The difference between Secrets, Privacy, and Confidentiality

• Secrets are anything concerning yourself or your significant relationships about which you have shame and are trying to keep hidden, such as abuse, addictions, theft, lies or sexual affairs.
  
  
• Privacy is the preference to restrict the dissemination of certain information to select people about yourself or your significant relationships. This is a personal preference and is different for each individual. These may be business agreements, financial matters, medical conditions, sexual relationships and practices, age or spiritual beliefs. It is important to honor another person’s sense of privacy if the person states clearly that they want something to remain private. Honoring another’s privacy preference is not an integrity issue, but rather an issue of thoughtfulness and respect. It is important for each of us to check whether shame is the motivation for wanting to keep something private or whether you want to keep extraneous information from obscuring a relationship. The shame is what turns a private matter into a secret and sometimes the sharing of the matter is what provides the deepest healing and releases the charge around hiding it.
   
• Confidentiality is not disclosing information that you have learned about another person directly from that person. This is especially important in close communities, therapy groups and individual therapy sessions. If you are not sure if you can share it ask the person whom it is about first to have informed consent to share.

• Become conscious of sharing only your own personal feelings and experiences with others, not those of a third person who is not present. Use the stem sentence of “I feel” not “Joe said he felt.”
  
  
• Refrain from talking about others, especially in destructive or judgmental ways. When speaking of others, ask, “Is my intention to enlist support for the one about whom I speak or is my intention to create support for my point of view?”
  
  
• If you have judgments or feelings about someone else’s behavior, do a clearing as soon as possible.
  
  
• If you find yourself assuming or speculating about a person or situation ask the person involved directly for clarification. They, of course, have the right to answer you or tell you that it is none of your business.
  
  
• Be aware of unconscious chatter, which is used to avoid feelings and to fill up empty space in a relationship interaction. It is sometimes a compulsive behavior to avoid the dread of being alone and/or the unbearable “silence”.
  
  
• Experiment in just being with the “silence” and go beyond the discomfort
  
  
• Find new ways to connect on an intimate level with friends that does not need to involve mindless talking.

• Holding hands, making quiet eye contact and sharing something personal is an example of this.
  
  
• Walking in silence or only communicating about your immediate experience with nature. You may want to share a beautiful flower, the sunset on the beach or the smells in the forest.
  
  
• Laughing, playing and being as children who are always in the moment rather than talking about the past or the future. Reclaim your innocence.

Be discriminating with what you are listening to. If the information feels like gossip to you, direct the person to speak directly with the person who is being spoken about. Let the person know that you do not want to be “triangulated” or caught in the middle of two people you care about and love.