Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro and this is probably the last bonus episode
Speaker 1: of Family Secrets before we launch our all new season
Speaker 1: on September one. I'm very excited about our lineup and
Speaker 1: can't wait to share it with you all. I've been
Speaker 1: hearing from so many of you about the personal impact
Speaker 1: this podcast has had on your lives, and that couldn't
Speaker 1: mean more to me, which is why I'm especially excited
Speaker 1: to introduce you to Professor Michael Slepian, author of the
Speaker 1: Secret Life of Secrets. Michael is the Sanford S. Bernstein
Speaker 1: Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School.
Speaker 1: His research will be of particular interest to Family Secrets listeners.
Speaker 1: How does keeping secrets affect us? Listen in to our conversation.
Speaker 1: What led you to your research on the impact of secrets?
Speaker 1: I stumbled into this research topic where I wasn't originally
Speaker 1: trying to study secrecy, but I was interested in metaphor
Speaker 1: and how we use physical experiences to understand more abstract concepts,
Speaker 1: and so my earliest studies on secrecy was interested in
Speaker 1: this metaphor that people will use for talking about their secrets.
Speaker 1: They'll say they feel way down by a secret, or
Speaker 1: that a secret can be heavy or weighty. And so
Speaker 1: my original studies just asked, well, if people think about
Speaker 1: or if they if they speak about secrets in this way,
Speaker 1: does that mean they think about secrets in this way?
Speaker 1: Does that mean when the secret is on their mind
Speaker 1: they might feel a sense of burden? And so my
Speaker 1: original studies asked participants to answer questions that we knew
Speaker 1: vary with the experience of physical burdens. So when someone
Speaker 1: feels encumbered by something that they're carrying, or they feel
Speaker 1: fatigued for any reason, they judge distances far as farther
Speaker 1: and hills is steeper because it requires more effort to
Speaker 1: scale a hill or to walk a distance. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: when participants were thinking about secrets that preoccupied their mind,
Speaker 1: they made the same kinds of judgments based all hills
Speaker 1: is steeper, They thought distances were farther, they thought tasks
Speaker 1: for would require more effort. That's fascinating. And there's a
Speaker 1: moment in your book where you talk about a crackling
Speaker 1: fire in a fireplace, except the fireplaces on television and
Speaker 1: people experiencing m the warmth a sensation of warms looking
Speaker 1: at a fire on on the television screen. Yes, and
Speaker 1: so this was like that. It's even though there's of
Speaker 1: course not anything physically weighing you down by a secret,
Speaker 1: could it still somehow, in some small way feel that way?
Speaker 1: And and they're my early studies suggested. Yes. Um, you
Speaker 1: tell a personal story, which is as a young professor,
Speaker 1: it seems recently kind of going on the job market. Um.
Speaker 1: You you go um to Columbia University, which is where
Speaker 1: you where you currently do your research and teach. Um
Speaker 1: for a job interview, and you're out to dinner with
Speaker 1: some of your future colleagues, and your phone rings a
Speaker 1: couple of times and you don't pick it up, but um,
Speaker 1: the calls from your father, and this concerns you. So
Speaker 1: when you do call your father back, he asks you
Speaker 1: if you're sitting down. Then he goes on to say
Speaker 1: the reason I'm calling is I wanted to let you
Speaker 1: know that I'm not biologically able to have children. He
Speaker 1: was telling me that he's not my biological father, and
Speaker 1: that I was born by a donor conception, and so
Speaker 1: was my brother five years later, different donor. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, half brother and so as you know, it's
Speaker 1: that's really surprising, But it was the secret keeping that
Speaker 1: I found even more surprising. Yeah, without knowing it, without
Speaker 1: having any consciousness of the fact that your parents had
Speaker 1: actually been secret keepers. Um, without the knowledge of that
Speaker 1: that you went into this field. Is that something that
Speaker 1: since then you've sort of interrogated for yourself in terms of,
Speaker 1: like I know, on this podcast, something that comes up
Speaker 1: pretty often is this phrase from the psychoanalyst and writer
Speaker 1: Christopher Bolas, which is the unthought known and what we
Speaker 1: what we somehow into it? Or no? But can you know,
Speaker 1: can never sink? Was that present at all for you?
Speaker 1: Or was this really coincidence? It never was something that
Speaker 1: I saw coming and it you know, at first I
Speaker 1: thought it was just this amazing inquisidence or maybe not amazing,
Speaker 1: certainly a coincidence. But years later, as I got closer
Speaker 1: to this book, and especially as I started writing it,
Speaker 1: I started asking my parents and more questions about what
Speaker 1: it was like to keep this secret. And I learned
Speaker 1: so much that I was just like, why didn't I
Speaker 1: ask these questions years ago? There was just so much
Speaker 1: I didn't know about what it was like to keep
Speaker 1: that secret. And some of the details around the decisions
Speaker 1: they made and who was involved in the decision, and
Speaker 1: what it was like to carry that secret, Especially that
Speaker 1: last part. I learned that, you know, their experiences were
Speaker 1: really mapping onto what I would be finding in my research.
Speaker 1: At the same time that they said it wasn't hard
Speaker 1: to conceal in conversation, it was in fact quite easy,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they had to revisit that decision and in
Speaker 1: their own thoughts, and that's what was difficult. What year
Speaker 1: was it when your father called you and told you this.
Speaker 1: This was two thousand, so that was I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: there was DNA testing out there and people were discovering things,
Speaker 1: but it was really actually pretty early. Um, parents weren't
Speaker 1: yet thinking, oh, I better tell my children because they're
Speaker 1: going to find out that wasn't happening. It's certainly happening
Speaker 1: now ten years later. You're right. It's It's amazing how
Speaker 1: big of a difference there is across those years. So
Speaker 1: your parents were unusual for the time, even a decade
Speaker 1: ago UM, in making the decision to tell you and
Speaker 1: your brother. And so you ask your your mom, you know,
Speaker 1: when did you decide to tell me? And this made
Speaker 1: me laugh. She says, when did your your first paper
Speaker 1: on secrecy come out? I couldn't believe it. I just
Speaker 1: never so, so there are they are more deeply related
Speaker 1: at in that sense, and that I couldn't My own
Speaker 1: research was changing her thinking about whether to continue keeping
Speaker 1: the secret. Your mother and father were making a choice
Speaker 1: that really was informed by the research that that that
Speaker 1: you've been doing and what they were understanding about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's fascinating. Yeah, me too, And
Speaker 1: something that came out much later. I just you know,
Speaker 1: even even once a secret like this is out, it's
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing you talked about a lot.
Speaker 1: And so there was still so much for me to
Speaker 1: learn about about this experience with them years later. So
Speaker 1: one of the things that you write in your book
Speaker 1: is we must define secrecy not as something we do,
Speaker 1: but as an intention. Um, I intend for people not
Speaker 1: to learn this thing. Uh. And that was I mean.
Speaker 1: The distinctions that you make in the sort of the
Speaker 1: ways in which you um parce secret keeping, UM, we're
Speaker 1: really interesting to me. You know. The the tagline for
Speaker 1: this show is the secrets that are kept from us,
Speaker 1: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we
Speaker 1: keep from ourselves and your focus, it seems in your
Speaker 1: research is the secrets we keep. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. So this intention, what have you learned
Speaker 1: about keeping secrets, does to us beyond the sort of
Speaker 1: the weight or that you were describing the you know,
Speaker 1: the making the hills you know look steeper and the
Speaker 1: load heavier. So what's useful about this definition of secrecy
Speaker 1: has an intention rather than an action is it allows
Speaker 1: for the reality, which is that as soon as you
Speaker 1: intend to keep a secret, you have a secret. I
Speaker 1: think probably the most prototypical example as someone cheese on
Speaker 1: their partner and immediately they have a secret, well before
Speaker 1: they ever have to have a conversation with their partner
Speaker 1: where they might be thinking about it. And so the
Speaker 1: moment you intend to keep a secret is when it
Speaker 1: can start affecting you, and your mind is going to
Speaker 1: return to this intention time and time again. That's actually
Speaker 1: what it means to have an intention in any domain.
Speaker 1: You want to be easily reminded of it, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you might have to act on that intention. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that's pretty rare. The typical secret is not
Speaker 1: one that you frequently need hiding conversation is not one
Speaker 1: that people ask you questions about very often, and so
Speaker 1: allow the action that's happening in your own head, on
Speaker 1: your own time. Where the more people simply think about
Speaker 1: their secrets outside of situations when they need to conceal them,
Speaker 1: the more ashamed they can feel of those secrets, the
Speaker 1: more isolated they can feel with those secrets, the more
Speaker 1: uncertain about whether they're doing the right thing, and so
Speaker 1: each of those experiences are associated with lower health and
Speaker 1: well being. That's so interesting. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you write is that people, all people have secrets, but
Speaker 1: not all secrets are alike. Um, some secrets don't hurt
Speaker 1: others do. You did this research in which you identified
Speaker 1: thirty eight of the most common secrets by surveying a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand people for that particular survey in the
Speaker 1: United States, asking them, what what is a secret you're
Speaker 1: currently keeping? What did you discover about within those thirty
Speaker 1: eight most common secrets, the ones that that hurt us
Speaker 1: and and the ones that don't. And so this this
Speaker 1: turns out to be another important aspect of this research.
Speaker 1: Whereas the research that came before Mind would often study
Speaker 1: sort of one secret at a time, UM, often when
Speaker 1: they fabricated in the lab environment. And the problem with
Speaker 1: that kind of design is that I can't get you
Speaker 1: very far because people have multiple secrets and and the
Speaker 1: question is which other ones that hurt you? And to
Speaker 1: ask that question, you have to look at the whole
Speaker 1: set of secrets that people have. And so essentially there's
Speaker 1: three different answers to this question. UM. The secrets that
Speaker 1: we feel are really immoral, those are the secrets we
Speaker 1: frequently think about and feel ashamed about. The secrets that
Speaker 1: feel really personal, Those are secrets that we frequently think
Speaker 1: about and feel isolated with. And secrets that are not
Speaker 1: based in logic or reason or goals or aspirations, but
Speaker 1: are more feeling based. Those are the secrets we feel
Speaker 1: we don't have much insight into. And again we think
Speaker 1: about those secrets frequently. And and so it's not a
Speaker 1: specific kind of secret. It's not, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the secrets from the list that's especially harmful, but it's
Speaker 1: the ways in which you experience these common secrets. And
Speaker 1: the more you feel that it's a moral, the more
Speaker 1: you feel that it's personal, or the more you feel
Speaker 1: like you don't have insight into it, the more that
Speaker 1: that secret is going to be harming your well being.
Speaker 1: I wonder whether in all three of those um ways
Speaker 1: of of of keeping secrets that are that are harmful,
Speaker 1: whether there's a commonality among them, which would be a
Speaker 1: sense that no one would understand. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the themes that occurs again and again on this podcast
Speaker 1: is where there's secrecy, there's shame, you know, thrumbing beneath
Speaker 1: it so often, or if not shame, a sense of
Speaker 1: isolation or you know, nobody would understand this. If if
Speaker 1: I said this out loud, I would be either you know,
Speaker 1: wild or mocked or just looked at blankly. The research
Speaker 1: shows that these experiences of confiding a secret or revealing
Speaker 1: a secret often go much better than we anticipate them too.
Speaker 1: And you're right, people thinks people won't understand or they'll
Speaker 1: be quick to judge or think worst of them. But
Speaker 1: when we choose to be alone with something, when we
Speaker 1: when the only venue to work on something is your
Speaker 1: own mind, you often develop pretty unhealthy ways of thinking
Speaker 1: about that thing that isn't curbed by the reality checks
Speaker 1: that come out in the real world. And so that
Speaker 1: is the reason people hold back, but it's quite often miscalibrated.
Speaker 1: The average experience someone has with revealing a secret to
Speaker 1: another person is that they felt something good came out
Speaker 1: of it, They felt like they got help. And so
Speaker 1: of course we have the sports case scenario in mind,
Speaker 1: but it's really really really rare. Yeah, And that's that's
Speaker 1: really good to hear, and I think it's really good
Speaker 1: for all Family Secrets listeners to hear because, um, that
Speaker 1: also is what gets reiterated again and again and again
Speaker 1: over the course of seven seasons and seventy interviews. The feeling,
Speaker 1: ultimately in each case is feeling somewhat liberated or freed,
Speaker 1: you know, from this haunting. So you tell a story
Speaker 1: in the book about a woman named Melody Casson. It
Speaker 1: was so astonishing really and illuminating about because it's not
Speaker 1: always you know, people are afraid of being quote unquote
Speaker 1: found out, but that doesn't actually seem to be the
Speaker 1: most damaging part of secret keeping. Yeah. So this is
Speaker 1: a story about someone who at the age of fifteen
Speaker 1: had had had a child, and that child died at
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen days and what had happened or
Speaker 1: what was reported to the police at the time was
Speaker 1: that she accidentally rolled onto her son and suffocated him
Speaker 1: as a result. Fifty two years after this happened, when
Speaker 1: there was a police person over on another unrelated issue,
Speaker 1: she all of a sudden confessed to the police officer
Speaker 1: and said that she needed to correct the record and
Speaker 1: said that I've been living with the spain all my life,
Speaker 1: and what happened fifty two years prior is that it
Speaker 1: was this. You know, she has a newborn baby, her
Speaker 1: father is unwell, her mother's in the hospital recovering from
Speaker 1: an operation. She has a sister home, and her sister's Beyonce,
Speaker 1: and they need to get up early for work, and
Speaker 1: so it's this really delicate situation at home where you know,
Speaker 1: attentions are attentions are rising, and her baby, her newborn son,
Speaker 1: is just crying and crying and crying, you know, as
Speaker 1: newborns will do. And she was just trying to get
Speaker 1: it to be quiet. And she thought if she could
Speaker 1: just muffle its voice, his voice for a second, the
Speaker 1: sobbing would stop, and so she held a cushion over
Speaker 1: his face and and the crying did stop. And then
Speaker 1: when she removed the cushion, she immediately could tell what
Speaker 1: she did, and you know, she just froze and and
Speaker 1: so it was reported as an accident, and in some
Speaker 1: ways that is pretty close to the truth. But this
Speaker 1: was something that was on her mind for the next
Speaker 1: fifty two years, to the extent that she felt like
Speaker 1: she finally needed to come clean, even though this could
Speaker 1: put her at risk for for jail time. Um, that's
Speaker 1: not what happened, but it could have happened. And so
Speaker 1: when you think about a story like that, you think, well,
Speaker 1: why would someone put themselves at this legal peril just
Speaker 1: to get a secret off their chest? And it reminds
Speaker 1: you that we want to talk about our secrets. The
Speaker 1: reason she wanted to do this is she couldn't. She
Speaker 1: didn't want to be alone with us anymore. Her Her
Speaker 1: worry wasn't about one day being found out, but that
Speaker 1: nobody would ever find out. And she just didn't want
Speaker 1: to be alone with it anymore. And so she revealed it.
Speaker 1: Even when it's something really big, even though there's this
Speaker 1: huge risk she took for her was worth it. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to be alone, We don't want to
Speaker 1: be alone with our thoughts, and so we want to
Speaker 1: share these things, even the difficult things. The judge that
Speaker 1: you know, you've been living with this all your life,
Speaker 1: and you you know, you really had this lifelong guilt
Speaker 1: and nothing I can do, you can never change that.
Speaker 1: And you've essentially already have served your time and suffering
Speaker 1: for this alone with this. And so she didn't give
Speaker 1: out jail time, just a suspended sentence. And so it's
Speaker 1: so hard to imagine being alone with this thing for
Speaker 1: decades and decades and just not wanting to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that I found
Speaker 1: most poignant about. Um. Sort of that aspect of your
Speaker 1: research is that it seems it's such a human need,
Speaker 1: longing desire to be known. And Um, there's this quote
Speaker 1: from from DW. Winnicott that I sometimes share and have
Speaker 1: written about, which is it is a joy to be hidden,
Speaker 1: but disaster not to be found. And I just, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about being known, and it's inverse. You know, what
Speaker 1: it is to suffer the the the isolation of knowing
Speaker 1: that that you know something that no one else knows. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is obviously a huge secret. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean in terms of what it's you know, what its content, is,
Speaker 1: But is that something that you've seen um elsewhere in
Speaker 1: your research. Is that feeling of the burden just getting
Speaker 1: heavier and heavier and heavier until it's just not possible
Speaker 1: to keep bearing it. So we're at the forefront of
Speaker 1: what we know on this topic here on the relationship
Speaker 1: between time and secrecy, and I think you're right that
Speaker 1: certain secrets get heavier over time. They think there's a
Speaker 1: different set of secrets that get later over time as
Speaker 1: it becomes less relevant to our life. And then I
Speaker 1: think there's secrets that can sort of reappear as as
Speaker 1: something in your life changes and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it's burdensome again. That's so interesting, the idea of secrets
Speaker 1: reappearing and becoming burdensome again. Does that have to do
Speaker 1: like the pattern of something coming up that reminds one
Speaker 1: of it, or you know, sort of brings it up
Speaker 1: again or makes it relevant again. Yeah, I think there's that.
Speaker 1: I think you know, it wasn't relevant for years and years,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it's relevant again. For some reason.
Speaker 1: I think entering into a new serious relationship or romantic
Speaker 1: relationship also has this flavor of reactivating secrets where when
Speaker 1: you're in this new relationship, we're like, Okay, here are
Speaker 1: the things I need to tell them when the time
Speaker 1: is right. And and there's that sort of slowly revealing
Speaker 1: your cards as you get closer. Um, But it could
Speaker 1: be things that haven't been in your mind and so long.
Speaker 1: What about the kinds of secrets that grow lighter over time.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I think some secrets that, even though
Speaker 1: they're huge at the time, they just loose their relevance
Speaker 1: um as life moves on and as you change, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe your new situation is you don't know
Speaker 1: any of the people involved anymore. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: live in this place anymore. Your life is totally different now,
Speaker 1: whether it's because you have a totally different career or
Speaker 1: you know, you have a family, whatever it is. I
Speaker 1: think as like changes, so do we. And and some
Speaker 1: really big secrets from our past I don't feel as
Speaker 1: relevant anymore, and I they kind of like dormant until
Speaker 1: for some reason you get reminded of them again. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Let's talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: distinction between secrecy and privacy. You know, we we use
Speaker 1: the expression, you know, I'm a very private person, or
Speaker 1: you know, some people are not particularly private in the
Speaker 1: sense of feeling comfortable sharing all sorts of detail about
Speaker 1: their lives, whether it's their histories, or their financial lives,
Speaker 1: or their work lives, or their family life, whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. But talk about the distinction between holding a
Speaker 1: secret and just feeling private. This is where that definition
Speaker 1: comes in handy again. And so there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: things about us that other people don't know that aren't secrets.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just something that you would be willing
Speaker 1: to discuss, but it just has yet to come up,
Speaker 1: or it's something you would be like discussed, but only
Speaker 1: if the setting was right, only if you felt comfortable
Speaker 1: in that moment, because you know there weren't other people
Speaker 1: who could overhear, or maybe you know you need to
Speaker 1: be close to someone to discuss certain intimate facts. I think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, discussions around sex and discussions around money are
Speaker 1: two good examples of things that we're willing to talk about,
Speaker 1: but only with the right person. But if there's a
Speaker 1: specific experience, specific sexual experience, or specific financial decision that
Speaker 1: you don't want people to know about, and if you
Speaker 1: ever got asked about it, you would dodge the question
Speaker 1: or not reveal the true answer. The reason people don't
Speaker 1: know this thing about you is you're specifically intending to
Speaker 1: hold it back. Then it's a secret. And so when
Speaker 1: it's private, it's something you would be willing to discuss,
Speaker 1: but only if the setting is right. You also write
Speaker 1: about positive secrets. Have interviewed other people on the show
Speaker 1: who um would would say, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: an okay secret. Um, you know, all see goods are toxic.
Speaker 1: What would be examples of positive secrets and their outcome?
Speaker 1: So positive secrets are this really special case and they
Speaker 1: really sort of change the rules a little bit, and
Speaker 1: and they're often good for us. And there's really two kinds.
Speaker 1: There's the big kind is things like marriage proposals. A
Speaker 1: couple has been trying to get pregnant and then they
Speaker 1: do um some big surprise party or some big gift
Speaker 1: where a lot of these experiences people purposely keep secret
Speaker 1: for some period of time so that they have control
Speaker 1: over how the information comes out, and often in a
Speaker 1: very exciting or celebratory way. And those secrets operate very
Speaker 1: differently because we feel good about them, but also we
Speaker 1: really feel in control over them. Because we have that
Speaker 1: exploration data when the secret is going to be revealed,
Speaker 1: and we carefully have chosen the timing and the manner
Speaker 1: and who will learn it, And so we feel really
Speaker 1: in control over our positive secrets, which turns out to
Speaker 1: be a really healthy feeling. We better cope with life's
Speaker 1: challenges when we feel in control. There's another kind of
Speaker 1: positive secret that's I think it's a bit rare where
Speaker 1: there isn't an intense to reveal it. And so these
Speaker 1: are things like secret hobbies that you enjoy but think
Speaker 1: people won't get um you know, whether that's collecting stamps
Speaker 1: or whether that's watching soap operations, or you know, for
Speaker 1: a lot of people it's actually um. Meditating is another
Speaker 1: good example where it's it's people are like, this is
Speaker 1: this thing I enjoy. I know the people around me
Speaker 1: won't get it, and rather than having to deal with
Speaker 1: that and have the conversation about that, I feel at
Speaker 1: peace just enjoying this thing by myself. That's interesting though,
Speaker 1: because what you're describing there is people around me won't
Speaker 1: get it. Is there that little bit of the other
Speaker 1: kind of secret keeping there, which is people people won't
Speaker 1: get it? So I'm not gonna, not going to share it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Yeah, So positive secrets you plan to reveal,
Speaker 1: those are clearly like this totally different set of secrets
Speaker 1: that just operates so differently. But this other kind of
Speaker 1: positive secret, it starts blurring the boundaries. You're totally right
Speaker 1: where it does start. The motivations do start seeming the thing.
Speaker 1: Even still, even when you're fearing a negative reaction, this
Speaker 1: is something you enjoy doing, it still seems to operate differently.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's a lesson there to try
Speaker 1: to apply to our more prototypically negative secrets, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, how can we feel okay with them? How
Speaker 1: can we feel ready to confront them? Are are ready
Speaker 1: to talk about them? Even And when it goes back
Speaker 1: to the more difficult, you know, to to process secrets
Speaker 1: or the ones that are more damaging to us, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering how that process unfold in order to reach a
Speaker 1: point of readiness I'm comfortable sharing this, or I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: enough I'm not afraid enough to share this with a
Speaker 1: particular person or you know, family member or spouse or
Speaker 1: a partner or whatever it is that has to be
Speaker 1: preceded by it would seem having reached a place of
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't as bad as I've been thinking for
Speaker 1: all these years, or or I'm a little bit less ashamed,
Speaker 1: or I've worked on this enough to want to see
Speaker 1: the benefits of revealing it. Yeah, so it's so right
Speaker 1: finding some kind of peace with it, some kind of acceptance.
Speaker 1: If you reach that point, it certainly makes it easier
Speaker 1: to talk about. But of course, how do you reach
Speaker 1: that point when you're entirely alone with something. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: And so if it's something that you feel particularly alone
Speaker 1: with or that you're struggling with, one other way of
Speaker 1: thinking about how you might get to a place where
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable talking about it with someone. And it
Speaker 1: could be anyone. It could be someone totally removed from
Speaker 1: it all, and it certainly doesn't have to be the
Speaker 1: person you're keeping the secret from. It can be a
Speaker 1: third party. And maybe it's to imagine what it would
Speaker 1: be like to talk about it and what that would
Speaker 1: actually realistically happen if you if you revealed it to someone.
Speaker 1: The research is really clear that the typical experience of
Speaker 1: revealing a secret to a third party can fighting at
Speaker 1: a third party is very helpful. Um, even a small
Speaker 1: amount of help, even a small amount of support, seems
Speaker 1: to go a really long way. And so maybe it's
Speaker 1: thinking about, well, how is this hurting me? What do
Speaker 1: I need help with? What would make me feel better
Speaker 1: about this thing? And would that come out of a
Speaker 1: conversation with someone else? And for most cases the answer
Speaker 1: is yes. So you write about this art installation that
Speaker 1: has to do with essentially anonymous confession. Yeah, it reminded
Speaker 1: me of several years ago there was another art installation
Speaker 1: at the Have been a museum in in Manhattan where um,
Speaker 1: they had index cards in the entry where people could
Speaker 1: write down, you know, without signing, just completely anonymously, their
Speaker 1: greatest fear and their greatest hope. And there was this
Speaker 1: whole wall of hope and this whole wall of fear,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the fears were things that people
Speaker 1: might not ever tell anyone, but there they were for
Speaker 1: everyone to read and to realize, Wow, this is what
Speaker 1: it is to be human. All these fears, you know,
Speaker 1: afraid of afraid of being homeless, afraid you know, afraid
Speaker 1: of dying, Afraid no one will love me, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, just so basic that it was very powerful.
Speaker 1: I mean, could you talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: that installation that you were that you referred to in
Speaker 1: the book. So this installation was also inspired by something
Speaker 1: very similar to what you just described, where if you
Speaker 1: can remember what it was like after the presidential election,
Speaker 1: which feels so far away right now, Um, what was
Speaker 1: happening at that time in New York is is this
Speaker 1: guy Um, Matthew chap Az, This this artist Um had
Speaker 1: set up essentially just piles of pens and post it
Speaker 1: and in the sub It was essentially this was taking
Speaker 1: place inside the subway, asking people to just write out
Speaker 1: their feelings on a post it and put it on
Speaker 1: the wall. And and it was just this outpouring of
Speaker 1: emotion on each on each individual post it, you know,
Speaker 1: things like let's stay together, we we can like work
Speaker 1: through this um since the nation at that time had
Speaker 1: never felt so divided, and so just walking and there
Speaker 1: was so many. At its peak, there was about fifty
Speaker 1: post it's in the Union Square station, and it was
Speaker 1: just this huge display of different colors and and and
Speaker 1: when you looked up close to these different emotions, and
Speaker 1: it so happens that maybe two years after that, I
Speaker 1: was walking through the subway one day and I saw
Speaker 1: another version of this same installation, but this time it
Speaker 1: was called Sticky Notes Secrets, and they were the these
Speaker 1: black post its and silver ink writing on them revealing
Speaker 1: these the secrets. And so I saw this installation, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh wow, and I took a photo and
Speaker 1: then I just kept walking and then I thought, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, and I turned around and went back and
Speaker 1: started reading them more carefully. And it's a good thing
Speaker 1: I did, because that's when I met Matthew Chavis, who
Speaker 1: was taking down the post It's for the night, and
Speaker 1: his name for his project is his Subway Therapy, where
Speaker 1: you know, the very early versions of this kind of
Speaker 1: installation was him sitting at a table saying, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially like the you know, Lucy and the Peanuts, being like,
Speaker 1: I'm here for you talk to me about anything. And
Speaker 1: that's what eventually became Subway Therapy. And so he was
Speaker 1: telling me about the history of this, and he was
Speaker 1: telling me about something that he had always wanted to do,
Speaker 1: which is like create a telephone version of this where
Speaker 1: you picked up a receiver and you can listen to
Speaker 1: other people's secrets or reveal your own. And a few
Speaker 1: months later, him and amazing engineers and me doing very
Speaker 1: little together, we put together the Secret Telephone and put
Speaker 1: it up in different parks in New York City, and
Speaker 1: at some point people were lining up to reveal their
Speaker 1: secrets on the Secret Telephone. Wow, that's amazing. So you
Speaker 1: would be like just walking down the street or walking
Speaker 1: through the park and there would be a phone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was like a wooden table with like like
Speaker 1: a landline phone on it, which, of course it's so
Speaker 1: rare to see a landline period these days. Little there
Speaker 1: in the middle of Central Park and there was just
Speaker 1: a banner that said, some you know, get something off
Speaker 1: your chest, the Secret Telephone. We'll be back in a
Speaker 1: moment with more family secrets. Has there been any research
Speaker 1: about whether it's in some way easier to write a
Speaker 1: secret down than to speak it. There is something once
Speaker 1: you say it out loud, it's undeniably a real thing.
Speaker 1: There's research on, you know, journaling as a way to
Speaker 1: work through traumatic experiences or just coping with anything that
Speaker 1: you're struggling with, And journaling can work, but only under
Speaker 1: certain conditions. If what you're using your journal or is
Speaker 1: rehashing the past and how bad you feel about it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: their journal just becomes a written record of harmful rumination.
Speaker 1: And so when journaling really works well is when you're
Speaker 1: using it to challenge your counterproductive ways of thinking. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's really hard to do on your own. It's really
Speaker 1: easy to fall out of a conversation with another person.
Speaker 1: The secret telephone is interesting because you're speaking your secret
Speaker 1: and so the receiver knowing that at some point someone
Speaker 1: will also listen to it and hear it. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's what's different about that compared to writing in a journal.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's Post Secret. That project is
Speaker 1: still ongoing where people write their secrets on a postcard
Speaker 1: and mail them in And actually on this podcast we
Speaker 1: have a toll free number where people can call in
Speaker 1: and and share their share their secrets, and every once
Speaker 1: in a while we'll actually share one or you know,
Speaker 1: share a few just anonymously on the show. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've been so moved and struck by how many people
Speaker 1: call him and just just want to say and and
Speaker 1: know that we're going to hear them. We're gonna hear
Speaker 1: the stories. And that's the purpose is there's somebody on
Speaker 1: the other side who's listening. There's some research totally separate
Speaker 1: from what we're talking about now that essentially shows people
Speaker 1: a message that someone has written, you know, the in words,
Speaker 1: or you hear it the audio recording on the person speaking,
Speaker 1: and to hear someone's voices is are more humanizing. There's
Speaker 1: something special about saying it out loud, not alone in
Speaker 1: a room, but saying it out loud in a manner
Speaker 1: that one time, somewhat, sometime else someone will hear it.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you learned as the years you know
Speaker 1: have gone by, this decade has gone by since your
Speaker 1: father told you and your your parents you know, agreed
Speaker 1: to tell you about your genetic origins. What have you
Speaker 1: learned from them about what it was like? Um, the
Speaker 1: trajectory over the course of your life in and your
Speaker 1: brother's life, of of keeping that secret. And and if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, there were other people in your family
Speaker 1: who knew. So it wasn't a secret that only you
Speaker 1: know that your parents were quote unquote taking to the
Speaker 1: grave with them. There were others who knew. It was
Speaker 1: you and your brother who didn't know. I think the
Speaker 1: two main big things that I learned and asking my
Speaker 1: parents more about what it was like to have the
Speaker 1: secret was first, you know, when it started to become
Speaker 1: a problem for them, And it seemed to become problematic
Speaker 1: for my mother because you know, the situation is like,
Speaker 1: now he's a teenager and I'm maybe in my early twenties,
Speaker 1: and he's starting to, as any person does, you know,
Speaker 1: starting to think about which trades they have inherited from
Speaker 1: which parents, and and starting to extrapolate and started asking
Speaker 1: questions around this, not questions about genetics, but like, oh,
Speaker 1: do you think I'm going to inherit this trade or
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm an adult, I'll be like this
Speaker 1: instead of this the way you know you are, And that,
Speaker 1: of course that's kind of questioning would make anyone in
Speaker 1: my parents situation really uncomfortable. And that was sort of
Speaker 1: the first clue that, you know, my my parents might
Speaker 1: one day reveal this secret because it was incredibly awkward
Speaker 1: for my mom to try to navigate those questions, you know,
Speaker 1: not difficult conversationally, but just emotionally uncomfortable. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's what eventually was one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why this is the secret eventually came out. But the
Speaker 1: other was learning about who else was involved in this decision,
Speaker 1: and I was so surprised, shocked to learn that there
Speaker 1: was another major player and in this secret, which was
Speaker 1: my dad's mother, my grandmother, And she so much did
Speaker 1: not want us to ever learn the secret. And I
Speaker 1: wish I could talk to her about it today and
Speaker 1: you know, tell her it's okay, but that's that's not
Speaker 1: how that, that's not the timing um. And she just
Speaker 1: really didn't want us to learn this because she felt
Speaker 1: so close to us, and she didn't want us to
Speaker 1: feel not part of the family, you know, on my
Speaker 1: dad's side, and and me and my brother were so
Speaker 1: close with my dad's parents. And I think the reason
Speaker 1: my grandmother not just didn't want us to learn is
Speaker 1: she just didn't want anything to interfere with those relationships.
Speaker 1: You know, when I found out that I wasn't genetically
Speaker 1: related to them, it made those relationships for me more special,
Speaker 1: not less that they that they weren't based in any
Speaker 1: sort of sense of genetic complication or anything like that.
Speaker 1: That they treated us as their great children as if
Speaker 1: we were genetically related to us. And for me, that
Speaker 1: just makes the relationships more special to learn that they
Speaker 1: weren't based in genetics. But unfortunately I can't I can't
Speaker 1: tell her that that's really moving and also a loss,
Speaker 1: because um, wouldn't it have been wonderful for her to
Speaker 1: know that it didn't matter, that it that it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: It didn't matter her, uh and it didn't matter to her,
Speaker 1: but also that it didn't matter to you, uh and
Speaker 1: it didn't matter to your brother. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's always you know, the fear is it's gonna it's
Speaker 1: gonna make a difference, and you know that goes back
Speaker 1: to well, then then it has to be then it
Speaker 1: has to be kept secret and then and then it
Speaker 1: remains this this um you know, in some way psychically
Speaker 1: the elephant in the room. Yeah, I mean everyone has
Speaker 1: secrets because, um, your research showed that at any given moment,
Speaker 1: all of us, you know, on an average, are carrying
Speaker 1: how many secrets as you define them, and that that
Speaker 1: includes some of the dormant ones we were talking about too,
Speaker 1: but um, yeah, that includes some small ones and big ones.
Speaker 1: It's it's the whole picture. And and we're not just
Speaker 1: all keeping many secrets, even you know, whilst only some
Speaker 1: of them are currently relevant to today we're all keeping
Speaker 1: the same kinds of secrets. Yeah, and that's so important
Speaker 1: to note because if we only, if we only realize that,
Speaker 1: like really on a deep level, realized that it would
Speaker 1: just kind of explode the need to keep so many
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, as isolating and personal as a seeker
Speaker 1: can feel, we all have similar ones. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.