Imagine two parents and two children. The parents have let their kids do almost anything they want with the exception of one thing. Luke and James can never break any household objects.
Now the parents of this child behave a bit differently to certain situations, as do the children. While James always behaves according to the rules, Luke always seems to get in trouble. No one knows if this is on purpose or unintentional, but he always knocks something over when he gets excited.
The dad of the family, whenever reacting to this, tends to get very angry. In fact, he does this a lot. When he forgets his keys, or his wife does something he doesn’t like.
The mom, however, often responds with gentleness and kindness.
Now ask yourself, when James finally breaks a household item, who would he tell?
The answer is clear, and this situation is a lot more clear-cut than most, but it’s the same principle that governs who we tell our secrets to.
The main reason we don’t tell our parents everything or one of our friends is because we’re afraid of how they’ll respond. We know who we can tell safely. Of course, this doesn’t mean there’s any immediate danger in telling the other person. The undesirable reaction or situation could be letting them down, and oftentimes that’s exactly what it is.
They care so much about how the other person thinks that they want to live up to their best expectations. This is the first primary reason people don’t tell us their secrets.
To illustrate fear of letting someone down, let’s look at James a couple years down the road.
Several years later, James does something bad, really bad. Something that he never wants to tell anyone. Who would he, then, tell? The answer is likely no one. The reason is, with the mom always reacting in such a gentle, forgiving way, he’s afraid that this time it might be different.
He’s afraid of letting her down, primarily because he has always lived up to the impossibly perfect standards he set for himself.
Now let’s take a look at another reason people find it hard to tell us things. This second reason also revolves around insecurity and fear, but is not exactly the same.
If the bad thing James did happened to be something that Luke had done before, but also had never told his parents, he is likely the first person James would go to. Why?
Reason two is when we have a specific flaw we want to talk about, it is a million times easier to tell someone that struggles with the same thing. This makes sense, because with them, their is no chance for judgment.
Even if someone else most likely won’t judge us (the mom), it’s still not a complete guarantee as it might be with the brother.
At the heart of all of this, is that people want to feel safe and secure. When they let out things that are deeply personal to them, they want to make sure they’re not attacked or looked at differently because of it. They want to avoid conflict, and they don’t want to let someone down.
It is important to understand that the point of this article is not to tell you that you’re not a safe enough person, or that you haven’t been through enough similar-to-theirs experiences. It's not about you, it's about them and their perceptions of safety.
The way to correct any situation where people won’t tell you how they’re feeling is to make sure they really understand and believe they are able to in a safe environment.
How do you do this?
First off, always react in the best possible way, with gentleness and positive understanding. Even if you don’t understand the issue, you can still be gentle and empathetic.
Secondly, remind them that no matter what, they can’t let you down, and live it out so that they understand and believe (as it will be true) that it is true.
Lastly, don’t give up on them, even if they won’t tell you right way.
If you want your future kids to tell you everything, you have to make it completely safe for them to. If you know they’re struggling with some sort of problem that they don’t think you’ve experienced, but they won’t tell you, you start first. Tell them one of the biggest things you’ve struggled with which you’ve never wanted to tell anyone, especially if it relates to what they’re struggling with.
Safety in all of this is essential.
If we take a broad outlook, we see that the trouble with human communication is all people are in some way insecure. And this is human. But if you can soften that insecurity and replace it with safety and gentle responsiveness on a consistent, unconditional basis.
Then, slowly, you will start to become someone’s friend, in a deeper way than you could’ve imagined.
If you want people to tell you their secrets, try to be a genuinely understanding, never-judgmental person. The transgressions we judge the harshest are the ones we feel we’re least likely to do. So imagine someone does all those least-likely-for-you-to-do things, and imagine being best friends with them--they who have done those things over and over again--and not judging them.
This is likely very difficult, but you have to be able to understand or at least partially accept anything if you want people to tell you anything. It makes sense logically, but it is really hard to achieve. However, it’s this very ability that allows people to talk so easily to you when they can’t tell anyone else.
Above all, none of this works without patience, so be willing to wait as long as it takes, but don’t allow yourself to give up or for either one of you to ignore something important. To put it bluntly, you must radiate the skill and make it plain that you have the capability to essentially understand murder, at least on some basis, if you want people to be fully honest about their deepest problems, fears, and doubts.
But make sure to do all of this in love.
