Trusting Others With Your Secret
Of all the e-mails I receive, the issue of trust is by far the most prevalent. SO many people have written to ask me how they can know who to trust.
I believe each of us possesses within us an ability to "feel out" who we can trust. It is this sense that allows little kids to know who they can run crying to on the playground, or how young people know which teachers they can confide in after school hours. Trust is unseen, innately felt. For whatever it's worth, we seem to know the most about trust only when it has been broken.
For more than a decade, I have been privy to a host of "secrets", revealed to me through student essays and confidential conversations. Legally I am obligated to report instances of incest, abuse and neglect. This obligation has allowed countless numbers of people to finally receive the help they so desperately needed.
This fact, I believe, reveals a larger truth about secrets and trust. If something is bad enough or private enough to be considered a secret, then the holder feels an urgency to share it with someone else as a way of reaching out for help, either for themselves or for another person.
But how does one know who they can trust with their secret?
I think finding a trustworthy person is like shopping for a life partner: spend lots of time with that person and ask a lot of questions! See how the person responds to people and situations to get a sense of how they might respond to you and your situation. Is the person always spreading gossip about other people? They're not trustworthy. Does the person say, "I shouldn't be telling you this, but..." Then they're not trustworthy.
From my experience, most of the things I have heard as secrets, never should have been a secret at all! The secret label was a way of keeping dangerous behaviors and interactions under wraps. By breaking the secret, the individual was able to finally break the cycle of addiction or abuse.
I am proud to have played a role in this process.
Sometimes we feel like our secret is so big that no one could ever understand it. I would like to assure everyone who reads this, that there are no secrets that someone else in the world can't relate to. If it is happening to you, more than likely, it is happening to someone else as well. By getting help for yourself, you are showing others who suffer that they too can reach out and change their life course.
All of us have had our trust broken. We've been betrayed by a friend, lied to by a family member or put in a no-win situation by someone who said they loved us.
But these situations are the exception and not the rule.
Follow your gut instincts when looking for someone to trust with your secret. Look at people's behavior and non-verbal behavior. Do they present themselves as someone who will be respectful of the information you trust them with?
If the answer is yes, then the only thing left to do is open the door for a meaningful conversation. Here again is a place where many people have asked for my advice.
I would start off by telling the person you've selected to trust your secret with, something like this. "I want you to know how much I value our friendship. I have something I need to tell you and hope that you will listen carefully to what I am telling you. I don't need you to do anything but listen right now. I may need you to be there for me in a different way later on, but right now I just need to talk to you..."
I think it is important to tell the person you are speaking to what you expect from them. Don't leave their reaction you need to chance! By telling them what their role is in the conversation, you are more inclined to get the supportive response you need.
Choosing who to trust is risky business, but necessary. Ultimately, you need to trust yourself. Trust that you know enough about the people in your life to be able to know who will listen and help you in the way you need. Trust that you are worth listening to.
And finally, trust that you are worth helping. Sharing your secret with another person is the first in a series of steps towards helping yourself.
You deserve that help and the better life that outside intervention may bring!
I believe each of us possesses within us an ability to "feel out" who we can trust. It is this sense that allows little kids to know who they can run crying to on the playground, or how young people know which teachers they can confide in after school hours. Trust is unseen, innately felt. For whatever it's worth, we seem to know the most about trust only when it has been broken.
For more than a decade, I have been privy to a host of "secrets", revealed to me through student essays and confidential conversations. Legally I am obligated to report instances of incest, abuse and neglect. This obligation has allowed countless numbers of people to finally receive the help they so desperately needed.
This fact, I believe, reveals a larger truth about secrets and trust. If something is bad enough or private enough to be considered a secret, then the holder feels an urgency to share it with someone else as a way of reaching out for help, either for themselves or for another person.
But how does one know who they can trust with their secret?
I think finding a trustworthy person is like shopping for a life partner: spend lots of time with that person and ask a lot of questions! See how the person responds to people and situations to get a sense of how they might respond to you and your situation. Is the person always spreading gossip about other people? They're not trustworthy. Does the person say, "I shouldn't be telling you this, but..." Then they're not trustworthy.
From my experience, most of the things I have heard as secrets, never should have been a secret at all! The secret label was a way of keeping dangerous behaviors and interactions under wraps. By breaking the secret, the individual was able to finally break the cycle of addiction or abuse.
I am proud to have played a role in this process.
Sometimes we feel like our secret is so big that no one could ever understand it. I would like to assure everyone who reads this, that there are no secrets that someone else in the world can't relate to. If it is happening to you, more than likely, it is happening to someone else as well. By getting help for yourself, you are showing others who suffer that they too can reach out and change their life course.
All of us have had our trust broken. We've been betrayed by a friend, lied to by a family member or put in a no-win situation by someone who said they loved us.
But these situations are the exception and not the rule.
Follow your gut instincts when looking for someone to trust with your secret. Look at people's behavior and non-verbal behavior. Do they present themselves as someone who will be respectful of the information you trust them with?
If the answer is yes, then the only thing left to do is open the door for a meaningful conversation. Here again is a place where many people have asked for my advice.
I would start off by telling the person you've selected to trust your secret with, something like this. "I want you to know how much I value our friendship. I have something I need to tell you and hope that you will listen carefully to what I am telling you. I don't need you to do anything but listen right now. I may need you to be there for me in a different way later on, but right now I just need to talk to you..."
I think it is important to tell the person you are speaking to what you expect from them. Don't leave their reaction you need to chance! By telling them what their role is in the conversation, you are more inclined to get the supportive response you need.
Choosing who to trust is risky business, but necessary. Ultimately, you need to trust yourself. Trust that you know enough about the people in your life to be able to know who will listen and help you in the way you need. Trust that you are worth listening to.
And finally, trust that you are worth helping. Sharing your secret with another person is the first in a series of steps towards helping yourself.
You deserve that help and the better life that outside intervention may bring!