Speaker 1: High family, secrets. Family. This is just a note of
Speaker 1: thanks as we head into what is, for many of us,
Speaker 1: a time of year filled with contradictions. Love, joy, gratitude, grief, rage, confusion.
Speaker 1: Some or all of these might pay a visit. If
Speaker 1: we're spending time with family, that can be beautiful and
Speaker 1: also challenging. If we're not spending time with family, that
Speaker 1: can bring up other kinds of complexity. For many of us,
Speaker 1: our friends are our chosen family. Others are contending with
Speaker 1: ailing parents, illness, divorce. But wherever we find ourselves, here
Speaker 1: are a few things I'm pretty sure about. And these
Speaker 1: are lessons I've learned from a lifetime of grappling with secrets,
Speaker 1: of being the secret, of writing about secrets, and creating
Speaker 1: a podcast about secrets. One there is nothing quite so
Speaker 1: powerful as being true to ourselves. Two. If we're true
Speaker 1: to ourselves, eventually we find ourselves surrounded by people who
Speaker 1: treat us with kindness. Three. Kindness winds every single time. Four.
Speaker 1: As a wise woman recently told me, go where it's warm,
Speaker 1: she wasn't talking about the weather. Go where it's warm. Five.
Speaker 1: Locate your gut and trust it. I have never been
Speaker 1: led astray when I have followed my instincts. Six, you
Speaker 1: have to get quiet in order to feel and know
Speaker 1: what's right. Seven. There are many different kinds of secrets,
Speaker 1: but perhaps the most insidious are the secrets we keep
Speaker 1: from ourselves. As I head off for the holiday myself,
Speaker 1: I just want to say that one of the great
Speaker 1: gifts in my life is having created this podcast and
Speaker 1: formed this extraordinary community. When I say family, secrets, family,
Speaker 1: I mean it. While I was on book tour for
Speaker 1: Signal Fires, I met many of you on the road.
Speaker 1: You came up to me and told me your stories.
Speaker 1: We laughed and we cried. We connected. And that connection,
Speaker 1: that feeling that we are none of us alone, if
Speaker 1: only we allow ourselves to be seen. That is everything
Speaker 1: I love you. Stay safe and be well, and remember
Speaker 1: go where it's warm.