The damaging power of secrets

Reckoning and release are impossible when we keep secrets – when we operate under a code of denial, delusion, or minimization.

Sometimes the demand to keep a secret (or keep silent) is unspoken or unconscious. Sometimes others buy our silence with threats or force. Either way, secrets are harmful because they create and sustain a climate for shame, and shame is the bottom line of any addiction (or of the wounded child whose ‘reality’ has been fed on false beliefs of intrinsically flawed not being good enough.) Freedom comes facing and telling the truth… this is only possible when we create a climate of love and acceptance within ourselves.

Edith Eger