Secrets

Do you have secrets? Those of you reading this can likely say yes. From childhood we've always had those close friends that swore us to secrecy, and a wrath upon your soul if you told their secret! Thinking of these times brings a comfortable, warm and close feeling with the friendships we built and trusted in enough to share our secrets. We reminisce about these friendships with our fun secrets that we spent hours giggling about with positive, fond memories.

There are some secrets however, that do not bring such positive, fond memories. These secrets can (and usually do) create chaos in our lives. These secrets tend to be damaging and breeds distrust over the course of our lives. Those that have these kinds of secrets and who may be reading this post may be getting that uneasy heaviness in their stomachs all the way to their core through every fiber of their beings. As the years pass, the chaos increases, and likely it isn't always evident that there is a correlation between these secrets and increased chaos.

I had a beautiful moment in my first counseling session today. I have a client and we will call her, The Traveler. I have worked with The Traveler for about three months. Today, The Traveler told me she had disclosed her biggest and darkest secret to her significant other over the last week. When we talk about her biggest and darkest secret, it is the type that nightmares can be built on. The distrust this client has built over the years has been overreaching into all of her relationships. The Traveler felt it was necessary for her significant other to know everything so that she could understand The Traveler better with the mood shifts and the guarded behaviors. This would also lead to more empathy from The Traveler's significant other. The Traveler came away from this experience with another benefit; she was able to shrink the chaos that this burden was causing her.

The realization of this session is another way to help shrink the chaos. I implore anyone who is holding any damaging secrets inside to go to someone you trust, or seek counseling/therapy and release this cancer of the soul. Find a way through sharing these secrets to...shrink the chaos.

Inside Out

I often find myself in the conundrum of feeling inside out. Just like the movie, "Inside Out", that feeling of being conflicted with what the world is throwing at me, and what I have control on. How do you see your world, your existence? Are you inside out?

In my years of working with hundreds of clients, I have seen both ends of this spectrum played out marvelously. I, myself wasn't truly aware of where I was on this spectrum initially, because it isn't one of those things that a person brings to the forefront of their mind on a regular basis. It was only working with people that I learned exactly how I viewed my world.

There is a client I see and we will call her Short-Round. Working with Short-Round over a three and a half year span of time allowed me to see where she is on this spectrum, and solidify where I am on the spectrum. Short-Round is a single mother of two and just barely thirty, in a constant financial struggle, and has constant relational struggles. You see, Short-Round views her world very externally and is in a constant state of chaos.

In virtually every session with Short-Round, she states how she had a plan for life when she was barely twenty and things didn't go according to plan and now there is no use trying to do anything to change that. She is constantly depressed and all her actions are for everyone else in her life but her. She seeks the validation from people who have been critical of her all her life and she is never getting that validation and continues to try harder to hopefully, magically obtain that validation she so desperately wants. She has difficulty in romantic relationships because she doesn't view herself as good enough because obviously the fathers of her children didn't want her. She is so afraid that she is "cursed" because of these failed relationships that she won't allow anyone in and more often than not uses the phrase "I can't let them in". These are all examples of viewing the world externally, hoping something will change, but doing nothing to change it herself.

Internal viewpoints are of course the opposite. When I see an area of my life that I think is less than adequate or acceptable, or that makes me feel downright miserable, I ask myself "what control do I have in this situation". 99% of the time, I have control to alter the situation at hand, if not change it all together. I often have an extreme example I share with my clients to illustrate the point of where control lies in a person; their accountability if you will.

If I am in a crosswalk and I have the little man saying it's my turn to cross I start walking, but I am not looking to either side because it's my rightful turn. All of a sudden a bus hits me dead on as if I had a target painted on me. Now, assuming I survived (I mean it's a bus after all), I could blame that bus for running the red light and hitting me. But did I not have some accountability? I didn't look both ways before I decided to cross and therefore I have some of the accountability for being hit. I could have exercised control in that situation and looked as I was crossing and noticed that said bus wasn't slowing down and stopped before it could hit me. This is not to say that there are things that are 100% out of our control. I could be sitting in my living room (typing this exact blog post) and a meteorite slams through my roof and kills me instantly. I can honestly say in that moment, I had absolutely no control or accountability.

Many times in my life I have defaulted to the external, as I'm sure we all have. Some examples of mine are, "All the red lights are out to get me", "Why do bad things always happen to me", etc. Those of you reading are likely guilty of the same or similar sayings as negative things happen in life. It is important to learn to live as internally as possible and realize that we all have more control in our everyday situations than we realize, and the quicker we accept that, the easier and more positive life will be for us. This type of thinking and approach to life will help to shrink the chaos in your life.

Happines, Fulfillment, ...Freedom.

The true measure of success and happiness isn't what you have, what you do, but the journey you took to get there. Anyone can make a substantial amount of money and have more "friends" than can be counted, but at the end of the day, they are alone and feel poor. Sure, monetarily they are on top, but at the cost of their happiness, fulfillment and sense of freedom.

As the world progresses faster into the future, there are many amazing inventions. Having the newest and fastest (sometimes most expensive) gadgets somehow gives us a sense of achievement. Unfortunately, that feeling of achievement is only short lived. What price is actually paid to have the newest and most expensive? Happiness, fulfillment and freedom.

Happiness is more than a mere emotion; it is a state of mind and a state of being. Too often there are those who are hopelessly waiting for that magic moment when they will all of a sudden be happy. Unfortunately, if those who are waiting continue to live in that belief, they will be waiting a long, long time.

Happiness is something that needs to be sought and recognized in the day to day events and interactions. It isn't always an earth shattering moment; its subtleties sometimes barely perceptible. So if you are having difficulty feeling happy, slow down and look at what is right in front of you. Stop being so stubborn and seeing only through tunnel vision; challenge your deepest core beliefs and shrink the chaos.

1. Stop, slow down and see things that on a normal day you would go by and never notice.
2. Find your happiness, don't wait for it to find you.
3. Realize you control your happiness.
4. You are deserving of happiness and you need to seek it.
5. Look at and list all the positives in your life, and stop focusing on the negative.

Only through this opening of your mind and self-exploration can you achieve happiness, fulfillment, ...freedom.