We on earth are forever on a quest for love. We all crave to be loved “unconditionally” by our parents, siblings, friends, lovers, children, families and whoever else you can think of, and we don’t really seem to find it.

Even our parents seem to be judging us right from childhood. We learn fast that we get rewarded for good behavior and punished for being bad. So we learn very quickly and very early in life, to please our parents and our teachers. We get good grades in school, result, we get rewarded, we don’t finish assignments or homework, we get punished. We learn that we must always be good in order to be loved.

The lesson we learn indirectly, is, it is thus important that the person thinks highly of us, that we are in their “good books”. That means our self-esteems are based upon what another person thinks about us. We carry this conditioning we received as children all through our lives.

We also have seen as children, that when we do something the other people in our lives do not approve of, they get upset, we think we have hurt them by our behavior. So we then become a little smart, we do not let them know of instances where we have not been “up to their mark”, we learn how to keep certain things to ourselves, in short, we learn to keep secrets.

We grow up into adults, we meet that one person who catches our fancy. We think YES, he/she is the one for me, and one thought pops in our heads- does he/she like me too? And we go all out to impress the other person, put on our best behavior, hiding our own percieved flaws, it matters to us what they think of us. In short, we are not who we really are in their presence, and in that instance, we have kept a secret from them.

Keeping secrets is not easy all the time. It is bound to take its toll, it will affect our lives, our health, our relationships. We then learn to confide in people who will not judge us. It is for this reason that many people say it is easier to confide in a perfect stranger than in someone we know. Strangers do not know us, and so they do not judge us, and to add to that, we do not really care about what they will think about us. They don't have have any pre-conceptions about who we are, and how we should behave, so we feel safe to talk to them. We may also find it easier to confide in or share secrets with friends rather than with family. (There may be execeptions to this.)

It is this fear of being judged, of losing respect in another’s eyes, that we can share our secrets with people we love. It is only when we let go of the need to be judged, that we can happily and honestly share our lives with others. There will be no need for secrets of any kind, good or bad.