If a friend tells you something in confidence, you know the deal: never reveal it to anyone else, no matter what. But what to do when YOU have your own secrets that are weighing you down?
Researchers have determined that there are 36 types of secrets that people may travel through life keeping mum about, from silly to serious, and the average person keeps about 12 of them. But quite often it’s not the withholding of a dark fact about ourselves that hurts -- instead it’s the constant dwelling on it, day after day, or year after year.
If you need to get a secret off your chest so you can move on, without confiding it to a friend or racking up therapy bills over it, you might want to consider these convenient alternatives.
Bury It at Green-Wood Cemetery
If you live in or plan to visit New York City anytime in the next 18 years, catch the R train to 25th Street station in Brooklyn and walk over to historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Pick up a trail map at the front gate and make your way through the beautiful grounds to the white marble obelisk that says, “Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery,” and insert your handwritten secret into the slot below. This unique installation created by French conceptual artist Sophie Calle in 2017 was specifically designed to give one’s troubling thoughts a final resting place. The obelisk will remain at Green-Wood until 2042.
Burn It Up with Worry Box
Created by the people at Shmoody.com, the iPhone app WorryBox is a fun and very satisfying way to burn worrisome anxieties and secret thoughts. On the free app, “you simply write out what's worrying you, put it in the box, and then burn the box to smithereens!”
Photo: Envato Elements
Launch It Out into the Universe
Jettison your secret(s) out into the cosmos about as far away from you as possible! Jot it down on the online form (2,000-character limit), click send, and folks at SpaceSpeak will encode it and beam it out into space on radio waves using 12 micro PC transmitters located around the world. “Your message will continue to fly through space long after Earth is consumed by her aging Sun, five billion years from now.”
The basic service is free. Add an audio clip for $2, or a TikTok video for $5. Premium service will pulse your message continuously out into space for 24 hours ($5), or annually on the same day of the year ($25). Track your message’s journey on the SpaceSpeak homepage.
You can also use the service to launch your private aspirations into the cosmos.
Photo: Pexels.com
Confess It Online
This online confessional is a service provided by the American non-denominational religious organization Universal Life Church – the one that offers free ordinations to anyone who wishes to legally officiate at friends’ weddings. The church is open to all, and their sole ethical guideline is to do "what is right."
To use their service, fill out a short form stating your mistakes or weaknesses and submit it with a sincere willingness to accept forgiveness from the Divine. Your confession is confidential and is viewed only by an ordained minister who will pray for you and bless you.
Deal with It Later
Head over to Futureme.org – or use their iPhone or Android app – and unburden your conscience. Use their form to write out whatever it is that you’ve been wrestling with and then schedule it to be emailed back to you at a future date as a personal message from the past. Select the return date: 6 months, 1 year, 10 years – or any specific future date when you think you might be able to revisit and sort out your old worrisome thoughts, hopefully aided by the passage of time.
Writing a letter to your future self this way is a powerful therapeutic exercise. You can also use it to share your hopes, dreams, and wishes.
The basic version of Future Me is free and was started 22 years ago by programmers Matt Sly and Jay Patrikios. Hundreds of thousands of emails have been submitted to be resent in the future. Submissions can be marked as private or public (though still anonymous). Those letters marked public can be read on the site and most are touchingly inspiring.
Los Angeles Times calls FutureMe “A quiet phenomenon.”
Phone It In
“The truth will set you free” states the last line of the brief instructions for using Confession, the free telephone number to call and confess anything anonymously. Simply dial the number and press 1 to confess something or press 2 to listen to someone else’s confession in real time.
Confession was launched in 2016 as a public art collaborative by artist/engineer Gregor Hochmuth and writer Gideon Jacobs. Their creation allows strangers to speak or be heard, free of the feedback impulse built into social media.
Photo: Pexels.com
Mail It In (Postcard version)
You’re invited to anonymously write your secret on a postcard and mail it to author and art project founder Frank Warren. Since its inception in 2004, Warren, the creator of PostSecret, has received over one million postcards from people around the world. Their secrets range from personal admissions to deep insights, life goals, and embarrassing habits.
Selected secrets are posted on the PostSecret website and social media sites, featured in books, or displayed in museum exhibits. The ongoing community mail art project has become a powerful platform for catharsis and connection, allowing individuals to unburden themselves through creativity and anonymity.
Mail It In (Email version)
Letters Anonymous is an online community for people to submit their letters anonymously, “because everyone has a letter to write.” This free service was launched in 2018 by Rebecca. “I created Letters Anonymous because I craved a safe space to write out my thoughts and help people feel less alone in their private struggles.”
You submit your letter from her website’s form. Once it’s received, it’s proofread and posted to the site tucked inside envelope images, clickable for anyone to open and read. Letters are also reproduced on the Letters Anonymous social media pages. The experience of reading the hundreds of submitted letters is very moving.
The site also provides inspiration to help letter writers gather their thoughts and shape them into messages to themselves or to others. A link to support services is also provided for anyone who needs professional support with their mental health or are worried about someone else.
Photo: Pixels
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