Your Thing

As a friend of mine once wrote in a song, “Everybody’s got their thing”.  In the song, the “thing” was a suitcase full of pornography, baby.  While that particular something is not everybody’s thing, all of us do have something.  We have something that we hide from those we love.  We have something that we do not want to talk about. 

Your thing might be a secret that you have kept for years.  It could be something dark and forbidden.  It might even be taboo.  It may be something embarrassing, something of which you are deeply ashamed.  You thought something or did something for which you feel there is no redemption. 

Or maybe you know deep down that you should not feel guilt because of it.  Perhaps there is no reason to feel guilty, because you only feel that shame because someone said that you should.  Maybe it was someone else who brought that shame and guilt upon you.  Maybe it was not your fault that it happened. 

If you never share your secret, it will never go away.  If no one knows your secret, it will always hover like a dark shadow somewhere in your subconscious.  Some trigger will always remain…something that reminds you that it hovers there.  

Maybe your thing is simple and you can handle it on your own.  Or maybe you are not handling it as well as you think you are.  That shadow could be hovering there, unnoticed but heavy, and pushing down on your life in ways you have yet to realize.  It is possible that your secret is too complex and the ramifications of sharing it would be too painful to deal with, perhaps even more painful than keeping it inside. 

Some of us have friends we trust who we could consider revealing the suitcase to, but for some of us, trust is part of the problem.  Maybe the secret itself is the reason that you are alone with no one to trust.  Even the most ashamed of us can take comfort in knowing that there are confidential crisis hotlines and therapists out there waiting to help change secrets into topics of conversation.  We know that we can lighten our burden by sharing...without fear.

After all, fear is why we keep secrets.  Fear is why we hide the suitcase.

Even though it can be scary, showing your thing to someone else will make you feel good.