A set of keys - “Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others.”A hot, new business capitalizes on people's need to 'fess up, as well as their interest in eaves-dropping on the confessions of others.
A fee-based phone services and Web sites allow customers to record their confessions anonymously - anything from admissions of petty theft to adultery and even murder. Or, those who are inclined can listen to or read the edited sordid tales of others. (This is where the real money is made, by the way.)
After the first year of business, one such service, The Confession Line, reportedly made 17 million dollars. Plans were implemented to expand from 25 telephone lines to 100. The need to confess is pandemic!
But if confession is "good for the soul," it is also good for the body. Why? What we hide inside eats us up.
Researcher James Pennebaker studied health benefits of confession. Some people's secrets literally make them sick. He discovered that criminals who confessed to lie detector technicians were often so grateful for the physical relief they felt after "getting it all out," that they sent birthday, holiday and thank you cards to the polygraph personnel who heard their stories.
Perhaps the bigger problem is that our secret IS our sickness. What we hide is what hurts us. Whether it is big or small, past or present, that which we carefully conceal from the rest of the world is our sickness. And we won't begin to recover until what is concealed is revealed.
The prescription? Bring it up and bring it out into the open. You can't bring out what you don't bring up. Do it for your body's sake; for your mind's sake; for your soul's sake.
Bring it up and bring it out. You may be surprised that others are quicker to understand your misdeed than you are even to admit it! And at least when you get it off your chest, you'll have one less burden to carry as you make amends!
From Lifesupport.
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