “pseudo grace” by pretending it doesn’t exist, but by doing so we also keep the hidden pain intact. Hiding these parts of our authentic life experience interferes with our own authenticity and self-acceptance.
In relationships, our skeletons prevent us from being emotionally available. There is always “that secret” that we pray our significant other never finds out about lest we become unlovable.
What If…
What if we actually viewed our skeletons as part of our authentic life experience? What if we embraced and processed that pain, and in turn shared our experience with others, giving them real-time access to our healing journey? When you wholly accept your truth, it doesn’t need to be locked away. Being afraid to share our truths takes our power and places it into the hands of the recipient of our story.
I believe that there is no greater love than the unconditional love you have for yourself and others. If you share your truth, their response will be the barometer of the strength of your bond. We are all flawed human beings, and if they accept your skeletons you have your answer, if not, you still have your answer. Either way, you are free.
When we share our truths we become stronger. Thorns and all. Ask yourself if you are still hiding, and if you are, let’s do something about it.
How We Begin
We come into this world as a blank slate, at which point we slowly begin to form impressions. As a condition of youth, we lack experience in navigating life’s quandaries and challenges, but eventually, we find our place in this world.
As a result of our inexperience, some of us flail around seeking direction and meaning, while others are given heavy-handed guideposts to follow. The bottom line is that coaching is needed, but not always received, so mistakes happen. Some are small and meaningless, and you can easily recover from them, but others have lasting consequences. Remember the guy who spray-painted the front of the school before graduation? His life was forever changed.
As humans, we are always evolving, and unfortunately, these events are part of our evolution. The overarching point here is that many of the skeletons that are haunting us are from a period of time when our threshold for making mistakes was extremely high. I do believe that when you know better you do better. We can evolve and course-correct and these events do not need to haunt us forever.
How We Experience It
There are many emotions that we tag to these traumatic life events…
- Shame– Have you done something that you deem so shameful that it rocks your core? You may feel a deep sense of regret and have a hard time forgiving yourself. We will never voluntarily share this kind of event unless forced to because we feel that someone could never accept this flawed version of ourselves.
- Fear- When you spend so much time keeping the “ugly” parts of your past hidden, you are going to spend equal amounts of time fearing exposure. It’s definitely not a good place to be.
- Denial- If I tuck it away and I don’t think about it, maybe it didn’t happen. Have you ever told yourself that? I have. I’ve put certain events so far into the recesses of my mind that I sometimes forget that they actually happened. Can you relate?
- Regret- If we could only turn back time. Never going to happen.
- Sorrow- You become a silent victim that no one can see. You mourn your perceived brokenness and the things that could have been.
- Anger- When you are angry you couldn’t be further from acceptance and healing. Anger prevents you from moving forward. Even though it may be hidden, it percolates just below the surface waiting for the next trigger.
The Path To Freedom
Let’s move past the pain, shame, and fear so that we can get to a place of radical acceptance of our past. We can refuse to be held hostage by the things that we can’t undo. I think that we owe ourselves that.
I’m going to set you free in 3 steps:
- A= Acknowledge
- G= Give Yourself Grace
- E= Emotional Availability
Acknowledge
I’m going to ask you to go there again. The place that you are trying to avoid. Think about the event as if it just happened, and acknowledge all of it. Experience all of the emotions that accompanied it. Since we can’t turn back the clock, we actually need to sit in it to heal.
Ask yourself the following…
- How did it happen?
- Why did it happen?
- Did I have enough life experience to make a different choice?
- What could I have done differently?
- What did I learn?
- What would I change if I could?
- Am I blaming myself?
- How are things different now?
- How am I different now?
The answers to these questions will help you sift through your pain and process it. Examining the event in its entirety will give you the clarity to accept the things that you cannot change.
Give Yourself Grace
This is an important one. Can you forgive yourself for not being perfect?
When you do not accept yourself as an inherently flawed human being, you are not loving yourself unconditionally. It’s time to change that.
Accept this mistake or event as part of your life story. A part that you will not be able to change, but also one that does not define you. We gain wisdom with age, and you need to reconcile that you may not have had enough wisdom to make better decisions at that time.
Give yourself permission to move forward.
Emotional Availability
Now for the biggest challenge of all. Can you make your pain public? By public, I mean sharing this sensitive information with friends and family who care about you. Now I’m definitely not saying that you should blurt it out over Thanksgiving dinner. This type of disclosure is best shared when appropriate and relevant in order to lend context to your life’s journey.
Truths can be very hard to verbalize in practice, but I promise you that when you can do that, you will finally be free. Anyone who truly gets and loves you unconditionally will accept your new truth, and respect you for your efforts in transparency. If they don’t, that’s okay too, because you are still free. Your skeletons will no longer hold sway over you, and the hostage situation is over.
If you have a moment, check out my previous post called “External Validation and Opting Out” https://herpicketfence.com/external-validation-and-opting-out/.
I’m done hiding. How about you?
