It’s a Secret

Google says secret is something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. We all have secrets and some of them do qualify this definition, but some are shared with our trusted family and friends with a caveat “don’t tell anyone”. Sometimes a secret is just like a Chinese Whisper. It starts with an intent of just sharing with someone to feel relived but travels through the grapevine and turns out to be story of its own. Are we learning this skill of encouraging Chinese Whisper or are we teaching ourselves to respect the meaning of secret?

As a child, my mother always told me, I should never hide anything from her. Every day as I return from school she would patiently ask me details of my entire day and I would narrate everything. This became a habit and even when I stayed away from her during my engineering days, I used to call her everyday while I returned from college and talk my whole day to her. As I grew old, my parents too did. A natural process which we fail to notice. After my marriage and my daughter was born, they grew older. Along with age we develop a different feeling of concern. Now they started thinking I am busy in my own world so let’s not tell her all our small problems or health issues and trouble her. Let’s keep it a secret. On the other side, me being their daughter also thought the same. Any day I have a severe headache, I try to avoid talking to mom and say I am busy just to avoid the stress they will have knowing my condition. So here started my secret.

Flip side of this secret coin is “Chinese Whisper”. It might surprise you how? Being sick and being busy are two very different states of mind. But when I have a secret about my health, I try to pretend everything is fine. While I talk to my mother, every question of her revolves around my busy schedule but since my health is not permitting me to respond to her questions, everything she says and my responses to that would be disconnected to an extent. They all feel like Chinese whisper. When we truly care about our family, always share your true emotional state because what comes next when you hide something is unknown and unpredictable. Instead of helping them help you, we start building a whirlpool of Chinese whisper for ourselves ruining the peace and harmony in all relationships we have and not only the one where we focus to protect.

Participants of this Chinese whisper are: first the message is prepared by your body, then your mind communicates something different based on your past emotional conversation with yourself. Now the second participant, your mind makes you communicate a different message to your loved ones who hears it right but understands based on how their mind perceives. Next participant is with whom they discuss this, and the chain of mind and body continues. Unknowingly we mess up our relationship just by keeping a secret assuming sharing it will stress someone and forgetting that not sharing will stress everyone.  

We always hear people saying unconditional love, don’t have expectation, do what you have to, and so on. In reality these slogans come with a lot of emotional attachment and questions revolving around the actual existence of these. Unconditional and no expectations are two very strong emotions which accompany secrets and Chinese whisper. We humans are a very complex structure because every mind is right in its sense and wrong in its own sense. This non-tangible part within our tangible body plays all the game of life. When you decide to keep a secret, our mind justifies it based on that unconditional love we have and when this secret flips its side to Chinese whisper the same mind plays around the expectations with that information.

Expectations and conditions in a loving relationship are not always bad provided they help build the relationship in its true sense. When I condition my mind to hide something from my loved ones, I start building improper expectations. But when my mind is programmed to have the right expectations from a relationship all my love becomes unconditional.

Secret conditions your love.
Secret defines your expectations.
Secret defines your communication.
Secret conditions your relationship.

Communication and acceptance are two very strong building blocks in any relationship. When we choose to keep a secret, we start damaging these blocks and eventually create a vacuum in that relationship. Sharing everything with everyone is not always an ideal choice but how we choose to communicate what we don’t want to share is what makes the difference. When I say to my husband, I know what is wrong with me but right now I don’t want to talk about it, he understands and respects my decision. He gives me the space to deal with myself because there is a confidence in that relationship that I will come back to him when I feel its the right time to share. This space and respect is what helps you build the relationship without secrets.

Every individual has a unique way of expression and also equally different is the other individual at the receiving end. Relationships grow beyond secrets when the two people involved accept each other for their different ways of expression and respect the choices they make without judgement.

Chinese whisper is a fun game as long as we choose it to be a game. When it enters life, every step in that relationship goes into a deep well of secrets where everything is an unsolved mystery. Build your relationships beyond secrets and make way for love to reach you with the right expectations and in the right condition.

When we whisper the secrets, it’s always misunderstood and miscommunicated.
When we communicate and understand, no secrets will whisper into our relationship.