S.E.C.R.E.T.S.

Oprah's LifeClass 4: The Truth Will Set You Free

What is it that you are trying to hide?  


S.E.C.R.E.T.S. explored...
For a long time, I walked around with a secret. It was something that I made into a huge deal because I was scared of finding out the truth. The one and only secret that I had in my entire life was that I was terrified to get an HIV test. Not because I was a slut or anything like that because we all know that people get infected from having unprotected sex their first time. But, I was afraid because I dated this drug dealer and someone told my father that a lady that died from AIDS listed him as one of the people that she gave oral sex. Most people would have ran, not walked to the clinic to get tested. But I talked to him and he denied it and I believed him; yet still felt like I needed my own evidence. Now the thing about secrets is that they eventually turn into fear and that fear causes you to react in a way that you normally wouldn't. I was paranoid and I would lie to my girlfriends if they would ask me to go with them to get tested (I already been tested...I'm good!). I told bold face lies to them because I never wanted to open that door. Deep down I knew I was clean but the secret was being afraid to get tested. Eventually, I got tired of being scared. I got tired of wanting to know. I got tired SO I got tested. When I went to the doctor asking for the test, they got scared telling me to use condoms if I was going to have sex and be especially safe and blah, blah, blah. The lady who drew my blood was telling me that some couples come in annually to get tested and that some people just refuse to get tested. She said people are so scared of this disease because they are not educated about it. I didn't fall under that category any longer because I was getting tested. After the test, I just cried and cried and cried... because I finally evicted that thought of being scared to get tested from my brain. I had no more secrets and I never will as long as I live. I received the results while at work on my voice mail a couple of weeks later, with the nurse stating that I was negative and my next annual would be in twelve months.


Shame
When we hold secrets, it creates shame and shame is a great barrier to success. When you carry shame you don't allow yourself to fulfill your greatest potential. You do not honor the truth of yourself. Being ashamed is like a veil covering your life. Let go of the secret...release the shame.

Effort
Do you know how much effort it takes to be something that you are not or hold on to something that you should let go? It is stressful and it keeps you tied down to lies that you have told yourself. Do not try to justify holding onto what you think you want to be. Do not hold on to secrets because they create a fear of being exposed.

Cover
Clothes are purchased to cover our naked bodies. But if you were to go back and read about Adam and Eve and when they were first created, you will recognize that, they both were roaming around the garden of Eden in their "birthday suit." The story goes on to read that as soon as they took a bite of the un-forbidden fruit, they realized they were naked. Instantly they wanted to cover their naked bodies. It's the same idea with a secret. You are covering the natural state of who you are, what you like, or what you don't like. Unveil the truth. Uncover what you are trying to hide.

Representative
In college, I used to tell my girlfriends all the time, that whenever we met a guy for the first time, that we were meeting his representative. On the first date, he would send his rep to pretend like he is this great, awesome guy. What's so funny about that is most times we fall in love with that rep. That quick, we fall in love with the representative and hold onto hope. Some of us stay in horrible relationships because we are in love with the possibility of who he/she could become and not really who they are. Are you always authentic in every situation or encounter? Or are you sure to bring your representative-->The person that speaks for you and sells him/herself to others.

Exterminate
You are destroying little pieces of you each day you hold onto something that MUST be freed. If you've ever seen the movie DEVIL you see that the story line is based on one character holding onto a secret for many years. In the moment that he realizes that he MUST tell the secret, his life is spared. Do you want to continue to erase or abolish the real you by holding onto something that's really not that big a deal? And even if it is, so what, because at the end of the day, we all have fall short in some way or another.

Transformation
That is exactly what happens every time you are walking out of the door pretending to be ok with your life and you have insecurities. For the people that celebrate or participate in Halloween, it's an opportunity to be whoever or whatever for the day. Hiding a secret or not expressing the real TRUE you is like wearing a Halloween costume all day-everyday. Throw away the imaginary costume and begin to exercise the real you. It may take some time, but once you release whatever you are hiding, that is half the battle.

Stop playing the role and living a life that everybody else thinks it should be.

If you in anyway are pretending to be something that you are not, you will never become all that you were meant to be. Exercise the fullness of yourself.

If you are pretending something that is not true for your life you will NOT be able to move forward because that untruth and that uncertainty blocks you from all that you were meant to be.

Step out of whatever the lie of your life is or represents.


Let yourself blossom into the fullness of YOUR truth.

Although in this lifeclass the show was centered around gays and lesbians coming OUT of the closet; there are many more secrets that we as a culture hide because of what society influences.

Stop hiding from the TRUTH.

OWN who you are. You will not have the life you deserve if you are pretending to be something or someone who you are not.

Class 4 adjourned.....
 
Statements in bold are quotes from Oprah


Class 1: The False Power of Ego
Class 2: Letting go of Anger
Class 3: You become What You Believe