Speaker 1: Welcome to Go, Ask Alli, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I think like
Speaker 1: eriginas have a lot to say. I think we should
Speaker 1: let them speak out of it and they'll just talk. Yes,
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things to absorb for those who
Speaker 1: are new to these kinds of fights. Again, if we
Speaker 1: want all of them, we wouldn't be here. If you
Speaker 1: see a monster, don't try to run away, step right
Speaker 1: up to it and say, what do you have to
Speaker 1: teach me? Why are you? In my mind, I want
Speaker 1: to be the person who has cancer and doesn't run
Speaker 1: a marathon, Like, do I have to work that hard? No,
Speaker 1: it's the best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to go, Ask Allie. I'm Alli Wentworth and I have
Speaker 1: a secret. Did I get your attention? That's right, because
Speaker 1: secrets are enticing. But the question is are they good
Speaker 1: for us? Are they bad for us? We all keep secrets,
Speaker 1: We've all told secrets. Do you feel bad about a secret?
Speaker 1: Are there any secrets you take to your grave? There's
Speaker 1: just so many secrets, So what is the science behind secrets? Well,
Speaker 1: my guest can tell us all these things and probably
Speaker 1: divulge a few secrets of his own. Michael Slappian is
Speaker 1: an Associate professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University.
Speaker 1: As a leading expert on the psychology of secrets, he
Speaker 1: is a recipient of the Rising Star Award from the
Speaker 1: Association for Psychological Science. Slappian has authored more than fifty
Speaker 1: articles on secrecy, truth and deception. His research has been
Speaker 1: covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker,
Speaker 1: The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and more. Hi, Hey,
Speaker 1: Michael Slappian, how are you the secret? Life of Secrets? So?
Speaker 1: First of all, it's the most compelling title in the world,
Speaker 1: because you know, secrets are enticing, terrifying, being somewhat delicious,
Speaker 1: depending on what it is. Tell me, what is so
Speaker 1: compelling to you about secrets? Why write a book about them?
Speaker 1: We all keep secrets, and for most of those secrets,
Speaker 1: we really don't talk about them, and so we really
Speaker 1: don't have a good understanding of our own secrets. We
Speaker 1: certainly don't have a good understanding of how secrets affect us.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of misconceptions, including in the academic
Speaker 1: set of things, about what secrecy even is, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be shrouded in mystery. We can
Speaker 1: learn about how our secrets affect us because it will
Speaker 1: help us better cope with them and help us better
Speaker 1: decide what to do with these secrets. So I think
Speaker 1: we should just jump in with the basics, which we
Speaker 1: kind of need for context. What is a secret? I
Speaker 1: define secrecy as an intention to withhold information from one
Speaker 1: or more people, and the information is the secret. And
Speaker 1: so there's plenty of things that about you that other
Speaker 1: people don't know that or not secret. What makes one
Speaker 1: of those things a secret is you intend to withhold
Speaker 1: that information from at least one person. So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about the difference besides the obvious, between
Speaker 1: a big secret and a small secret. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think when a secret seems small, it feels like the
Speaker 1: detail is not very significant. Whether that's not significant to
Speaker 1: us or not significant to the other person. Um that
Speaker 1: there's no huge problem with keeping that kind of thing
Speaker 1: a secret when we start thinking about big secrets, if
Speaker 1: it feels big to you, then to me it indicates
Speaker 1: perhaps is something you need help with or something that
Speaker 1: you're not sure about, or it seems like a major
Speaker 1: event and it's creating some kind of problem for you
Speaker 1: that you're trying to work through. Um. For a secret
Speaker 1: to be big, it has to feel like there's something
Speaker 1: to do or there's something to figure out, you know.
Speaker 1: I think to me, indicates there's there's some work to do,
Speaker 1: whereas a small secret, you know, I don't really need
Speaker 1: help with it. But this is just this little thing
Speaker 1: I keep to myself. And nothing is harder than living
Speaker 1: with the secret that can't be spoken. UM. And I
Speaker 1: love how you talk about Tony Soprano in the book,
Speaker 1: because I mean, he's such an iconic figure and you
Speaker 1: know the idea of him having so many secrets that
Speaker 1: caused him anxiety and depression, which leads him to therapy,
Speaker 1: which is also a secret. And I'm I'm sort of
Speaker 1: always fascinated by trauma and anxiety and depression, and I
Speaker 1: think that secrets have many, many roots to all three
Speaker 1: of those. And I you know, so many novels and
Speaker 1: films have been written and made about the person that
Speaker 1: find finds out they're not who they thought they were.
Speaker 1: And that is a secret that when it's revealed, have
Speaker 1: huge consequences. The kind of secrets that completely implode your life.
Speaker 1: I'll draw on my personal experience here. Um. I and
Speaker 1: I started the book Revealing this secret as well. UM
Speaker 1: almost ten years ago. Now, I was just starting at
Speaker 1: my secrecy research and I was actually on the job
Speaker 1: interview this day and I was presenting this new research
Speaker 1: on secrecy. And as the day was winding down, I
Speaker 1: got a call from my dad which I didn't pick up.
Speaker 1: And then I got another call from my dad and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, no, something bad has happened. And he
Speaker 1: then goes on to tell me when I eventually got
Speaker 1: him on the phone later that night, where it's like
Speaker 1: after midnight at this point, he says, Michael, I have
Speaker 1: something to tell you. I'm not biologically able to have children.
Speaker 1: I am not your biological father, is what he was saying.
Speaker 1: And for me, of course, I mean for anyone, that's
Speaker 1: going to be shocking to learn just you know, you
Speaker 1: have these assumptions and to have them up ended can
Speaker 1: be a lot. But I think for me in particular,
Speaker 1: what was really shocking about that wasn't the new information.
Speaker 1: As shocking as that was, I kind of readily accepted that.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, the relationships that matter most
Speaker 1: to me, a lot of them are not based in genetics,
Speaker 1: and so what does that matter whether I share jeans
Speaker 1: with a parent or not. But it was the secret
Speaker 1: keeping that really shook me, or that really shifted the
Speaker 1: ground under my feet, because you know, this is a
Speaker 1: secret my parents have been keeping for me my whole life.
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties at that point, for for
Speaker 1: more than two decades, and you know they planned on
Speaker 1: never telling me about and our entire family knew except
Speaker 1: for me and my younger brother. And so I think
Speaker 1: when you get that, when you learn that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: I could totally shake up everything my my younger brother was.
Speaker 1: You know, it made it less shut about a lot
Speaker 1: of things, whereas for me, it kind of made me
Speaker 1: more sure about certain things. And so I think those
Speaker 1: kinds of big secrets certainly cause you pause and start
Speaker 1: asking questions that you might not have asked before. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you say it wasn't so much the
Speaker 1: concrete fact, but the secrecy of it. And I'm from
Speaker 1: a family of a lot of secrets, and I when
Speaker 1: I read your book, I really paused because I thought,
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely true. It's what is so painful
Speaker 1: is not the fact, and Look, we can put it
Speaker 1: into infidelity, because there was a lot of infidelity in
Speaker 1: my upbringing. And it wasn't so much the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, you did leave mom for this woman, but
Speaker 1: the fact that you were with this woman for two
Speaker 1: years and you know it was a secret, and it
Speaker 1: was it was something you were withholding from your children.
Speaker 1: And so to me, it's the repercussions of the secret.
Speaker 1: So you know, and I think you say in your
Speaker 1: book that one can be weighted down by secrets, then
Speaker 1: I think that there are families that are so steeped
Speaker 1: in secrets that everybody is weighted down, which brings me
Speaker 1: back to it leads to anxiety and depression and alcoholism
Speaker 1: and addiction. Um. Talk about the three dimensions of secrets.
Speaker 1: So in in my research, one of the very first
Speaker 1: things to do was to figure out what are the
Speaker 1: secrets people commonly keep? How many secrets do people commonly keep?
Speaker 1: When I started this research, you know, about ten years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: that was a question no person had ever asked before,
Speaker 1: which is crazy, um. And the reason why psychologists had
Speaker 1: yet to ask that question was simply because when psychologists
Speaker 1: before me studied secrecy, they have a very specific situation
Speaker 1: in mind, one person interacting with another person and that
Speaker 1: person asking you questions related to your secret, and that's
Speaker 1: what they saw secrecy as. And the reason why that's
Speaker 1: problematic is that that's just one moment of a secret,
Speaker 1: and in fact, we don't often have to hide our secrets,
Speaker 1: and our secrets exist before those moments, and they exist
Speaker 1: afterwards too. And so because prior researchers were creating these
Speaker 1: secrecy situations in the lab, they weren't looking at people's
Speaker 1: real secrets. And so the first question was, now, if
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at people's real secrets, which is what
Speaker 1: we're trying to understand, what what are the secrets people keep?
Speaker 1: And from asking a couple thousand people, we arrived at
Speaker 1: these thirty eight common categories of secrets and includes all
Speaker 1: the things you think would be on that list, issues
Speaker 1: around sex, drugs, relationships, ambitions, and fidelity involving school work, abortion,
Speaker 1: um self harm, harming another person, telling a lie, violating
Speaker 1: another's trust, and so all use that in my research
Speaker 1: to essentially look at a person's whole set of secrets,
Speaker 1: because when you look at only one secret at a time,
Speaker 1: you can ask, is this secret bad? Or good for you.
Speaker 1: But you can't get at the question of which of
Speaker 1: your secrets hurt you and why until you start looking
Speaker 1: at a person's whole set of secrets. And so that's
Speaker 1: what I do in my research. Now, if you were
Speaker 1: wanted to ask me of these thirty eight categories, which
Speaker 1: secrets are more harmful than others, these dimensions come into play,
Speaker 1: and what we can see is that people naturally think
Speaker 1: about their secrets as varying along three dimensions. The first
Speaker 1: dimension is how immoral the secret is, and so the
Speaker 1: more immoral you think your secret is the behavior in question,
Speaker 1: the more you feel ashamed of that secret. Um. Infidelity,
Speaker 1: of course, is for an example of the secret people
Speaker 1: see us immoral um. The next dimension is how much
Speaker 1: does the secret involved with other people? Some secrets very
Speaker 1: much involved other people, any secret about romance or sex,
Speaker 1: for example, very highly relational. Some secrets involved no other
Speaker 1: people and just involve yourself only. And so a secret
Speaker 1: that seems only where related to yourself feels very individual,
Speaker 1: feels very personal um and also as secrets that we
Speaker 1: find most isolating. And then the third dimension is how
Speaker 1: much the secret involves your goals? Right, you know your aspirations,
Speaker 1: and so that often involves, for example, the workplace, career
Speaker 1: goals and so on. So secrets about work, secrets about
Speaker 1: money are really high on this dimension, where secrets really
Speaker 1: low on this dimension aren't oriented towards specific goals at all,
Speaker 1: but are more sort of based in feeling. Um, what's
Speaker 1: useful about knowing that these are three dimensions that people
Speaker 1: primarily experience their secrets by is it means there's three
Speaker 1: ways in which a secret can hurt you. And what's
Speaker 1: so useful about knowing that If there's three ways in
Speaker 1: which a secret can hurt you, there's also three ways
Speaker 1: in which a secret doesn't have to hurt you. And
Speaker 1: the good news is that in all situations, and what
Speaker 1: we see in the research is that there is one
Speaker 1: of the dimensions of those three you say is not
Speaker 1: hurting you. And what I do is help people figure
Speaker 1: out what dimension that is because it points you to
Speaker 1: your path forward to better coping knowing how your secret
Speaker 1: isn't hurting you, right, And I believe you in your
Speaker 1: book you said that being weighted down by secrets. You
Speaker 1: use the example of Pablo ascar Bar hiding all his
Speaker 1: money in all the cracks and the walls, which I
Speaker 1: sort of love that as a visual because when you
Speaker 1: are bogged down by a lot of secrets, you are
Speaker 1: tucking them into your consciousness everywhere. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: to come after the short break and we're back. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. When somebody says to you, Hey, Michael,
Speaker 1: can you keep a secret? How do you answer that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, if someone is saying that to me, it
Speaker 1: indicates that they have something really interesting that they want
Speaker 1: to talk about. That's one reason for gossip, if we
Speaker 1: want to call it that. But also they might be
Speaker 1: asking for help. And so if someone ever says that
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm like, well, yes I can, um,
Speaker 1: I can help if that's what you want. And I
Speaker 1: can listen to hear what you have to say if
Speaker 1: that's that's all you want too. So is it curious
Speaker 1: that when people say, hey, Ali, can you keep a secret?
Speaker 1: I always answer it depends because I have found and
Speaker 1: you you talk about this in your book that sometimes
Speaker 1: I have been blessed or cursed with someone else's secret
Speaker 1: and I don't want that secret. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hold it, I don't want to think about it. I
Speaker 1: don't even want to know it, and my mother used
Speaker 1: to always say to me, if you don't want anybody
Speaker 1: to know your secrets, don't tell anybody. You've heard all
Speaker 1: the children's lyrics about secret secrets are no fun unless
Speaker 1: you share them with everyone. But there is an impulse
Speaker 1: in human beings to tell secrets. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that is? What is the psychology of needing to tell somebody? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: so there's a class of situations where it's like you
Speaker 1: need help, and it's really hard to work on something
Speaker 1: that you're struggling with if you're entirely alone with that thing.
Speaker 1: And I one reason why people want to reveal their
Speaker 1: secrets as they want to hear how people respond to them,
Speaker 1: whether it's validating your experience or giving you advice on
Speaker 1: what to do differently. But on an even more fundamental level,
Speaker 1: I think the reason we so often want to talk
Speaker 1: about our secrets with others, reveal our secrets to others,
Speaker 1: is we just don't want to be alone with them.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to have something in your head
Speaker 1: and to not talk about it with any people. That
Speaker 1: feels lonely or it feels isolating, and we don't want
Speaker 1: to be alone with our thoughts. I think that's what,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, makes partly why secrecy
Speaker 1: is are difficult. So why would people, for example, uh,
Speaker 1: tell secrets about infidelity? That's one of the ones on
Speaker 1: your list. Yeah, I've never been unfaithful to my husband,
Speaker 1: but if I was, there is no way I would
Speaker 1: tell anybody for risk of it coming out or him
Speaker 1: finding out. But I have found that people seem to
Speaker 1: tell their infidel all these two friends a lot. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's what you just said before
Speaker 1: that they need validation of it. But you know, I
Speaker 1: can't help. But sometimes think do they want to be caught?
Speaker 1: I mean, why are you telling me this secret? And
Speaker 1: how do I now sit across from your spouse at
Speaker 1: a dinner party? But but my first thing is why
Speaker 1: are you telling me this? I really think it's even
Speaker 1: in that example, is this this thing that did happen?
Speaker 1: It did happen. You do have to find a way forward,
Speaker 1: even if just by yourself, if if the decision is
Speaker 1: to never reveal this to your partner, Um, it feels
Speaker 1: good to just admit to someone that had happened. I
Speaker 1: think again, it's just it's hard to be entirely alone
Speaker 1: with something. You talk about confessing and confiding, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a whole structure built around, particularly the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: which is all about confessing and confiding and the idea
Speaker 1: of relief seeing a secret that way in a safe place,
Speaker 1: which I would also say therapy can be too. Um.
Speaker 1: Is there a psychological release when you're able to confide,
Speaker 1: when you're able to confess. Yeah. So the way I
Speaker 1: distinguished confession and confiding is, Um, if you reveal a
Speaker 1: secret to the person you're keeping it from, I call
Speaker 1: that confession. If you reveal a secret to someone else,
Speaker 1: I call that confiding. And so in terms of confessing,
Speaker 1: sometimes that can be very complicated whether that's the right decision,
Speaker 1: and fidelity is are you know we've already been talking
Speaker 1: about is a great example, Um, confessing this to this
Speaker 1: destroy your relationship. And so especially if you're trying to
Speaker 1: decide whether it confess something, I think a good strategy
Speaker 1: is often to talk to someone else about it to
Speaker 1: be sure that you've made the right decision here. And
Speaker 1: that's what I call confiding, talking to someone that you're
Speaker 1: not specifically intending to hold that information from. And the
Speaker 1: average experience people have with confiding is very helpful one. UM.
Speaker 1: People feel like they get a lot out of those
Speaker 1: conversations that it's And so what's helpful about confiding is
Speaker 1: not just saying it out loud. UM, is not just
Speaker 1: releasing your secret out into the world. It's that the
Speaker 1: person responds and their research shows our research shows that
Speaker 1: people respond in helpful ways. Maybe they give you advice,
Speaker 1: maybe they give you emotional support, and maybe it's just
Speaker 1: sympathy and they're like, that sucks, I'm so sorry that
Speaker 1: you're dealing with that. Even that is really helpful to
Speaker 1: just make you feel that you're not aline with this,
Speaker 1: that you that that this is a tough situation, and
Speaker 1: and that there is paths forward. UM. Maybe one reason
Speaker 1: why people get so much out of confiding as they
Speaker 1: choose the right people to confide in. UM. But even
Speaker 1: a lukewarm response people find helpful. Only very negative responses
Speaker 1: lead people to feel like confiding backfires and they're really rare. Again,
Speaker 1: maybe because people choose the right people. UM. The other day,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine said to do you think that
Speaker 1: you will die holding onto any secrets? And I said,
Speaker 1: I think there's probably two secrets I will die with
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about afterwards, why why, And I
Speaker 1: think that they're they're just embarrassing or shameful, like there's
Speaker 1: no good or bad that would come out of telling them.
Speaker 1: And I think that's got to be the sort of
Speaker 1: bottom line of most of those secrets. You know that
Speaker 1: it's shame on some level. Yeah, when it's something that
Speaker 1: you feel ashamed with, if it's something that makes you
Speaker 1: feel bad about yourself, it's very natural to imagine that
Speaker 1: if you don't reveal it to people, that's better because
Speaker 1: once people learn these things, then they're permanently out there
Speaker 1: and you don't have control over them, and people might
Speaker 1: draw the wrong conclusions. But I think talking about it
Speaker 1: with some person, any person could be a therapist, could
Speaker 1: be a bartender it you know, it could be like
Speaker 1: a taxi driver ry right. Um, When we choose to
Speaker 1: be entirely alone with something, we often don't develop healthy
Speaker 1: ways of thinking about that thing. It's actually all too
Speaker 1: easy to find unhealthy ways of thinking about that thing,
Speaker 1: and that's hard to temper. That's hard to mitigate those
Speaker 1: harms on your own because you're really locked into your
Speaker 1: own perspective. It's really hard to find a way out
Speaker 1: of that alone. You can try you can try journaling,
Speaker 1: and that can help if you do it in a
Speaker 1: way that challenges counterproductive ways of thinking. But that's really
Speaker 1: easy to achieve in a conversation with anyone, um, someone
Speaker 1: who you think could just be a sounding board or
Speaker 1: someone who actually might respond with helpful advice, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they have to be far removed from everything. That's
Speaker 1: what it takes. I know, with like anxiety, holding in
Speaker 1: anxiety can can cause all kinds of physical problems. Has
Speaker 1: there been any studies about you know, holding secrets causing
Speaker 1: cancer or any kind of internal damage because it's the
Speaker 1: act of suppression or secrecy, yes, um, but it's often
Speaker 1: not because of the suppression. UM. There's a famous study
Speaker 1: that was conducted in the nineties on HIV positive men
Speaker 1: who concealed their sexual orientation, and essentially, the more they
Speaker 1: concealed their sexual orientation, the more rapid progression of disease, UM,
Speaker 1: the more health problems than they even hide sooner. But
Speaker 1: more recent research suggests that what's so harmful about that
Speaker 1: situation is not feeling supportive enough to be yourself to
Speaker 1: reveal yourself in the first place. It's not the hiding,
Speaker 1: it's it's not feeling able to reveal. It is the problem.
Speaker 1: And so having a secret is not harmful in itself,
Speaker 1: but having a habit of secret keeping is because the
Speaker 1: person who habitually keeps secrets as a way to deal
Speaker 1: with problems is the person who's not working on those problems.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you about responsibility of being the
Speaker 1: recipient of confiding or confessing um because in therapy there's
Speaker 1: doctor confidentiality. But if we were friends, even if we weren't,
Speaker 1: even if I just sat next to you on a
Speaker 1: train and I said, you know, I once killed a man.
Speaker 1: When somebody reveals one of your quote unquote big secrets,
Speaker 1: what is your responsibility of the recipient. If the secret
Speaker 1: is about somebody who's being harmed, or if the secret
Speaker 1: is hiding some kind of harm that's ongoing, that's a
Speaker 1: problematic situation, especially if you think about like children or teenagers.
Speaker 1: If someone asks you to keep a secret on their behalf,
Speaker 1: if it's about something harmful, that's going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: And so I think those are the kind of secrets
Speaker 1: that you do have some kind of response ability to
Speaker 1: address in some manner, Whether or not that's telling someone
Speaker 1: else about it or talking with the person who revealed
Speaker 1: this to you. If it's about somebody who's being harmed
Speaker 1: by this information being contained, you should do something about him. Um,
Speaker 1: you're right that people can feel burdened by others confessions
Speaker 1: or being confided and can be a source of burden
Speaker 1: if now you have to carry the secret on their behalf,
Speaker 1: or now you have to think about this thing over
Speaker 1: and over and so especially when you're unloading something heavy
Speaker 1: on another person, They're going to help you, but recognize
Speaker 1: your you might be placing a burden on them too.
Speaker 1: And then there are the secrets that you've told somebody
Speaker 1: that are revealed. There's a tremendous fear of telling somebody
Speaker 1: a secret and having it exposed, which is why I
Speaker 1: think so many people are tormented and keep so much
Speaker 1: inside because the risk is too high and in most cases,
Speaker 1: and it's time for a short break, welcome back to
Speaker 1: go ask Alli. I have kids, right, and I think
Speaker 1: secrets are probably the hardest thing for them because every
Speaker 1: time I've said to either of my daughters, okay, promised
Speaker 1: to keep a secret, I know that they're either going
Speaker 1: to tell each other or tell my husband. So I
Speaker 1: actually set them up to divulge information because I know
Speaker 1: if they can't do it. So when you think about
Speaker 1: the brain itself and cognitive thought and in the maturation
Speaker 1: of the brain, can children keep secrets? Yeah, they can,
Speaker 1: and they get better at it of course the older
Speaker 1: they get. But even by age three, children will sometimes
Speaker 1: try to keep secrets not very well. Um, and so
Speaker 1: they're on their eight track as far as competent secret
Speaker 1: keeping goods, and their youngest years they might just try
Speaker 1: to keep a seat by denying it, saying I didn't
Speaker 1: eat any cookies except for having cookie crumbs on their lips.
Speaker 1: But as they get older, not only do they have
Speaker 1: a better sense of what is the information that only
Speaker 1: they know about that other people were not witnessed to something,
Speaker 1: but they also have a better sense of how to
Speaker 1: keep that information secret. So for example, if they broke
Speaker 1: a vase, they might say in their younger years and
Speaker 1: a ghost did it, whereas in their older years they
Speaker 1: might say the cat did it, which is more believable.
Speaker 1: So they have a better sense of what to say
Speaker 1: or what not to say to keep a secret. All right,
Speaker 1: So in in context of that, and as an example.
Speaker 1: One of the things I was thinking about when I
Speaker 1: was reading your book is what is the difference between
Speaker 1: a secret and a lie? So secrecy and lying is
Speaker 1: interesting because they can cross over in two different ways. Um.
Speaker 1: The most important thing is they're different things. And so
Speaker 1: there are plenty of times and there are plenty of
Speaker 1: secrets that you can keep without telling a lie. UM.
Speaker 1: So one can ask a question, you could say I
Speaker 1: don't want to answer that, or you can say I
Speaker 1: can't tell you that's secret. Um, or you could just
Speaker 1: say something subtly different as a way answering a question
Speaker 1: without revealing a secret. So lying is a way to
Speaker 1: keep a secret, It's not a way I would typically recommend.
Speaker 1: There's much better ways to keep a secret besides telling
Speaker 1: something totally untrue. Also, you can keep a lie of secret.
Speaker 1: So you said something, You've had some significant moment of
Speaker 1: saying something that was not true, and you do not
Speaker 1: want people to learn that you are not being truthful
Speaker 1: in that moment, you might specifically intend to hold that
Speaker 1: lie back the truth back. So yes, with children, the
Speaker 1: secrets are pretty much all small secrets. But then when
Speaker 1: they get older, in the teenage years and young adult years,
Speaker 1: secrets become more dangerous, So talk to me about that.
Speaker 1: The two differences between younger children keeping secrets and teenagers
Speaker 1: keeping secrets is, first of all, teenagers can just get
Speaker 1: into more trouble, into more complicated situations. Um, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem that childhood size in discretions, secrets about sort of
Speaker 1: childhood sized accidents and so on, are are that harmful.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's just because it's you know, small potatoes. Um,
Speaker 1: But teens can get into more trouble, whether it's drug
Speaker 1: use or you know, driving dangerously or things of that nature,
Speaker 1: or maybe they're struggling with something at school, or struggling
Speaker 1: with something relational, or with their friends or identity, right, identity,
Speaker 1: it's as a huge one and so you know, the
Speaker 1: struggles are bigger. But also in that shift to adolescents,
Speaker 1: teenagers become a lot more concerned with how other people
Speaker 1: will respond to them. And so as children become older
Speaker 1: and start shifting into those teenage years, they become way
Speaker 1: more concerned with saying the wrong thing. You know, they
Speaker 1: become concerned with social approval. And at that point when
Speaker 1: teenagers start becoming so concerned with saying the wrong thing
Speaker 1: and so concerned with social approval that they'll hold something
Speaker 1: back that they're struggling with. That's when secrecy starts to hurt.
Speaker 1: And that's what secrecy looks like in adulthood, to where
Speaker 1: our fears of being rejected eclipse our ability to place
Speaker 1: trust in others and to obtain help and support. But
Speaker 1: you do have a whole section on positive secrets. So
Speaker 1: maybe I just grew up in a family of infidelity
Speaker 1: and divorce and all I could think of is a
Speaker 1: secret is a dark and it's an ominous thing. But
Speaker 1: so tell us about positive secrets. Positive secrets, as you
Speaker 1: might be expecting, are quite different from from the other secrets.
Speaker 1: And it's not just because they're positive. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: life's mss J is you know, occasions start off as
Speaker 1: secret and marriage proposal, of pregnancy that a couple has
Speaker 1: been trying to make happen, and so you know, a
Speaker 1: surprise party or some kind of big surprise gift, and
Speaker 1: the whole point of the secrecy is this big exciting reveal.
Speaker 1: And so if you're carefully planning out you know, your
Speaker 1: marriage proposal or you know, the surprise that you're pregnant, um,
Speaker 1: because you're carefully planning how that information gets revealed. You
Speaker 1: feel really in control over that secret, and feeling in
Speaker 1: control over your life is one of the most fundamental
Speaker 1: feelings you can have in terms of healthy living. When
Speaker 1: people feel in control over their lives, they they more
Speaker 1: effectively cope with life' challenges, they're healthier, they're happier, they
Speaker 1: live longer, and so positive secrets can tap into this
Speaker 1: because we feel so much in control over that. So
Speaker 1: one thing your book I thought was interesting was the
Speaker 1: thought that sharing secrets can actually make friends with people.
Speaker 1: So can you talk to me about that? It's really
Speaker 1: easy to see the sort of positive social power of
Speaker 1: secrets and children. If you ask a young child to
Speaker 1: tell you what a secret is, they might say, it's
Speaker 1: something you would only share with your best friend. Um.
Speaker 1: They understand that secrets don't have to be this thing
Speaker 1: that we struggle with. It can be this special thing
Speaker 1: that we share with other people because they're special people
Speaker 1: in our lives. Um, you know, that's the stuff of
Speaker 1: intimate relationships. Making yourself vulnerable revealing something. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: a child might say a secret is something you can
Speaker 1: tell your friend and they won't make fun of you,
Speaker 1: and so you know, when we talk about secrets that
Speaker 1: were struggling with or that we feel ashamed with, it's
Speaker 1: really easy to lose sight of this amazing power that
Speaker 1: these secrets have, where if you reveal it to someone,
Speaker 1: something you wouldn't just tell anyone. It's this profound act
Speaker 1: of intimacy that we can find with our secrets. Is
Speaker 1: there anything in your research that surprised you? Yes, of
Speaker 1: something I started doing was saying, you know, look at
Speaker 1: this list of secrets. Tell me which secrets you're currently
Speaker 1: keeping from this list, and then when is that secret
Speaker 1: on your mind? And how much does that secret hurt you?
Speaker 1: And because of my original studies looking at how just
Speaker 1: thinking about a secret can devote a sense of burden,
Speaker 1: anticipated that having to think about a secret a law
Speaker 1: on your own time would be related to well being
Speaker 1: harm and having to hide a secret in conversation with
Speaker 1: people frequently would also be harmful. That we would find
Speaker 1: these two different harms, one we could call the sort
Speaker 1: of mental load and the other one of the sort
Speaker 1: of stress of hiding it in conversation. It turns out
Speaker 1: that the secrets that harm us the most are not
Speaker 1: the ones we frequently conceal in conversation, it's the ones
Speaker 1: we frequently think about outside of those conversations. Um, for
Speaker 1: the most part, it's really actually hard to find harm
Speaker 1: when it comes to concealing, And that kind of flies
Speaker 1: in the face of what we used to think about SECRETSY.
Speaker 1: It turns out that the average secret is just not
Speaker 1: difficult to conceal. If you get asked a question related
Speaker 1: to it, you answer a subtly different question, or you
Speaker 1: redirect the conversation in another way. UM, all those secrets
Speaker 1: we don't want people to know about us for the
Speaker 1: most part that they don't know them. It's a while
Speaker 1: it's technically not difficult to hide a secret, it turns
Speaker 1: out it's all the other moments when you're not actively
Speaker 1: hiding in where there's more room for your secrets to
Speaker 1: harm you, when you think about on your own time,
Speaker 1: that's where the problems often begin. So, as a scientist
Speaker 1: and professor of secrets, what is the one big thing
Speaker 1: that you want people to take away after reading your
Speaker 1: book about secrets? If there's a secret that's bothering you
Speaker 1: or upsetting you, or I think you're struggling with, you
Speaker 1: don't have to reveal it so the person you're keeping
Speaker 1: it from, although sometimes that's the right choice, but talking
Speaker 1: about it with another person can just make the world
Speaker 1: of difference because it turns out you need so little
Speaker 1: from other people to feel much better, and they have
Speaker 1: so much to offer when it comes to confiding a secret.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. So now, Michael in my podcast, go ask
Speaker 1: Ali I. As you know, I've just asked you a
Speaker 1: million questions, and now that we've reached the end, I
Speaker 1: allow you to ask me. A question. Can be about anything. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: you told me earlier that you'll reveal secrets to your
Speaker 1: children to sort of test them. I certainly love hearing
Speaker 1: stories about kids secret keeping if if any come to mind.
Speaker 1: Oh god, um, yes, let's see. Uh. When they were
Speaker 1: little kids, you couldn't tell them anything. You couldn't say like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a cupcake, but you know it's
Speaker 1: our secret because dinners in half an hour and then
Speaker 1: you know, giggles, giggles, what's so funny? We had up
Speaker 1: gigs before, Tony, So I very early on I learned, well,
Speaker 1: these kids that they're going to divulge anything, So you know,
Speaker 1: especially if you say to them Okay, this is a secret,
Speaker 1: or it's a secret between you and me. It became
Speaker 1: you know, common knowledge and out three minutes. So um,
Speaker 1: but thank you Michael. The Secret Life of Secrets, How
Speaker 1: our inner world shaped well being, relationships and who we
Speaker 1: are is such a fascinating book on so many levels.
Speaker 1: So thank you, so much. Thank you. So this is
Speaker 1: our first mail bag moment of the season, and to
Speaker 1: go along with our episode about secrets, these are a
Speaker 1: couple of questions that my listeners are asking me about
Speaker 1: my secrets. Hi. Ali is looking fantastic and actually looking younger. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. Has she had lasers? Peels and our boats? Oh,
Speaker 1: we're asking beauty secrets. Okay, here's the secret. I've never
Speaker 1: had lasers. I'm not exactly sure what that is. I've
Speaker 1: never had peels. But yes, I have had botox. I
Speaker 1: don't love it because it hurts, and I'm squeamish about
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. When I give blood, I pass out,
Speaker 1: So I don't like needles. I don't love the idea
Speaker 1: of batuli is um being shot into my body. So yes,
Speaker 1: occasionally use botox. I haven't used it in a long time,
Speaker 1: and I know I should. But thank you for thinking
Speaker 1: that I look younger. I have to say, I, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not somebody that goes oh, I just drink a
Speaker 1: lot of water. I don't drink any water. I walk
Speaker 1: a lot. But I'm happy like I'm happy. I love
Speaker 1: my husband, I love my kids, I love my friends.
Speaker 1: So sometimes I think where you are in your life
Speaker 1: can can sort of show up on your face. So
Speaker 1: right now it's good. Next question, Hi, Ali, I just
Speaker 1: want to say I love you to pieces so sweet,
Speaker 1: love your humor. I do have a question. I'm fifty
Speaker 1: three years old and I'm starting to see the effects
Speaker 1: from menopause. My skin is not looking as firm on
Speaker 1: my face anymore. I just want to know the secret
Speaker 1: what women are doing to help with that in your fifties.
Speaker 1: Is it plastic surgery, creams, lotions? I just want to
Speaker 1: know what I can do to help improve myself through menopause.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Love you dealing. Okay, Well there's
Speaker 1: a lot to unpack here. But the great thing about
Speaker 1: menopause now is that there's so many new brand startups
Speaker 1: and there's so many women that are creating cream specifically
Speaker 1: for menopause. So in our show notes, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you a couple of links of of places to
Speaker 1: go to find these lotions and potions um because they
Speaker 1: really address exactly where we are in our life. And
Speaker 1: in terms of plastic surgery, I about ten years ago
Speaker 1: had my eyes done. Now I had bags under my
Speaker 1: eyes that were inherited from my father. Anyway, I had
Speaker 1: something called bluff roplastic where they take the fat from
Speaker 1: under your eyes out. And I have to say I
Speaker 1: was very anti plastic surgery. But afterwards, because it was
Speaker 1: like my Moby Dick, it was something that it just
Speaker 1: pained me every time I looked in the mirror. I
Speaker 1: felt much happier afterwards. So I listen, if there's a
Speaker 1: little something you can do, whatever it is, even if
Speaker 1: it's like losing five pounds or buying kind of an
Speaker 1: expensive oil for your face, do it because it makes
Speaker 1: you feel good. Thank you for listening. To go ask
Speaker 1: Alli to learn even more about secrets. Michael's book, The
Speaker 1: Secret Life of Secrets is out now and you can
Speaker 1: follow him on Twitter at Michael Sleppian and check out
Speaker 1: our show notes for links and other info. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and follow me
Speaker 1: on social media on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth and
Speaker 1: on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth. Now if you'd
Speaker 1: like to ask me a question, or suggest a guest,
Speaker 1: or tell me a secret, I'd love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of ways you can do it.
Speaker 1: You can call or text me at three to three
Speaker 1: three six four six three five six, or you can
Speaker 1: email a voice memo right from your phone to Go
Speaker 1: Ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com. If you leave
Speaker 1: a question, you just might hear it. I'll go ask Gali.
Speaker 1: Go Ask Gali is a production of Shonda Land Audio
Speaker 1: and partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.