Dancing Naked – Shhh…It’s a Secret! #2

by | May 30, 2013 | Nishan Panwar, Shhh...It's a SECRET! - 2013 | 0 comments

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Secret Stories

My napkin of yesterday, where I illustrated and talked about my having not had a drink in 20 years and the resulting secrets, led to, ironically enough, people telling me their secrets.  I am always honored when friends (or strangers) tell me stories of their lives that they are not accustom to telling.  I like knowing they trusted me, and honestly, it’s energizing to hear secret stories, don’t you think?

Push/Pull

The funny thing about secrets is that oft times you are torn about them. You want to keep it secret, you are DESPERATE to keep it secret because, well, what would people think if they knew.  At the same time you yearn to let the secret out.  You would feel so liberated if you could just let it be known that you love to dance naked in the backyard when no one is around.  And then, after the liberated freeing feeling, you would revert and be mortified that you let it out.  It’s how we are with our secrets, isn’t it.

The Consistent Continuum

Perhaps the best we can do is do our best to have the public us and the private us be the same. I don’t mean the same level of exposure, it’s fine to have private elements to your life, whether it’s backyard naked dancing or something else. But I mean who you present yourself to be, at whatever level, should be on an honest and consistent continuum of self.  For example, if you are an anti-gay crusader who spends time in men’s bathrooms soliciting gay sex, you are not on an honest and consistent continuum of self.  

In other words, are you being an actor playing a part, or are you, most of the time, being a real person being you?

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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman

Quote by Nishan Panwar

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Here is a picture of one of the people who confided in me yesterday.  This is posted here with their approval.

flowers

 

No one wants to know what you are doing until you are doing something you don’t want anyone to know about

The Secret Circus – Shhh…It’s a Secret #1

by | May 29, 2013 | Shhh...It's a SECRET! - 2013 | 11 comments

addicction

The Last Drink With The Monkey

Twenty years ago today (5/29/93) I had my last drink of alcohol.  I stopped but much damage had been done.  As a matter of fact, my divorce 7 years after I quit can, in no small part, be attributed to my excesses while I was drinking.  I had gotten the monkey off my back, but the circus he was part of did not depart. It lingered and reared it’s ugly head years later.  This was not simply due to my past sins being exposed (which they were).  It was also due to my having gotten used to living with a monkey on my back. Having gotten used to hiding that monkey, and the circus he was part of, from others.  Even after the monkey was off my back, I still acted as if I had something to hide.  I still liked getting away with things.  That really was the flaw that led to my divorce if you ask me.

The Secret Circus

It took me many years to unravel that that was what was happening.  It’s not something that is permanently unraveled because new situations and events arise that can bring the circus back out at any time.  But they are minimal now because I see the tangles starting to wrap around earlier and take steps to avoid them.  But most of all I expose them to myself and to my wife.  The progress in confronting, and then avoiding, these tangles is one of the main reasons that my second marriage is becoming better instead of foundering.  My wife and I both trust that we can point to a tangle and say ‘I am dealing with this, will you help me?’ and we will be helped.  

Circuses and the monkeys that inhabit them have far less power when they are exposed.

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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman

Quote by George Carlin

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