Episode: 97
New Research: The Surprising Psychology Behind the Secrets Everyone Keeps & What Your Secrets Say About You
with Dr. Michael Slepian, PhD
Studies prove you’re keeping 13 secrets, and 5 of them you’ve never told anyone.
Dr. Michael Slepian, bestselling author and Columbia professor, has spent over a decade researching secrets and he reveals how to release the burden of secrecy and feel more empowered, confident, and free in your life.
Learn how to release the weight of secrecy, feel more confident and empowered, and live with more honesty.
Listen on:
Your past doesn’t dictate your future.
Dr. Michael Slepian, PhD
Featured Clips
Transcript
Mel Robbins (00:00:03):
Prepare yourself because right now you and I are going to discuss something that we've never spoken about, the topic secrets. We all have secrets. I want to help you free yourself of the burden of carrying your secrets and your family's secrets. And that's why I wanted to talk about it because keeping the secret, it's the easy part. The hard part is forcing yourself to live with it. Let's change that. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so glad you tuned in today because I am on the edge of my seat right now because of the conversation we're going to have. I have been talking about this topic with my friends and my family for a long time, but I wanted to wait until I found the perfect expert before you and I broach this subject. So prepare yourself because right now you and I are going to discuss something that we've never spoken about, the topic secrets, why you keep 'em, and how the secrets that you hold are directly impacting your self-esteem, your relationships, your health, and how they're holding you back from living the life you deserve.
(00:01:15):
My mission today is simple. I want to help you free yourself of the burden of carrying your secrets and your family's secrets. Dr. Michael Slepian is a bestselling author, psychologist, and associate professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia Business School and a visiting scholar at Stanford. According to Dr. Ian's 10 year research study, you probably have 13 secrets. No, not probably. You do five of which you've never told anyone, and you're not alone. We all have secrets. In fact, I asked 5 million of my Instagram followers to share their secrets and boy oh boy, they sure did. Just wait until you hear what fellow listeners of this podcast are struggling with in secret, and that's why I wanted to talk about it because keeping the secret, it's the easy part. The hard part is forcing yourself to live with it. Let's change that. Please help me welcome Dr. Michael Slepian to the Mel Robbins podcast.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:02:19):
Thanks for having me.
Mel Robbins (00:02:20):
I am so glad you're here. You were inspired to write your book, the Secret Life of Secrets because of a secret in your own life. Can you tell us that story?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:02:29):
Yeah, the story takes place 10 years ago, pretty close to 10 years ago at this point in time. And I just started my new research on secrecy at the time, and I was presenting this new research on secrecy as part of a job interview at Columbia. And after a very long day, a good day, but sort of a tough day of presenting my research, having meeting after meeting after meeting, having dinner with the people who become my future colleagues and drinks and all the way late into the night, this very long day talking about secrets as a research topic. And at the end of that day, around midnight, I get a call from my dad and I'm like, that's so weird. He wouldn't normally call me at this hour, but I was actually just still having my drinks with these folks who I was interviewing with. And then he called again and I thought, oh no, something bad has happened. There must be a death in the family or something. And so I call him back and he says, Michael, I need to tell you something. Maybe you could sit down for this.
Mel Robbins (00:03:37):
Oh God,
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:03:38):
I am calling to tell you that I'm not biologically able to have children. He was calling to tell me that he was not my biological father, and this was a secret that they had been keeping from me and my younger brother. And then surprised, he's actually my half brother born from a different donor. And they told me this was a secret they planned on never telling us ever. And that was of course shocking and to this kind of thing, what do I do with this information? And it wasn't the truth that was sort of shifting the ground under my feet. It wasn't learning that fact. I quickly thought, this is okay, I'm okay with this. This is the reality and this doesn't change anything between us. But why are you telling me this and why now? And why didn't you tell me sooner? It was the secrecy that was harder to understand.
Mel Robbins (00:04:40):
What was his answer for why then?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:04:44):
So essentially what had happened was a couple days before my brother found out, my mom told my brother, she started telling him a story about being in an argument with our grandfather, her father, and my brother was like, that's so weird. I've never heard of you ever having an argument with your dad, ever. What were you arguing about? And she said, oh, I can't tell you. And he was like, what? He's like, it's related to a secret that I promised your father. I would never tell you, which as you can imagine, is a great way to make the other person insist that you reveal the secret, which is what happened. And they wanted to not tell me before my interview in case it would be distracting. And they were very correct to do so. Could my dad have waited until the next morning? Yeah, but he told me that night when the interview was over,
Mel Robbins (00:05:35):
Did they know that you were studying secrets?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:05:38):
Yes. Yes they did. My mom would later tell me one of the reasons she thinks she essentially let it slip on talking to my brother is she was really ready to reveal this secret. And that was not part of the plan. There were multiple people who had a pact that ever tell us essentially. And my mom was ready to essentially break that and she'll say the reason she started becoming ready to reveal the secret is because she was reading about my research and realizing like, oh gosh, secrets are not good for you. I have to tell 'em.
Mel Robbins (00:06:17):
How does it make you feel knowing that your research on secrets led to this happening in your family?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:06:30):
I know I can't find the word for it, but it's gratifying and just so sort of odd and strange. This sort of story begins when I'm first starting this research on secrecy and I learned this big major secret and then 10 years later writing this book about the past 10 years of research I've been doing and I'm interviewing my parents for this book. And then I found out that the reason that I learned that secret in the first place is because of my research, which I had started 10 years prior is just I'm glad to know. And I'm glad that that is a secret. They don't have to keep any longer. I think they could have told me sooner, and I certainly don't fault them for not doing so, but it's good to be able to talk about it.
Mel Robbins (00:07:22):
Well, I think you've done everybody in your family this extraordinary service. You've given everybody a gift because after really digging into your research, one thing that I've concluded is that secrets are like birds trapped in cages and they want to be free. And that's why they torture us so much. And why did you want to look at secrets in the beginning? I mean, do you kind of feel like this is the universe or God or some sort of cosmic intervention for why you started studying secrets to begin with?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:07:58):
So when I first started studying secrecy that I was studying was this idea that people talk about secrets as if they have physical weight. People talk about being weighed down by a secret as if they were carrying a weight on their backs when a secret is coming to their mind. And we saw some evidence that is kind of what it's like to have a secret when people were thinking about a secret that they had, the world around them seemed more challenging to interact with. And so this sense of burden really, you can really feel it in a way that can be hard to articulate, but to try to measure that we essentially ask people to make judgements that we know actually vary by being physically encumbered. And so if you're tired or out of shape or carrying a bunch of grocery bags, you'll judge a hill.
(00:08:48):
It's steeper because it truly is now going to be harder to scale that hill if you're compromised in some way, if your resources are compromised in some way. And we essentially found the same thing when people were thinking about their secrets. They asked them to think about a significant secret, and when they were doing so, they just judged the world around them as more challenging to interact with hills appeared to be steeper distances appeared to be farther as if that the secret was burdening them to the point where they felt like they had less ability or resources to tackle whatever lies ahead of them, you're actually held back by a secret. And when I started presenting that research to people, some people thought, oh, this is very interesting. And that's when I realized we don't know anything about secrecy. And so then I got serious about studying secrecy for itself and to start understanding the most basic questions. What secrets do people keep? How many, what does it look like when a secret comes to mind? And it was something different than what the sort of prior assumptions suggested from before.
Mel Robbins (00:09:55):
Ooh, we're all on the edge of our seats. What kind of secrets based on your research are the top secrets that people keep?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:10:02):
So that was one of the first things to look into this idea of if we want to learn anything about secrecy, we should look at people's real life experiences. We should study people's real secrets because studying made up secrets in the laboratory, it just might not tell us anything about real world secrecy. And so we've asked a couple thousand people, what's the secret you're keeping right now? And so from the couple thousand people who told us about our secrets, we developed this list of 38 categories of secrets. And we know this list turns out to be really comprehensive because now we've given this list of secrets to 50,000 people
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:10:38):
And on average people at any given time point of 13 of these 38 categories of secrets. And so in some ways that's an under count because you might have multiple secrets that fit a given category, and in some ways it's an over count because some of these are secrets you haven't thought about in a long time. But the important point here is that it only takes a single sheet of paper for me to tell you the whole universe of secrets that people tend to keep on average, the person will at any given moment have 13 secrets from that list of 38. We see 97% of people say they have at least one of those secrets right now. When we ask someone open-ended, what's the secret you're keeping? 92% of the time it fits, one of the items is on the list. So on a single page paper, we can really cover well the universe of secrets that people keep and what they are.
Mel Robbins (00:11:35):
Can you give us the top 10 big categories?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:11:39):
So the most common secret is having told a significant lie, you can lie to keep a secret. You can also not lie to keep a secret. Someone can ask you something and can honestly say, oh, I don't want to talk about that. So lying is a way to keep a secret. It's not the only way to keep a secret. There's lots of other ways to keep a secret that we'll talk about. And then a lie itself can be a secret because of some significant untruth we've told, and we don't want that to be learned by other people after that. Number one, lying number two is romantic desire. Then it goes finances, sexual behavior, one really interesting one that we call extra relational thoughts. You're in some kind of romantic relationship with one person and you're having some kind of romantic thought about another person. That's something people don't talk about. Family secrets are very common, secret ambitions, discontent with your social life or physical discontent. The list goes on and on, mental health violations of trust and so on.
Mel Robbins (00:12:48):
Well, what's interesting is we put out a call for people's secrets to nearly 5 million followers on Instagram. And I'll tell you what, first of all, y'all showed up and poured your secrets into me, and we're going to reveal some of them throughout this interview and kind of unpack your research with these real life secrets that people have right now that are fans of this show. But I will confirm that every single one, and we received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds within hours. We had 36 pages of them printed out that they all fall within your top list of 38, which we'll link to in the show notes. And I think it's very interesting that everyone, yes, you listening has an average of 13 and maybe that's why we should start with a definition. What is a secret?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:13:53):
So I define secrecy, and then the definition turns out to be important. I define secrecy is the intent to withhold information from one or more people. And the reason why we need to define secrecy that way is there are plenty of secrets that you might keep that you just never have to actually conceal in conversation. They just don't come up in conversation. People don't go around asking you, have you ever cheated on your partner? Were you ever abused as a child? Have you had an abortion? These aren't topics we typically encounter. And so there might be a bunch of secrets that come to mind sometimes, but that you don't have to actively work to keep.
(00:14:40):
And it turns out that for most of our secrets, we can think about them quite a lot, but we don't have to hide them very often. And so we don't want to define secrecy as an action because that's a really small slice of the overall experience of secrecy. We only sometimes hide our secrets in conversation. And most importantly, our secrets exist before those conversations and our secrets exist after those conversations. They don't just disappear after you've successfully hit it. And so the moment you intend to hold information back from someone, that's the moment you have a secret. Imagine someone is traveling for work and they cheat on their partner. They've never done it before, they'll never do it again, but that moment they decide, oh, I can't tell this to my partner who would destroy our relationship. That's the moment they have a secret even before they have the opportunity to hide it.
Mel Robbins (00:15:37):
Got it. So a more benign example might be you're supposed to be doing something at work and you're actually out running errands and your boss calls and you step somewhere where they can't hear the announcer at target and you conceal the fact that you're not anywhere near your desk. That is another example of a secret. Do you have to feel bad?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:16:04):
Nope.
Mel Robbins (00:16:04):
It's just the intent to not disclose something.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:16:07):
Exactly.
Mel Robbins (00:16:08):
So are secrets good or bad? I mean, are there some good secrets?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:16:14):
Yes, there are some good secrets and whether secrets are good, it's going to depend the sort of standard psychological standard psychologist answer. Keeping a secret can protect a relationship and that can feel good or be good, but it can also be burdensome at the same time. And then sometimes people keep secrets about good things. It can talk about that, but that's as much rarer form of secrecy. It certainly happens all the time, but it's sort of eclipsed by all the negative secrets we keep,
Mel Robbins (00:16:51):
Right? It doesn't bother you to keep the fact that you're planning a surprise birthday party for somebody, but it does eat away with you that you got caught at target shopping when you should have been working. Or some of the bigger ones that we'll get into. Is keeping a secret something that is innate in all human beings or is it something that we learn to
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:17:14):
Do another psychologist answer? It's both. There's some evidence to suggest that we're not the only beings on the planet who keep secrets. There's some really fascinating studies on chimpanzees and they seem able to keep secrets too, not as complex as ours, but it looks a lot like secrecy, the things they're able to do, and children start to keep secrets as soon as they figure out how to. As soon as they understand that the things that are inside their head are not necessarily in another person's head unless they tell them, they start understanding that people have these mental worlds that are unknown until discovered or unknown until shared. And as soon as they figure that out, they realize like, oh, maybe I can knock in trouble for this spill if I can hide it. And so it seems to be a pretty natural way of interacting with people around us or choosing not to.
Mel Robbins (00:18:18):
So let's talk about the hardest part of keeping a secret. Maybe let's use your family secret.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:18:29):
So it turns out that what's hard about having a secret is not that we have to hide it, it's that we have to live with it alone in our thoughts. And so for my family's secret, it wasn't a secret that they had to hide very often.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:18:47):
It wasn't something that they had to frequently pull back from us in conversation, and that didn't mean the secret didn't exist, though sometimes they would think about the secret, they might think about the secret after that conversation, it might sort of linger in their thoughts. And that turns out to be where the harms are.
(00:19:10):
The whole point of having a secret is you hide it when necessary. And so when those moments come, even if they feel awkward, you're pretty prepared for those moments. And because people can't literally read your thoughts, it's something you can do with relative success and ease. You just don't say the thing that you're not supposed to say, but you have all the time in the world to reflect back on the secret and wonder whether you're making the right choice. And then maybe you start doubting yourself or maybe you start feeling bad for keeping this secret. These are things you don't have the time or bandwidth to think about in the moment when you're holding it back in conversation. But at all the other moments, your mind can go to these places that are harmful or that make the secrecy difficult.
Mel Robbins (00:20:00):
What I find so fascinating is that you're basically saying that concealing, it's the easy part. Living with it is the really damaging part. And when I think about secrets that I had in my past, for example, the weight of that was crushing, hiding the fact, and I'm thinking specifically about cheating on boyfriends when I was in my twenties and holding the secret, managing the information, feeling like an asshole. I still to this day regret and think about the things that I did when I was very self-destructive when I was younger, that I kept secret for a long time and how liberating it is to be able to talk about these things. And I know that for me personally, and I would imagine this is true for your parents or anybody that has a secret, you're so focused on the other people in your life and how they will judge you or react, that I think we tip the scales toward protecting other people and we don't realize, and this is what your research bears, we don't realize how profoundly secrets negatively impact you. Have you discovered in your research if there's a physical, mental, emotional cost to this?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:21:32):
Yes. So we can see in the research that there are so many reasons why. Unfortunately, there are so many reasons why just having to live with a secret and your thoughts can be harmful. If there's something really big going on or something that's upsetting or some struggle you're working through and you're choosing to be entirely alone with it, you're just not going to develop the healthiest way of thinking about it. Healthy perspectives, those come from chatting about these things with other people. Getting other people's perspectives can kind of curb our overly negative view of things. And those overly negative views don't get tempered when we just hold back from everyone. And then you might feel feelings of shame when a secret comes to mind. You might feel really isolated with a secret. You might feel really inauthentic for keeping it. You might feel at a loss for what to do and what do you do with those feelings? You just have to revisit them every time The secret comes to mind. If you're not going to find a way forward,
Mel Robbins (00:22:40):
It's very clear in the listening to the way that you describe this, that the secrets that you keep, you disconnected from yourself because by shoving it down, managing information, feeling the shame and isolation and uncertainty that comes with holding again, this physical language that we use, you're holding this secret solo that you are eroding this trust with yourself to just own your life experience. And I mentioned that we had put a call out on Instagram. We have over 5 million followers and the secrets poured in.
Mel Robbins (00:23:28):
And as I read some of these, I want you listening to just feel the weight of what it must be like for this person to live with this. And if there's anything that you want to weigh in, I'll pause briefly, Michael, between each one. As I read what our listeners are saying, these are secrets that they have right now. Here's the first one. I struggle with compulsion, whether it's finances, shopping purchases, binge eating. I'm desperately unhappy in my marriage, but I'm too scared to make the break. I would imagine that's one you see a lot. We saw that one over and over.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:24:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Romantic discontent is very labeled for that one.
Mel Robbins (00:24:17):
And you think you're the only one. Yeah.
(00:24:22):
My husband and I are struggling financially. I've never been satisfied in the bedroom with my partner and I love them anyway. I've fallen in love with somebody that isn't my husband. Nothing has happened, but still, I feel so ashamed. I'm keeping a secret from my partner that I took out a high interest loan, I had an affair with an employee, and it gave me so much anxiety in the end, I had to move. I didn't graduate from high school. Everyone I know thinks I'm thriving and I'm worse off than I've ever been. What are your thoughts about these?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:25:09):
Yeah, so they all jumped out at me in sort of their individual ways. When I think about the relationship ones, which is a huge theme that we'll see in the secrets that people keep, think about the person who is not thriving after their divorce and they're just holding that information back. That's someone who really, really would benefit from others' help. And it's not because we're helpless, it's because other people just have so much to offer that it's really hard to find on our own. Someone could just hear you out, someone can just listen to you. Someone can just validate your experience. I'm so sorry you're going through that. Just sympathy, empathy. These sort of little morsels that we get from talking about these things are really helpful. It's just really hard to struggle with something alone and bringing anybody, most people into the conversation can help so much.
(00:26:17):
And another one, again, on the theme of relationships, the person who said that they're in love with someone else, someone who's not their husband, they haven't done anything about, they haven't done any wrong actions. This is a common theme we see too, where people will feel a thought they've had or a feeling they have is a secret that they hold even though they haven't done anything wrong. It just goes to show you how weighty a secret can be when we're just talking about a collection of thoughts or a collection of feelings, not even an action, but even just a few thoughts or a few feelings we have that those can feel like a waiting secret on their own.
Mel Robbins (00:27:05):
The other one that popped out at me is I didn't graduate from high school.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:27:09):
And
Mel Robbins (00:27:09):
The reason why that struck me is that if you keep that a secret, it means you feel ashamed. And the secret keeping makes the fact that you didn't graduate from high school somehow a problem. You think there's something wrong with it. And so keeping it a secret makes it an even bigger issue in your life when most people, if you tell them that won't give a shit and we'll probably acknowledge you for how you're successful and you've done a great job without it and see it as something that is almost like a thing to be proud of.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:27:54):
Yeah, I think these things can seem so much bigger, loom so much larger in our heads and putting them out in the world is never as bad as we think it's going to be. That I was at a party with a friend and all of a sudden she just said, I have a secret to tell you. I didn't do well in college. And I was like, well, what made you think to share that? And she just was like, I realized I didn't. This is not a secret I have to keep. And she was right, of course, learning that my really good friend didn't have good grades in college. It's like, okay, that's totally fine. And that doesn't change our relationship. When we learn things about other people, they're just drops in the bucket of all our experiences with them and all our histories with them. And learning something new, even something surprising, even something difficult, it's not going to just change everything about your relationship.
Mel Robbins (00:28:49):
So you said it's never as bad as you think when you tell a secret, it might be a little uncomfortable or absolutely awful the moment it comes out of your mouth, but just in your example alone, you adjusted pretty quickly to what the truth is. It was the fact that it was withheld from you for so long that truly upset you and bothered you. And I think we've all had experiences like that where somebody confesses something, you're pissed off, you're disappointed, whatever, and then you forgive them and you move forward, but you're kind of upset that they didn't come to you sooner. But knowing that intellectually doesn't help us actually confess our secrets, which I'm kind of gathering, telling somebody is one of the best ways you can start to relieve this burden. One of the topics I want to unpack with you, because secrecy is very closely connected to shame and guilt, I want to talk a little bit about secrecy versus privacy. What is the line between having a secret versus this is information about me that I just would like to keep private?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:30:07):
So not everything that people don't know about us is a secret, right? There's certain things people don't know about us because it's never come up in conversation. And there's a subset of those things that we consider private because it's just something we never talk about. For example, maybe you don't talk about your sex life with your friends, or maybe you don't talk about your sex life with your family, for example. And these are things that are not secrets. It may not be secret that you have a sex life, but if it's just the kind of thing people don't talk about or it's the kind of thing you don't talk about that might be considered something private but not secret. If you had a specific, for example, sexual experience that you would not want people to know about and something you would intentionally would withhold if it was ever relevant to a conversation. Now we're talking about a secret.
Mel Robbins (00:31:04):
It's interesting. I feel like the word secret feels like I've done something bad, and the word private feels like I'm just not fricking telling you that's private information. I'm in control of this. And there's, maybe it's just wordsmithing, but there is a huge difference between shame and guilt. And I personally believe that the area that is most important for everyone to pay attention to when it relates to your research is how secrets create shame. And shame being not that the thing that I did the cheating was bad. It's that I'm a despicable person for doing it. The fact that I didn't graduate from high school is bad. No, no, no. It's a stupid ile and there's something wrong with me. The shame and the weight where you indict yourself. And that's why I wanted to talk to you because I don't think any of us realize how damaging it is to keep a secret because you are piling shame on yourself because you are judging yourself when you don't feel free to disclose certain things because you feel ashamed of yourself for having this secret. What does your research bear out?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:32:20):
So that's exactly right. We all make mistakes. Every human on earth makes mistakes, and that's okay. We all have done that. We all have done something that we deeply regret in the face of these mistakes, admissions of guilt or things we feel that are wrong, rather misdeeds. We can say, oh,
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:32:46):
I'm a terrible person and that's what we call shame. I'm a bad person. And what's really problematic about that way of thinking about the issue at hand is it's really hard to find a way to change that view. If you feel like you're a bad person, you feel like, well, I guess there's nothing I can do about that. I'm just not good. But instead of thinking about how this reflects on you, if we think about how it reflects on if behavior, how it reflects on your actions, you could say, I've done something bad and I've done something bad is a much healthier way of thinking about the problem than I'm a bad person.
(00:33:27):
And when you think I've done something bad, that's not shame. That's guilt. And guilt is good in this context because if you're saying, okay, I've done something bad, that means you could do something differently next time. Your past doesn't dictate your future. You can not do that bad thing again. You can do something to correct for that if that's what you need to do, or just promise to learn your lesson and not make that mistake again. When we feel guilty, we feel motivated to do better. And it's hard to get to that point when we're overly focused on how bad we feel about ourselves. When we feel ashamed.
Mel Robbins (00:34:05):
I want to highlight what you just said. Take my imaginary yellow highlighter because I want to make sure you listening to us right now that you really got something because I think Michael just handed us a script from 10 years of his research that you can borrow, which is that secret that you're holding onto. I want you to start to think you're a good person who did a bad thing. That does not make you a bad person. And when you go to confess to somebody or you go to talk to somebody about it because you realize you are a good person and you have learned from that thing that you did, and you no longer are going to carry the burden of the secret that you're a good person that did a bad thing. And part of taking responsibility for it is being able to talk about it and what you learn for it and to separate what you did from who you are as a person.
(00:35:02):
Because I've just confessed to everybody that the thing that I regret the most is being a cheater in college and in law school. And I hate that about myself. And yet at the same time, I know I was just a good person that was really struggling. I was a good person with crushing anxiety. I was a good person that felt really lost. I was a good person that was coping in very self-destructive ways. And when I can look at myself that way, I don't have to hold the secret. I'm not saying I'm a shitty person, therefore I have to hide this thing of what people are going to think about me. I have to prioritize Michael what I think about myself. And so steal this from Michael's research. Everybody, you're a good person and the thing that you're holding onto as a secret is a bad thing that you did that you're going to learn from and you're going to move on from. How can parents, because we have a lot of parents and also young adults that listen to this, how does the ways in which we grew up impact how we deal with secrets as adults, Michael?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:36:13):
So children, as soon as they start learning how to keep secrets, they'll try to do so not always successfully. When we're talking about three year olds, they're not very sophisticated secret keepers, but they'll try. They'll say like, oh, I didn't have any of the cookies despite having cookie crumbs on their lists, for example. And so it's a natural place for kids to be at that stage to use secrecy as a way of getting out of trouble. But that's not a problem. That's normal. And where the problems begin is if children or teenagers, young teenagers are ashamed about something or they feel like they're struggling with something, maybe they're being bullied, something like this, something that needs to be addressed in some way. And if they're keeping those kinds of secrets, now we're talking about the kind of harmful secrets that we see in adults. And so what we want to do as parents is make kids feel comfortable bringing something difficult to talk about to you and feeling that maybe they've done something wrong, maybe they've broken some rules or they've gotten some kind of trouble, and they know if they'll tell their parents that they're going to get in more trouble.
(00:37:39):
And so they might think, well, I'll just not tell them. And so the challenge for parents is how can you open that door for confession and how can you keep it open? How can you sort of express the disappointment that is sort of natural to do so without making it harder for them? How can you make them feel comfortable coming to you with trouble essentially and answers?
Mel Robbins (00:38:05):
Can we roleplay real quick? Why don't you be the parent and I'm the kid because I'm seriously, we need scripts because I would love to have you coach us and give us scripts on, let's just start with the parent child situation. You're reading in bed, I've gone to a party, I'm a junior in high school, dad, I'm in trouble at this party. I was drinking, the police showed up. I'm sorry, I don't know what to do. What should the parents say? Michael?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:38:41):
Yeah, the parents should say, I'm here to help you essentially, and let me talk you through this. Let me walk you through this. This is something that we can get through together that this is going to be okay. And yes, I am upset that you weren't honest with me, but I understand. I understand how you got here, and I want you to, I'm glad you could bring this to me, but okay, bringing this to me, we can work on it together.
Mel Robbins (00:39:16):
I literally just felt my shoulders drop. I love you, dad. Now that was great, but when the kid comes home, I think we make the mistake where then we ground him.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:39:27):
And so I think the other thing to think about is before we get to this moment, when you're really frustrated with your child or really annoyed or really angry, you probably need to communicate that. But what you want to try to avoid is an angry outburst because when you're navigating these situations, you're modeling coping behaviors that your children will pick up on. And if they learn that when I admit something to you, you just lash out at me, they're going to learn. Maybe that's not something I should do. Maybe next time I'm in this situation, I should just keep it to myself. And that's when the harms of secrecy start.
Mel Robbins (00:40:16):
Well, two things that have made a difference, or at least I think they have, is that I've always thought to myself, if my kid's in trouble, I don't want their first thought to be, oh fuck, my mom's going to kill me. I want their first thought to be I have to call my mom. She's going to help. And I try not to express the disappointment in that moment. I know that we will be talking about this incident for weeks, months, maybe years to come. I want to keep unpacking this because I think a lot of us have been in a situation where somebody that we know is keeping a secret from us and we kind of get it. And so I would love tools from you in how to approach these. And so let's take a scenario where you've got friends that are constantly getting together and they're not inviting you and they're sort of sly about it or
Mel Robbins (00:41:03):
They've planned a trip and you sort of pick up on it. What is the best way to broach with somebody that you know that they're keeping something from you without coming across some psycho stalkerish, insecure freak,
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:41:24):
They're in that situation. We want to say, Hey, I know these kinds of things can be difficult to talk about, but I'm open to talking about them because in this case, I think that might be better than secret. Keeping secrets are a chance to help each other with something. They don't have to be this thing that separates us and makes us sort of turn inward.
Mel Robbins (00:41:56):
I love that you can use it as a way to actually be closer with somebody. I know you guys are planning a trip, it's totally fine, but I'd love to talk about the fact that you feel the need to keep it secret. What about in a relationship you think that somebody's cheating on you and you have your suspicions and you don't even really have evidence? Or maybe you do, you've seen a text message or something. What is the best and most effective way to open the door? Because typically what happens in these situations is you're emotionally triggered and you accuse, and then there's the defense and the standoff. How do you even approach this topic knowing that somebody's likely going to lie to you, but to truly invite the discussion, the open the door.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:42:51):
So I really like this question. It's hard. This is a really tough one.
Mel Robbins (00:42:56):
Well, let's take our example, Michael. So let me just read to you this woman where she says, I've fallen in love with someone that isn't my husband. Nothing has happened, but I still feel so ashamed. Let's say that this person's spouse just has a suspicion. How does the person's spouse open up this dialogue?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:43:25):
In that situation I was talking about the most common secrets. I'm looking at my list in front of me, 1, 2, 3, 4. Number five is what we call extra relational thoughts. By which I mean having a romantic thought about someone who's not your romantic partner
Mel Robbins (00:43:41):
Or an emotional affair
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:43:43):
Or an emotional affair, yes, that one feels bigger to a lot of people and it's totally normal. And I think just knowing that is useful information, but among the secrets people keep, it's the one people talk least about and maybe normalizing it is a step in the right direction. Maybe you feel like, okay, I think my partner's really close to this other person or seems to sort of be unavailable to me. And it can be something that we can work through together. It can be something like, oh, maybe that okay, or that this is okay and this is something we can talk about. This is something we can figure out what it means. Maybe we need to do some work together. Maybe we have some work to do on our end, but
Mel Robbins (00:44:48):
Well, I think that's what you kind of say to yourself to coach yourself up, to get the nerve to actually broach the topic. And it is profoundly normal to be attracted to other people, but your partner, finding somebody else attractive or leaning on somebody else emotionally is kind of how human beings operate. And so if you can understand that it might not kill your relationship, but it's something that you have to talk about, it's the secrecy of it that really will pull your relationship apart. How would you broach that? What's the first sentence that you say to try to get somebody to open up about a secret?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:45:30):
I think the first sentence is not an accusation. Maybe that's not any of the sentences because that's what might lead to defenses, defensive responses. So you just want to say, Hey, if there's anything, I want you to feel comfortable bringing something to me and I hope that we have that. I can do that with you. And I know that this could be difficult to talk about. Relationship issues is really high on the list of things people don't want to talk about with their partner. So it's difficult, it's awkward. We're not practiced at it. And so maybe that's the topic of conversation. If you feel like there's something we need to talk about or there's something about our relationship that's not as good as it can be, I want you to know that's something I want to talk about and that's something I want to work through. I probably wouldn't mention this other person that you're wondering
Mel Robbins (00:46:46):
About. See, Michael, I would've taken a totally different approach. I literally having cheated in my past, I literally am the one. Yeah, I don't feel there's anything need to talk about with you because I'm more comfortable with you not knowing. And so I loved where you were going, where you're like, look, first of all, I want us to have the kind of relationship where we can talk about and I want to work through everything with you. And I'm feeling very insecure about how close you are with
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:47:18):
Yeah, I think that's good. And I think that's a good framing. I think that's a lot better than what I really like about that is you're still talking about yourself.
Mel Robbins (00:47:27):
Yes,
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:47:28):
You're not saying I have a problem with what you're doing, but you're saying this is making me feel in a way that I feel like I need to bring to you. And I think insecure is a good word for this example.
Mel Robbins (00:47:42):
Thank you. I want to dig into family secrets because I was very struck when we asked our audience to share secrets that they were keeping how many family secrets people felt obligated to keep. And I'm going to give you a couple examples and then let's talk about 'em. In one instance, there was a woman that wrote in talking about how she knew that her uncle was making his kids keep a secret from their mother that every other weekend when they were growing up, their father would take his two daughters fishing with his other woman, and the daughters have kept it from the mother forever. I've got another listener who wrote in Mel Growing up, it was acceptable for me to sit with my parents and get high. I was fortunate enough to know at 14 that that was not going to be me. Through that, I've become so overly independent, I never know when to ask for help. I feel that because of my parents' lifestyle, we always had to keep it a secret.
Mel Robbins (00:49:03):
And so I never let anyone in these patterns carry over into relationships and end up looking like secrecy. It's just comfortable to me to not let anyone in. And then this one, my mom was sexually abused as a child by her late father, and my living grandmother doesn't know, and it bothers me every time she talks about what a wonderful guy he was.
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:49:34):
Family secrets are also in the top 10, so they're really common secret. It brings up some of the issues we were talking about where it's like, here's this thing that's incredibly difficult to talk about it, but I want to and I want to feel able to. And how can we get there? And then it's sort of looping back on what we were talking about before. When it comes to children, I think you want to think very carefully as a parent what it means to be asking your child to keep a secret with you or on your behalf because it should set off some alarm bells.
Mel Robbins (00:50:18):
I actually think it's emotional abuse. I think it is completely inappropriate for adults to be burdening children with details about their marriage or with secrets that you're supposed to keep because it makes you as a child start to associate love with loyalty and obedience and think, I get so angry, Michael when I see parents disclosing issues about their marriage to their children where they try to triangulate and get kids to go against an ex-spouse or a current spouse. And you can tell it pisses me off. And so I think for me personally, I feel like this is more than be careful. Don't fucking do it because let's focus on Kristen growing up. I've become so overly independent, I never know when to ask for help. I feel that because of my parents' lifestyle, we had to keep a secret. And so now I never let anyone in. And these patterns carry over into relationships. How does having family secrets as a child impact someone as an adult? What did you see in your 10 years of research, Michael?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:51:37):
So I think in a situation where there's a lot of family secrets, you start getting the idea as a child, secrets are how you solve problems. Make sure this person doesn't know about this and we can all move forward. And of course what we've been talking about is secrecy creates problems. It can solve some problems while creating others and people who have a habit of keeping secrets as a way of dealing with distress, as a way of dealing with difficult issues. These are people who develop a habit of not coming to others for needed help. And this is where we see a lot of problems. You don't want children to be walking away from your family life into other domains and think the way to solve difficult conversations is to just never have them. The way to solve problems is to never bring them to people around you. That's going to make things worse.
Mel Robbins (00:52:38):
Wow. When you think about how prevalent sexual abuse is that one in four women, one in six men at least based on the research, have experienced it. We know how it can become generational and be a big secret inside of families. And so I think about this listener that wrote in talking about the fact that her grandmother has no idea that her late husband molested their daughter. And now here the granddaughter is knowing this and hearing the grandmother talk. How does somebody start to deal with a secret of that magnitude? Because I would imagine that you're like, well, should I tell my grandmother? Should I not tell grandmother?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:53:26):
Right. And so I think this is the right question. Should I tell my grandmother? Because I think why do you want to tell a person this person your secret? Is it just because you just can't be alone with it anymore? Or is it that you really feel that they should know it and that that's the right thing to do? And it's sometimes not clear. And I think that's a moment when you realize you should be talking to a third party about this and sort of get some other perspectives. Because once you tell it, there's no going back. And so you want to be really clear to yourself why you are considering telling someone this thing that there's no undo button for. Do they need to know this thing? Would they want to know this thing? And that's where conversations with other people come in. If the reason you want to reveal is just because you feel like you really want to talk about it, that's like, well, maybe you should first talk about it with someone else and see where that takes you and maybe get that other person's perspective on whether you should tell your grandmother in this scenario. It turns out that the secrets we think most about are the secrets that harm us most.
Mel Robbins (00:54:53):
One of the things that I'm a little worried about with this episode is that everybody listening according to your research has three secrets or 13 secrets, one of which is very active. We've probably stirred it up inside of them now they're pissed off at me and feeling uncomfortable. And like, Michael, don't tell me I'm feeling the shame. You're right. I should do something. Let's talk about something that you call the coping compass. So you have a secret and you're feeling that it is a huge burden and it's time to relieve yourself of that burden. You're a good person. You need to talk to somebody. Is finding somebody to confide in the first thing you should do?
Dr. Michael Slepian (00:55:46):
Almost always, especially if finding the right person, yes, if you can find the right person to talk to you, you're in a really good place. And there's a lot of people who are the right people to talk to because yes, a situation like this, talking to someone is going to be really helpful. And so the idea of the coping compass is essentially you're trying to point yourself to the resource that's most available to you.
(00:56:15):
In this context, I would say that actually you have someone you can talk to. Maybe a really natural person to talk to is the person who told you this secret and you say, Hey, I'm having a lot of trouble with this. I'd like to talk about it with you. This person is uniquely available to you to talk about this given the nature of this example. And it's easy to forget them that you have this person who just knows the whole story and you can talk about it with them and just understand where they headed with this because you're finding it hard. And there's a lesson we need to come back to, which is choose your person carefully when it comes time to choose a person to talk to about your secret with. Because what you want to avoid as much as you can is putting a burden on someone else.
(00:57:08):
And so if you've say achieved on your partner and you're just trying to figure out what to do with this, talking to their best friend, it's not your best option. It's maybe one of your worst options because now you're putting this person in a really difficult position. And so you want to be careful about who you choose to talk to because you don't want to be just taking the burden off you and placing it on 'em as someone outside of this situation is someone to talk to. And you could also talk to a third party about it as well and just say, Hey, I'm finding what would you do in this situation? How can I work through it?
Mel Robbins (00:57:45):
Here's how I think about it. I love the word coping compass because even just in your and my conversation, I think that anybody listening to the two of us, you probably have discerned that I would put Michael in the compassionate and caring camp, and I would put me in the assertive camp. And so if your compass is telling you, I got to talk to somebody and I just need somebody who's going to listen and be compassionate, you would likely go to Michael. If this is eating you alive and you're like, I got to talk to somebody and I need a solution here, I got to absorb some courage. You would go to the assertive person who's going to go, are you out of your fucking mind? You either need to end this or tell your partner, you clearly need to go to therapy, but this is killing you.
(00:58:47):
And you told me you knew I would say that to you, but you got two weeks to figure this out. Or else I'm telling your spouse not. So I think that advice, Michael, choose the person that is your coping compass wisely because it matters. And the second thing that you said that I think is really important is when you're choosing to remember, you may be doing a bad thing or you may be embarrassed by this thing that you need to work through, but you're not a bad person. The simple fact that you want to tell somebody indicates that you want to relieve yourself of this, that you know don't deserve to live under the weight of this secret. And so I love the fact that in every situation, finding somebody to talk to, whether it is a compassionate or it's an assertive friend or it's a therapist, that's the number one thing. Because what that does, Michael, is it seems like it would honor the fact that you deserve to feel better in your life and that you're ready to relieve yourself of the pain that holding a secret has caused you.
Dr. Michael Slepian (01:00:05):
Yeah, that's exactly right. There's essentially two broad forms of social support, and one is what we'd call emotional support. Do you just want someone to hear you out? Do you want just someone to say, that sucks, I'm here for you, or do you need to do something? Do you have to take some action? And that's when you're looking for the assertive person, the person is going to push you to do the thing that you need to do. And so that's what we're thinking about when we're like, what do I need here to be in a better place? And other people are these sort of bounties of support, and you choose your person carefully. There's a study that I really like. It's not about secrecy, it's about people read these stories about other people. And in these stories, one version of the story is someone's done bad things in their past and now they're doing good things. And then in the other version of the story, it's like people have done good things now or in the past and now they're doing bad things today. And essentially what the study showed was most people at the end of the day believe that most people deep down are good and sort of their arc bends toward goodness.
Mel Robbins (01:01:20):
I believe that with my whole heart. I really do. I love your point, Michael, that when you keep a secret, it keeps you apart, but when you share a secret, it actually brings you closer to the people that you love. And I found these two questions in a New York Times essay by Mandy Karon that are questions you can ask anyone in order to create a more intimate question in order to create a more intimate relationship.
Mel Robbins (01:04:48):
And I think these two questions are great tools in any relationship to open up the door to have deeper conversations and even allow people the opportunity to potentially confess a secret. And so I'm going to ask them to you right now, Michael. And the first one is, what is your biggest regret? Do you want to go first?
Dr. Michael Slepian (01:02:11):
Am I answering what my biggest regret is?
Mel Robbins (01:02:12):
Yeah,
Dr. Michael Slepian (01:02:17):
This is going to make us closer. No, I mean, yes, mean, let's try this out. Biggest regret, one of the regrets that comes to mind right now of the secret we were talking about earlier, the secret of learning about being donor conceived me and my younger brother. One thing I didn't realize until way later is that that secret got out. I found it shocking and hard to grapple with. My brother found it even more difficult. And essentially there was the day that both of us knew. And I had a phone call with my mom the next day, and I had that phone call with my dad, and then my brother came out to visit me in California, and we talked about it a little bit, and then we stopped two weeks later. It was kind of like it never happened and nobody was talking about it anymore.
(01:03:17):
And it made me realize that even once a secret is out, we sometimes still don't talk about it enough, even though now we have the opportunities to do so. And where my regret really comes in is I didn't realize until years later when I started talking about this again, when I started interviewing my parents for the book, that I learned that my grandmother and my dad's father played a huge role in this secret. And this is something I could have learned if I asked questions about The Secret at the time. I first learned it, but I just didn't, don't know why. I didn't think to until years and years later. And I wish I did because I could have found out sooner why this secret was held in the first place. And it turned out a lot of it came down to my dad's mother, my grandmother.
(01:04:16):
She really didn't want me and my younger brother to know because she just felt so close to me and my younger brother. And we felt so close to my dad's parents, and especially our grandmother, and it was just such this special relationship, and she didn't want to hurt it. She was concerned that we would feel less part of the family. We knew we weren't biologically related to our dad and his parents, and I really wish we could have talked about that because it's exactly the opposite. Learning that I wasn't biologically related to my grandparents that I was so close with, didn't make those relationships less special or less meaningful. It made them more meaningful and more special, and I really wish I could have told her that.
Mel Robbins (01:05:12):
That's beautiful. My biggest regret is definitely cheating on people that I really cared about. And the second question is, what is the hardest memory that you have?
Dr. Michael Slepian (01:05:26):
So this one, there's no cheating out. No. Let's think about this. I'll also answer when it comes to relationships and past relationships, I don't know what I was doing when I found myself doing this or how I started doing this, but I found all my old emails from an someone who I was with for five years, and the relationship just ended in a really bad way. And you kind of remember your side of the story 10 years later, and I started reading these old emails and I was just like, oh God. I was really a terrible partner at the end of this relationship. And all I remember was the ways in which my partner at the time was failing me, not the ways in which I was failing her. And to just see it so clearly on the screen, it was really confronting to see that I played a huge part in that breakup as well. And that's just not how I remembered it. And some of the things that I was reading about are some problems that I've carried on to my current relationship. And it's hard to see. It was kind of hard to see the other perspective on this problem, the one that wasn't mine. And that was kind of hard to confront even way after the fact where I guess it doesn't matter anymore, but it kind of feels like it does. And yeah, it's tough to think about things. You've done that in retrospect or we're wrong,
Mel Robbins (01:07:27):
But how beautiful that you now can reflect that there are some similar themes coming up that you can actually actively work on to better your life and your relationships.
Key takeaways
Keeping a secret doesn’t just protect others, it slowly chips away at your well-being and makes you feel more isolated, ashamed, and disconnected from your own life.
You’re not the only one carrying shame. Every person walking this planet has secrets, and on average, you’re holding 13 right now, even if you’ve told yourself you’re not.
The damage isn’t from hiding a secret, it’s from how often you replay it alone, feel trapped in shame, and stop yourself from reaching out when you desperately need support.
When you open up to someone, it doesn’t just lift the weight, it reconnects you, brings intimacy back, and proves you’re still worthy of love even with your secrets.
Keeping family secrets forces kids to choose loyalty over truth, and that pattern often shows up later as emotional walls, chronic over-independence, and shame-based silence.
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Michael Slepian, PhD
Dr. Michael Slepian is a social psychologist and professor at Columbia Business School specializing in the study of secrecy, relationships, and social connection.
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The Secret Life of Secrets
Think of a secret that you’re keeping from others. It shouldn’t take long; behavioral scientist Michael Slepian finds that, on average, we are keeping as many as thirteen secrets at any given time. His research involving more than 50,000 participants from around the world shows that the most common secrets include lies we’ve told, ambitions, addictions, mental health challenges, hidden relationships, and financial struggles.
Drawing on over a decade of original research, The Secret Life of Secrets reveals the surprising ways that secrets pervade our lives, and offers science-based strategies that make them easier to live with. The result is a rare window into the inner workings of our minds, our relationships, and our sense of who we are.
Resources
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- The 3 dimensions of secrets.
- 1 in 3 people cheat: Here’s what to do if you’re the 1.
- The surprising reason secrets destroy us.
- American Psychological Association: Exposing the hidden world of secrets
- The New Yorker: The secret life of secrets
- Big Think: 38 categories of secrets
- Psychology Today: 3 types of family secrets and how they drive families apart
- BBC: The family secrets kept for generations
- Columbia University: How to cope with secrecy
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