It’s generally easy to talk about what we do for a living, sports, weather, or the latest current events. But occasionally we have experiences we wish we could forget and have every intention of taking to our grave. There’s a natural fear of opening Pandora’s box and causing more harm than good. While certainly we must be wise in deciding who to share our story with, secrets have a way of eating us alive when they’re kept in the dark and not shared with our trusted others.
To be sure, everyone doesn’t need to know everything, and not everyone can handle everything. And there’s a risk of people using what we share against us. It’s understandable then that we would be very selective in who we share the dark and heavy aspects of our story with.
But in practice this often means we don’t share at all. We assume it’s best just to keep it to ourselves and hope it will eventually go away if we can ignore it long enough.
To be fair, there are some things we can process, let go of, and that no longer have a stronghold in our life. But it’s time to open Pandora’s box when things continue to keep us up at night or begin to negatively impact our life and relationships..
It is likely we’re opening a door that can no longer be closed. There’s no going back and it will change how people see us. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.
On the one hand, we give them an opportunity to see and love us completely. And, at the same time, we free ourselves from the weight and loneliness of keeping our story hidden.
Of course, there are still risks. But we allow ourselves to slowly die inside when we keep things bottled up.
In the end, opening Pandora’s box and sharing the depths of your inner world is an adventure into the unknown. But finding your trusted others and taking this risk is worth it. The weight of a hidden life is soul killing otherwise.
