The Art of Confession: Letting Go of Secrets and Healing Relationships (Episode #33)

Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Welcome to the Human Intimacy podcast, Dr. Devin Skinner with my friend and colleague, Marianne Michaelas. Maryanne, how are you?

I am so happy to be here once again. Thank you. Dr. Skinner. How are you?

You know, it's such an interesting time of the year. The leaves are changing colors. The air is crisp in the morning. Absolutely wonderful to go outside, enjoy the cooler temperatures after a hot summer. And it kind of reminds me of life. You know, we go through these different stages of change. And, you know, in the summer, sometimes it's just getting through the heat of the day. And, you know, I like the cooler nights. I grew up in Idaho, so I love the cooler weather. It just. It just reminds me of home and, And. And now we're transitioning into the leaf changing. And it's. Again, in life, we go through changes, and sometimes we're afraid of change. But I'm excited to talk about today's topic.

Yeah, that's a perfect segue into talking about change and how there are hard times of life and easier times of life. That's a beautiful segue.

So our topic for this week is what I'm titling, the art of confession. We could call it the art of letting go of past pain, the art of letting go of mistakes that we've made. Because the concept that we're going to be talking about is how do you let go of things that you've been holding on to? And why do we hold on to certain things? What's the benefit? And what happens when we are willing to release stories, things that we've been so afraid to talk about because we're afraid of social judgment, or we're afraid that people will reject us, or maybe our spouse will leave us. So, Marianne, what are your initial thoughts on this idea of letting go, the art of confession, letting these stories be told that maybe we didn't think we would ever talk about?

Oh, I have so many thoughts just on what you were just presenting. The. The overriding word that comes to my mind is. Is just fear. As we think about confession and we, as you were talking about, like, the things that we hold on to. I've had clients who said, I'm taking this to my grave. This is something I can't even believe that I shared with you. But nobody else will ever know about this. I am taking this to my grave. And that is all just a basis of fear. And really, when we look at fear and we boil it down, usually we're looking at a fear of rejection, a fear of abandonment, a fear of losing the relationships. And so as we talk about confession and really showing up authentically. Oh, I think fear is probably one of the biggest obstacles that gets in our way with that. I know we'll talk more about some other factors as that as well, but that's the starting point.

And, and one of the stories that just keeps coming up over and over and over. I mean I, I don't know, been doing therapy for almost 30 years, but one of the common threads that I find is individuals have come to a conclusion that others would not be able to accept whatever XY behavior is or whatever happened to them, that nobody would be able to understand it. So they, in essence they keep it in silence. And what I would say is they're silently suffering with this pain filled story that they feel like nobody's going to understand. And the judgment or the rejection is so profound that they hold back and they don't, they don't talk about what's inside.

Yeah, and, and when I see that, I don't know if this is what you've seen as well, but as, as you're describing that I'm thinking of several clients who I've experienced this with and, and to me I hear and go, but I can see that's a, that feels like a really big deal to you. But you know, that's been 40 years and oftentimes these fears or what we're holding on to are very young. They're, and we might be looking at it through the eyes of a four year old. And of course to a four year old that feels like the end of the world. But to a 40 year old it might not be that big of a deal. And what's, what also often feels so big to me. If I share with other people, they're kind of like, okay, thanks for sharing or they might have some initial emotions, but I have my own junk. And so thanks for sharing. I know that's hard for you, but that's, that's not that big of a deal for me.

You know, in highlighting a concept here, I think often we get stuck in our own fears as you start off with stuck in our own mindset that nobody's going to be able to accept this. And then because of that, not only do we hold back from potential connections with other people, we begin to believe that people wouldn't want to see us, they wouldn't want to accept us. So the consequence of that is we often live in this place of Isolation or not, the depth of connection we could have if we were more willing to open up and share what's appropriate with the people who. With whom we want to be closest.

Yeah, and. And what we haven't talked about with this is just that pain. That pain of carrying this fear with me all the time, that if somebody really knew, then they would reject me and I would be all alone. Therefore, I can't even show up authentically. I can't show up all the way. I have so much pain in the pain of living a double life. The life of my authentic. What I believe this. The secret that I'm carrying. And then the pain of the facade and the superficial interactions because I'm keeping everyone out because of my isolation.

You know, a few years ago, I was reading a book by Dr. James Pennebaker. I think the book of title was actually opening up. And it's interesting to me what happens to us physiologically when we have untold stories. A couple of examples from his book that really stood out to me. One was this person who had been accepted into a sorority. And so some of her best friends from school, they'd all tried in to get in the sorority, and she was the only one. So really exciting news, really exciting news. And yet she was afraid to share with her friends because they did not get in. And so he highlighted a concept that even good things that we keep inside of us have lasting consequences because we're not sharing or open with people. So even positive things that we keep inside can actually have harmful effects. Now take that to the other side. When it's something really negative that we are keeping inside, not disclosing, not talking about. And then the second story from his book, which is very profound because it was an individual who had served in the Vietnam War, and he was seeing a colleague of Dr. Pen Baker's. And that therapist was said, hey, would you come in? I. I'm not sure how to do this, how to break through this with this client. So they hooked this individual up to. To. To monitors measuring his heart rate, measuring his stress levels. And he was talking about. They were interviewing him with some of his experiences in Vietnam. And he had a story that he had never disclosed, a very difficult, difficult story. And as he revealed the details of his story, there got to be a point where he stopped. And it was the secret. It was the thing that he was going to his grave with. He was never going to talk about. And he divulged that story. And what they noticed and observed is that the heart rate in this individual went down, it went up from racing fast, physiological distress to a calmer place. And, and I think that's just a manifestation. When we carry secrets, it does something not just to our. The way we interact with other people, it does it with our emotions. That meant the physiological tension that we feel inside. So I think it actually reduces the stress when we learn to be open.

That makes so much sense to me because as I heard you sharing that, the thought that came to my mind was just self rejection when we're in this place where I can't even accept myself. And there's a phrase that comes from the 12 step groups or 12 step work that said that it's our secrets keep us sick or we are as sick as our secrets. And that's a, that's a common phrase that I use with my clients. Let's talk about how your secrets are keeping you sick. How are they impacting you? How is this negative energy or the secret that's just festering that you are in this total incongruence with yourself, how is that impacting? Your adrenals are going to be heightened. You're going to be worried about what people are perceiving. Your shame is so incredibly high. And we're. Our bodies, I believe, are just like a chemistry set. And they're just little. You know, we have experiences. It's like flipping a dial or, or a switch. And we have certain cocktails of neurochemicals that are coursing through our bodies. And when we're, when we're in that state of fight or flight, I don't know if I have to protect myself. I don't know if I'm safe, because if people really knew, I've got to protect myself, we may be much more avoidant, we may be much more defensive. And if I hear avoidant and defensive, so that's our fight or flight. I also hear usually lonely.

That's a great point, because I don't want others to see into me. You know, we're talking about human intimacy is, you know, the name of this podcast. And one of the reasons why I wanted to address this topic is from a clinical perspective. Throughout my entire career, what I have discovered is when people talk about things for the first time, and I, I don't know how many times in my career I've heard people say, I've never told anybody this, I've never told anybody this. And what's interesting to observe after that is once they have done it with me, it's like they have tested the Waters, they become that kind of vulnerable. Almost invariably they begin to open up to other people because what they thought would be social rejection, the fear of somebody saying, oh, you did what? To somebody saying, oh, and in some cases saying, me too. I've experienced that. And now what was a tremendous burden, it's like it's unpacking it and it's letting it go. And I've seen people literally, I've seen their physiological. I've seen their body change with the disclosure process. And disclosure not meaning something that they've done wrong, but maybe in some situations, something that happened to them that they're finally talking about for the first time. So this art of. I call it confession, but maybe it's the art of letting go of the things that have been holding you back, Whatever it may be, whatever your story is, the ability to talk about it in a safe environment, which is always important. So those are my initial thoughts on this. The power of letting these stories flow from us in a safe environment.

Yeah. And I'm so glad that you went to that. Me too. Because as you were talking about that, this is the power of connection. This is the power of support. This is the power that comes from this vulnerability that we're talking about. And there's no place like a group setting where people say, me too. I get it. I've experienced that. That just. Yes. Our physiological response is just. It just flattens. Suddenly, all those. I'm so afraid. I'm so nervous. It's just like, oh, I'm accepted. These people get me. We speak the same language. I want to take just a minute just to step back into that concept. We were talking earlier about that fear. As I remember the first time that I really started to understand this. This protective space that we get into. I remember being a really new therapist, and I was in a disclosure with my. My client, who was a betrayed partner, and another therapist who was betraying partner, and the betraying partner had shared some information. And then there was a question that was asked, and the response was this very defensive coming from this shameful place. And they. And they said, well, I didn't tell you that because it would be too painful for you. And so often times there's this belief that we have that's a myth that is, you can't handle the truth, can't handle this. This will be too hard for you. And I remember sitting there kind of going, ooh, what's going to happen next? And. And this other therapist was so artful, and they just. They were pretty forceful and they said that is absolutely a lie. That is self deception. And you're telling yourself that lie to protect yourself. This has nothing to do with her. This is about your shame and you trying to hide behind it. That when I talk, when I think about this, I go back to the memory of, of just that, just that space of integrity of this therapist saying, no, let me help you see what's really going on. Because oftentimes we have that tendency to explain and say, oh, well, you did this or you can't handle it or this is why, when really it is about I just want to protect myself from feeling pain, feeling rejection, from my fear, and really from that shame. Do, do you want to start. I know we talked about maybe stepping shame. Do you want to talk about that for a minute?

Yeah, because I think that that is the. One of the key barriers is, is the shame. If we think about it, the concept of shame is we want to cover up, we want to hide, we, we don't want to be seen. And so the shame of it is, is I cover up. I remember watching little children when they've done something wrong, sometimes you watch what's happening, they'll put something over their head, including their own arms, because they don't want to be seen. And I think that that's really the concept here, is when I'm in shame, a place of shame, I don't want something, a behavior be exposed to anybody. Now, interestingly enough, the thing that's really confusing in many cases is people who do half truths, part of the story. And so what in essence I'm saying is I don't think you could handle the whole truth. So I give you a partial truth and maybe that will appease the story or appease you for a period of time. And how many times in our career have we seen people share partial truths, half truths, rather than upfront, just saying it as it is. And if there's one thing that I think holds people back from the healing process or the healing journey, it's this trickle down, partial truth process that really continues to create hurt and pain in relationships. Because I'm only giving you partial truth or half the story.

I was just going to add to that. I don't know how many times I've talked with it. This is one of the, the crappy conversations that I have with clients is, yeah, this information that you have or this thing that you discovered that you didn't know. Usually it's the tip of the iceberg. There's the research shows that people who say that they've disclosed. 75% of them say that they didn't fully disclose everything. That's a huge, huge percentage to look at and say, oh, there may. There's. There may still be more. And I, and I think to look at that in a negative light says, oh, how difficult. And if we also look at it from a compassionate site, we say, oh, there is so much pain there. There's so much fear about what we have to lose. And that the, the fear keeps us in the same place. Brene Brown talks about shame being the. It thrives. It's like a petri dish. When we have secrecy, when we have silence, and when we have judgment, it's just this beautiful petri dish where shame just exponentially grows. And she talks about in her work that the antidote to shame is putting it on the table and shining lights on it. And that is one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world to say. Here it is. I'm totally vulnerable. You can see it. You can see all of me. Because it often feels like I'm letting go of an outcome. I have no idea what's going to happen next. I can't control it. And it may feel like everything will be lost because sometimes I don't know if this relationship will be able to endure.

Yeah. Many years ago, I was talking with an individual who, as we were walking through, as we typically do, we do a full sexual history timeline. And sometimes those are very uncomfortable conversations. In fact, more often than not, they are really uncomfortable because we're disclosing or talking about things that maybe I haven't wanted to think about for years and years and years.

But.

But this individual was very open, willing to explore, went back to early childhood experiences. And. And all of a sudden, out of, out of this memory bank came a. An experience that was quite traumatic for him. But he had. He had, whether you want to call it, suppressed it. But it. It was a story that he really. He had not thought about in years and years and years. And, and it makes sense because it was very traumatic. But interestingly enough, and this is the thing that just stood out to me is he realized nobody has talked about this. I haven't talked about this with anybody. And then what happened was fascinating. He's like, but if my wife knows, I'm not sure she'll be able to handle it. We talked through that story that was a childhood experience. And he. He was. I mean, he's like, I'm not sure my wife will be able to handle. And I said, well, what would happen to you if you knew that and she didn't, would you? Would you Would influence how you interact with her. And after our conversation, he's like, I know I've got to talk with her, but I'm scared. What if. What if. What if she can't accept what that little boy experienced? And I said, you tell me. What do you think? And his wise response was, it doesn't matter. I won't have to carry it by myself, and she will know more about me. So courageous. So courageous went into that experience. And he said, I, I. A few weeks ago, I was going through all of the history, which we typically do, and I. Something came up into my mind that I had not thought about since I was much younger in my life. And he revealed what had occurred. And his wife did something that I'll never forget. She looked at him with the most loving kindness, the eyes. And she said, why didn't you tell me? If I had known, I could have helped you. And with that response, he opened up. It was like the flower just blossoming. And he let out the story, and he fully disclosed. And they turned a corner that day in a powerful way. And it. It's interesting to me because that fear, like, she could leave me. She. She won't accept this. All of that had been. This into this place, but because he had overcome his fear of. Of the story, you know, and then I. I think about how many cases where I've seen adult individuals, my. My partner will never be able to say, accept, you know, I had earlier sexual experiences, or they'll never be able to do this. And then when we do this story and we talk about these experiences, it's fascinating to me where we begin to see people. It's literally. It's like. It's like they've left this weight behind. And when you leave the weight behind, your healing, your stress levels, your. Your immune system, I mean, based upon Dr. Pennebaker's work and many others, when we are open, his book opening up, when we are open, literally our immune system gets better and our depressed symptoms actually go down based upon his research. So the things that we're keeping inside, what I think, they're holding us back in so many ways.

You know, Dr. Skinner, as you're talking about that disclosure process, I. I've had that same or similar experiences with several clients. One of the things that I often see. So when. When there's that vulnerability and that willingness to say, are you willing to see me? Can I share this with you? What's fascinating In a formal therapeutic disclosure is oftentimes my partners who are receiving this information for the first time, oftentimes they'll tell me with usually a lot, little bit of surprise. I felt compassion for him. I wanted to comfort him. I could see he was tearful, he was shaking. I could see how he was just so under so much stress and so feeling so much shame, just sharing this and being vulnerable with this. And usually that's when as human beings, we elicit this response, which is, let me comfort you, because this is hard. This is where we absolutely attach. This is where connection occurs. When I see you, I see your pain rather than being sickened or disgusted. When I see your pain, our normal natural response is to reach out and want to comfort. Now, in a formal disclosure that we know it can be traumatic. And so there can be lots of emotions there. But that's just one emotion that my clients will often respond with. But as you. As we're talking about that fear, that's. That's so great of what will they do if they receive that information? One of my favorite books is called the Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. I think it's Gavin, but de Becker is the author, and he uses this analogy that I. I use with my clients all the time. I love it. He says that fear moves. And so what he means by that is if I'm out hiking, I might see a cliff edge and think, oh, I better not get close to that cliff edge. So I may have fear of getting too close, but if I'm standing on the cliff edge because I got too close, my fear no longer is of being on that cliff edge, being too close. Now my fear is I'm afraid of falling. And so it moved from being on the cliff edge to falling. Now if I'm falling, I'm no longer afraid of falling. Now I'm afraid about landing. I'm worried what's going to happen when I land. And so my fear once again moved. And once I land now, my fear is, will I be okay? So this analogy I love just because if I understand that my fear moves, it gives me at least personally a little bit of ump. To say I can recognize that this is fear. And I can recognize as soon as I step into it, it's. It will be hard. But when I step into it, I will be afraid of the next thing. And so it's. It's not this fear. That's a wall that will keep me stuck. It's a.

It.

It just will shift to a new.

Place and what's powerful about that is we create our own fear. The, the outcome of our fear. We anticipate. That's how our brains work. We anticipate an outcome. And what we often do is we take the worst case scenario. They will respond this way. They will do this. I can't tell you how many times when people hear the truth, it actually is therapeutic and healing for them, which in many cases I've heard people say we've never had this good of a conversation, or we maybe for years we haven't had this type of conversation because finally I'm getting what we would refer to as the truth. And so we hold these things in out of anticipation of worst case scenario outcomes. And rarely when we're that kind of honest do we get the pot, the, the negative that we've feared the most.

Yeah. And I think you're, you're talking about like we believe that the story in our head is the truth.

That's right.

And that is our truth, the story that we believe. One of the things I love to do with my clients is we'll say, let's, let's role play this out. Let's talk about what my, this might look like. And so I'll be you and you be your partner or whoever, and, and I'll share this with you. Why don't you react to me the way that you think they'll react? And so we role play it that way and then we'll say, okay, well, let's try it from another place. Let's try it from a compassionate place. And we can role play it from a lot of different perspectives. And I think it's helpful to realize, oh yeah, like we often get stuck in our mind, this fixed sense of this is how it will be. And so I have to be stuck here. But that's not really always the reality. There are lots of different responses that that could happen or that we could have.

And even to take that a step further, what a friend of mine said is we play it a hand at a time. In other words, something happens and then we have a chance to respond to it. Something happens and we have a chance to respond to it. But if it never happens, we don't have a chance to respond to it because we've already concluded the outcome, we've decided what that outcome is going to be. And instead of actually doing that by stepping back and taking that risk, we give another person a chance to respond and all of a sudden we're in this dance that can be the healing process from when we work with betrayal, trauma, or sexual, unwanted sexual behaviors, the, the dance that we see and when couples recover is they take out that fear and they recognize I'm going to be seen. I, I, I know it's difficult, but I'm, you're gonna let, I'm gonna let you see me. And I've seen single people, never married, never in a relationship who've had these fears or had these unwanted behaviors, and they learn to open up, and all of a sudden, they're forming relationships built upon a foundation of honesty and truth. That's absolutely beautiful.

Yeah. And what I'm hearing you talk about is what I call trial judge and jury. So we have this story in our head. This is if people knew, this is how they would judge me, and this is how they would respond, and this is what would happen. And so I may interact with all of my relationships as if I are, as if they knew. So trial judge and jury, this is how they would respond. And so I'm going to avoid, I'm going to hold back. I'm going to not have that happen. And so we're not even living in a reality ourselves.

It's an anticipated reality based upon fear. So I want to read a quote for a second. This is really interesting to me. This is Anna Lemke's book, Dopamine Nation. She has an incredible quote. She says, radical honesty promotes awareness of our actions. Second, it fosters intimate human connections. And third, it leads to a truthful autobiography. Truthful autobiography, which holds us accountable not just to our present, but also to our future selves.

One more time. That sounds really important.

Third, it leads to a truthful autobiography which holds us accountable not just to our present but also to our future selves. She concludes this section by saying, further, telling the truth is contagious and might even prevent the development of future addiction. So it's fascinating.

Wow. That, that there's so much in that quote. I, I love that part about the truthful by autobiography and the future impacts. Can you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on, like, when we say radical honesty, I think of maybe some shows that I've seen where people have been radically honest or whatever, and it's been really damaging. Somebody will say, hey, how does my hair look? And they say it sucks. Or probably don't say sucks on there. Sorry. They say it really looks awful. And so how do you fit that in? Because I'm guessing our readers might or our listeners might hear this and think, how do I be radically honest but not have it Be harmful to other people.

Yeah. So. So it's interesting that you bring up that a few years ago, a friend of mine, Ken Patey, I've mentioned him before on the podcast, he said, you know, that there is two parts to this. One is I can be completely honest. Well, no, I hate your hair. It doesn't look very good at all today. In contrast with, you know, there are times I liked it better than today. But regardless, you are beautiful. That. See. See the. The concept of honesty mixed with what he referred to as affirming worth. So. So that. That's a different construct. We can talk about that at another time, because what we're really talking about are the deep, deep, hard secrets that people are generally keeping inside. They're not going to be asking whether you like my hair. They're going to be asking, did you lie to me? Did you cheat on me? Why did you have an extra drink today? And so they're talking about. I want the. Radical honesty is I don't want you to stopped at this XYZ place and you picked up some alcohol today, or you. Or you hid your sexual behaviors or you were doing this. Radical honesty is, this is who I am, and the ability to be present with those behaviors and. And say this. The. These. This is who I've been. This is where I've been as a human being. And I'm. I'm willing to let you see into my world. So radical honesty in this context is I'm.

I'm not hiding, but as I hear you say that, it seems like I can't be radically honest with anybody else until I'm radically honest with myself. It has to start with myself.

Yes, yes. And. And. And I'm going to go on with something that Anna Lemke continued in this chapter, because it. To me, it's absolutely fascinating because she's talking about when we're honest, it actually activates the prefrontal cortex.

Oh, yeah.

And. Right. And she said in her research, this. She says researchers found that lying went down in this study when. When. Right. When people were honest. Here's what happened. Honesty can be strengthened by stimulating the prefrontal cortex. So cont. Consistent with the idea that the human brain has evolved mechanisms dedicated to control complex social behaviors. So she says, I began wondering if practicing honesty can actually stimulate the prefrontal cortex. So she wrote to the authors of that study, and she believes that when we are honest, it actually stimulates our prefrontal cortex, which is designed to help us regulate emotion, how to be more connected, how to observe an outcome and effectively respond. So the prefrontal cortex is our best friend. When it's active, when it's shut down, not so good. Because then our amygdala, the emotional center, takes over and we feel more shame, we feel embarrassed. We. We turn to our emotions, anger, rather than this other part of human connection.

So I'm hearing you say this radical honesty. It's good for our brains. Oh, good for everything.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Can I. As you were talking about that, one of the thoughts that. That showed up for me, I think is really important to probably discuss here while we're talking about radical honesty. Because we both work with unwanted sexual behaviors and we work with betrayed partners. One of the things that I want to make sure our listeners don't hear is like, great, I need to go home and I need to tell my spouse everything right now, because that can be damaging. We're usually talking about information that. That, you know, how do I say this? I don't want to negate anything we've said before about how important it is to not protect ourselves. And that pushback is saying, well, I just want to protect you. However, when there has been unwanted sexual behaviors or betrayal of a spouse or partner, this concept today that we're talking about is the art of a confession is. There are definitely some. There are definitely some steps that we need to really look at so that we can do it the right way, shape or form. Going home and dumping it on our partner is going to be incredibly traumatic. It's going to be traumatic either way. But dumping on it and not having them be prepared. I. I know you talk about this in one of your books, probably all of your books, but recognizing our. Just because I'm ready to share this and dump this, and I've been carrying it for 25 years, and I'm ready to get it off my shoulders doesn't mean that my partner's in any way, shape or form ready for it. She has maybe had no idea that this has even been going on or even the depth or the gravity. And so recognizing that some disclosures need therapeutic preparation for both parties for me to understand how much I need to share if I'm the acting out partner, and how to share in the right way and how to use the right words and for the receiving partner to have the supports set up so that they are in a place to receive it and to be able to continue functioning and to make it through in a healthy, healing way. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think that's a really important point I actually refer to as throwing up. Right. If I, in that situation, I just come throw up and expect that maybe you're going to clean it up. The reality is if I have done something and I'm going to take it away from just sexual behaviors, if I have a secret that I've been carrying that's hurting our relationship and I don't care what it is, if I have a hidden behavior that is hurting my interaction with you, in addition to sexual behaviors, hidden substance use problems or eating, secretive eating behaviors, I mean, I, I have a whole host of, of stories of people hiding a range of behaviors. If it's hurting how you're approaching a relationship, if you approach this directly and say, hey, I did a bu. Blah, blah, blah, and whatever that behavior is, and if your partner's not there, it over, it can overwhelm them. It's like throwing up. Contrast that with, you know, I have come to a conclusion recently that there's something in my life that I need to talk with you about. But I'm, I need to get some ideas and counseling how to best talk with you about this. It's really important. Could we talk about that? Let me. I'm going to be going to meet with a therapist or I'm going to be doing some of my own work so I can share with you something that has been influencing our relationship and I don't want it to influence our relationship anymore in a negative way.

Yeah, and there's some tricky caveats to that too, because if I were hearing that, then suddenly my amygdala goes off and my alarm says, like, what? What is it? What is it? I just need to know. Help me understand. Because now I'm terrified of. Here's the fear that's showing up that I don't know what I don't know.

And, and that's where most people then will do it in that context, if they'll say, okay, well, okay, you've asked and I'm going to tell you. Well, again, there are times where people are going to do that anyway. They're going to. Most people disclose unwanted behaviors on their own without therapist. Usually. Usually in cases like that, it hasn't been thought through enough. And so we get partial truths rather than whole truths. And that's one of the long lasting negative consequences of doing it in that moment. Now I, I know people listening and say, well, yeah, but I just want to know if, if it's done properly. It may take a few weeks, may take a couple of months, but it will be a full disclosure rather than a partial disclosure. Significant difference there. But when people are honest and truthful and they're like, okay, I've thought through this. This is more of my story. That's why. That's where professionals can come in and really help in this process. That. I mean, the art of a disclosure is a thing in and of itself of just being able to prepare for disclosure and open up when things have been hidden, secretive, I wouldn't have been lying, hiding my behaviors. Gaslighting, as we refer to it in our field.

Just to add on to that, there's also the staggered disclosure, which is here's a little bit, and then here's a little bit more, and then here's a little bit more. And when you're looking at what happens to the nervous system, just as I start to get back up, boom. It's like standing in the ocean and having really powerful waves that hit you, and then you can't find up again, and you finally get your feet underneath you, and there you are, and then another wave puts you down under. And so when we're doing little bits of information at a time, it just keeps pulling you under over and over and over again. So I. I can't agree more of just really understanding that there is radical honesty. And we also have to understand what's the gravity of this situation. It's grave because our relationship may be in jeopardy. It might be grave because I am living inauthentically, but, you know, an affair might have a different gravity than eating snickers in the closet.

Well, I, by the way, I really like my snickers, but. Right, but. No but. But they're. You're exactly right. So we have to understand the magnitude of what we're going to be disclosing. And some of these issues are extremely complex, extremely complex. And we have to take into account the nature of the relationship before this information was given. And that's why, again, counseling can help guide you through a process. Now, again, most people, they're going to try to do these things on their own, But I can't tell you how many times where we hear about a botched disclosure or partial truths. If you're going to do it, my invitation is make sure you do it right so you can really accelerate your healing. And. And that truthfulness. When we are open, and here's. Here's one of my key concepts, we live in a world filled with stress. But when we don't have secrets, when we can be open and honest, beautiful things can occur and and that's really one of the courage, courageous things to do is like I, I, I, if you've got something holding you back from, from the relationship or maybe even your own healing, let, let that burden go. If that's really my invitation today is find a way to let the burden go by doing what is going to be most beneficial for you. And that's probably giving it a voice, being able to talk with it in a safe environment, learn how to do this, feel stuck and that's and my and as you do that, as you take that risk and to have that kind of courage, I firmly believe that your body, much like what Dr. James Pen Baker found, is it will actually help improve your overall health and well being more likely to reduce depression if you're experiencing depression because you no longer have that burden of your secret. All right, Marianne, final thoughts for you today.

My final just, well, I just love what you said. I was just as you finished that up, I just was like that was just such a perfect invitation. Find that social support, make a commitment to yourself that I'm going to be honest and I'd love just to add a couple of bullets of just looking at once again, who is this for? It's for me, but it's also for our relationship. Also bullet number two, maybe don't explain. Don't explain. Stick with the facts, take responsibility. But the minute we start to try and explain it away, it, it justifies it and it doesn't help our partner or the person that we're with to feel like we're really sincere. It decreases our credibility when we start to explain because that's a defensive behavior. And so more than anything else with this, it's really about staying present and recognizing when I'm showing up to share with you something. Yes, it's about me unburdening, as you talked about earlier, you know, earlier about that vomiting. We're not trying to vomit, but I'm showing up with you and then I'm recognizing that this may be hard for you. And so I need to move my defensiveness and my shame out of the way and I need to be able to be there to see and support you because I hurt you and, and for me to, for us to heal. It's not me dump and step away and leave you there to clean it up. It's me to share and to also share in the aftermath of helping hold and support you with what I've just dropped on you dropped in your laugh because you'll probably need some help and support there so just committing to stay present without withdrawing or becoming defensive. Finally, just the idea that disclosure is an act of empathy. It's an app. It's an act of maybe one of the scariest, but also one of the most beneficial actions that we can take in our, in our relationships is to let ourselves be vulnerable and be fully seen. And we unburden ourselves and we unburden the relationship. And from that space, we can then begin to heal and grow and move forward.

Awesome. All right, to our listeners, thank you so much for joining us. I absolutely appreciate your time doing a podcast. It's so enjoyable for me just being able to share. And Marianne, I want to thank you for your time. And again to our listeners, thank you for your time in listening to our podcast. If you have questions, questionsumanintimacy.com we would love to address any questions. The other final thing is if you haven't been to our website, Human intimacy dot com, we've got free resources and previous webinars that we've done. Please check out the website human intimacy.com so glad to have you with us. And Marianne, thank you for your time.

Yep, thanks for letting me join. Great to be here.

Bye. Bye, everybody.

Bye. And laugh. When you laugh, something surround you. It's like you're shining, you're staring.