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xWithout something specific to attend to (a conversation, a work task, a movie) – and sometimes even while you are supposed to be paying attention to something else – your mind can roam away from the here and now. When left free to wander, your mind can cover expansive terrains, but it also tends to visit the same places again and again. When you have a problem not yet solved, you can be sure that your mind will check in on this problem from time to time. How else could you work on it? If you keep a secret entirely to yourself, then you are leaving yourself only one avenue to work through the secret, and that is in your own thinking. And, unfortunately, a mind unchecked by others’ reactions is more likely to develop unhealthy ways of thinking. The hard part of having a secret is not that we have to hide it in conversation, but that we have to live with it alone. One of the best ways to reduce the harm of a secret is to talk to someone about it. You don’t have to reveal the secret to the person you are keeping it from, but I find in my research that discussing a secret with a trusted other can make the world of difference. Someone who will be kind, empathic and nonjudgmental will serve you well here. But if you are not yet ready to talk to someone, there are other paths that you can take on your own. Once you understand how your secrets make you feel, you can channel your emotions toward more helpful places. In a recent study, my colleagues and I collected responses from 200 participants living throughout the United States. The participants were shown the list of 38 common categories of secrets, and they indicated which they were currently keeping. Some of the most common secrets participants kept involved sexual experiences, violations of trust, discontent (with one’s social life, romantic relationship, physical appearance, profession), and drug use. We measured how each of their secrets made them feel. Experiences of shame and guilt were among the most common. And so, in a follow-up study, we asked how much the secret makes them feel worthless, small, helpless, and powerless: all experiences associated with shame. We also asked how much each of their secrets makes them feel remorse, regret, and tension over something they have done: all experiences associated with guilt. While both shame and guilt make us feel bad, shame arises when people think ‘I’m a bad person,’ whereas guilt arises when people think ‘I did a bad thing.’ Even though shame and guilt often arrive on the scene together, they don’t leave at the same time Secrets that participants felt especially ashamed about included self-harm, trauma, and mental health struggles, whereas secrets that participants felt especially guilty about included telling a lie, theft (any kind of taking without asking), and cheating on their partner. It didn’t matter what the secret was about, but rather how ashamed or guilty the participants felt. The secrets that participants felt most ashamed about were the ones their minds most returned to, and neither shame nor guilt was associated with how often participants had to hold back the secret in conversation. You would be forgiven for using the words ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’ interchangeably because, quite often, when we feel one, we feel the other. When we judge ourselves to be in the wrong, we can feel deficient and small – shame – and we can feel regret and remorse – guilt. For example, the secrets that evoked the most shame also evoked the most guilt: hurting someone (emotionally or physically) and committing infidelity. Even though shame and guilt often arrive on the scene together, they don’t leave at the same time. Shame can stick around for longer. The secrets that caused the most shame were the ones that most often lingered in participants’ minds. But why? When we choose to keep a secret, we avoid whatever punishment would come from the information being known. Except, often, we don’t let ourselves off that easy. People, in general, tend to have a sharp sense of justice, and want to live in a world where those who do bad things get punished for it. And so, when we feel we have escaped punishment, we often feel that we still deserve punishment. To study this phenomenon, I randomly assigned participants in committed relationships to think about a misdeed they were keeping secret from their partner or to think about a misdeed they had confessed to their partner. Thinking about the secret misdeed made people feel like they still deserved to be punished and this even made them more interested in receiving punishment. Compared with thinking about a confessed misdeed, thinking about a secret misdeed led my research participants to want to deny themselves pleasures. For example, thinking about a secret led participants to feel less comfortable in being the recipient of others’ kind gestures. And the participants who felt they still deserved to be punished were even interested in physical and emotional pain (in the forms of intense exercise, drowning oneself in one’s work, and even spending time isolated from others). In short, one reason to let thoughts of a shameful, upsetting secret take centre stage is because it hurts, and we feel we deserve it. Based on these findings, my colleagues and I predicted that, relative to the shameful secret, a guilty secret would be easier to cope with. And that turned out to be right. The secrets people felt they could most capably cope with involved secret hobbies, preferences and romantic desire. The secrets people felt they could least capably cope with involved struggles with mental health and trauma. When we feel ashamed of something, we often try to avoid the problem altogether, but when we feel guilty, we become motivated to do something about it. And so, when people feel guilty, they often want to make amends and learn lessons for the future. When we characterise our behaviour as wrong, we recognise that we can act differently next time, and so we feel capable of doing better. So how can you move from shame to guilt? In a recent series of experiments, my colleagues and I tried to see if we could help people view their secrets in healthier, less shameful ways. Again, we asked people to examine the 38 categories of secrets, and to report which ones they were currently keeping. We then divided each participant’s set of secrets into two piles. For half of their secrets, we asked participants which of these three options fit their secret best: 1) I feel ashamed; 2) I feel like a bad person; or 3) I feel helpless. You’ll likely recognise this language because it is all shame-oriented. And the problem with this buffet of bad feelings is that they are all especially unhelpful when it comes to coping. Feeling ashamed might make you want to crawl into a hole and to give up entirely. But such responses don’t address the problems or work toward solving them. When we led our participants to think about their secret through these three shades of shame, it didn’t matter which option participants chose. Simply thinking about their secrets in this manner led them to feel less capable of coping with the secret. You might wish that the thing you feel bad about never happened, but that wish will get you nowhere For the other half of their secrets, we showed participants three different options, asking which fit their secret best: 1) I feel bad about something I’ve done; 2) I feel sorry about something I’ve done; or 3) I feel tension about something I’ve done. In this condition, we were hitting participants with a psychological sledgehammer, asking them to read ‘something I’ve done’ three times. Now the feelings on offer, while all negative, related to a previous action. When we led our participants to focus on their prior actions, we pushed them toward guilt. Again, it didn’t matter which option participants chose. Simply thinking about a secret in this healthier manner led them to feel more capable of coping with the secret. This effect is simple but powerful. Rather than focus on how bad a secret makes you feel about yourself, think more specifically about the behaviour in question (this is the simple part). You might wish that the thing you feel bad about never happened, but that wish will get you nowhere. Instead, focus on what you can do differently next time, and what you can do moving forward into the future. And then, like magic, feeling that you are capable of coping well translates to… (drum roll) coping well. When we believe that we can control our emotions, we become more assertive in our efforts to do so – and more effective at staying calm and in control. Changing how you think about a secret (or any other stressor) for the better will lead you to more actively problem-solve, and this may even include reaching out to others for help. When people feel more in control of their emotions, they report higher wellbeing. Likewise, my studies find that when you feel capable of coping with your secret, the secret hurts you less, day to day. Often, when we rehash the details of the secret, we are focusing on the past. And I find that when we fixate on the past, thinking about secrets tends to be harmful. In contrast, present- or future-focused thinking about secrets can actually help you chart a better life course. If a secret of yours comes to mind, think about what the secret means for your present, and trace out the different paths you can take into the future. And that’s where shifting from shame to guilt comes in. My studies show that when people feel guilty rather than ashamed, they become more interested in learning from the past and moving forward from it. Feeling guilty is a good thing. When people feel guilty, they become motivated to do something about it. You can’t change the past, no matter how much you wish it were so. But you can move in the right direction today, and continue to do so tomorrow. My parents still regret that they didn’t tell me and my brother sooner about the secret of our donor conceptions. Even though the secret is now out, my parents can still feel bad about it. Fortunately, they don’t. I’ve long assured them that I don’t hold the secrecy against them, and that learning that I’m not biologically related to my dad and his family actually made my relationships with them feel more meaningful, not less; our relationships are not based on a sense of genetic obligation, but rather a deeper sense of family, closeness and love. While you can’t change the content of your secret, you can change how you feel about it, and that’s the goal.