Privacy always comes at a cost.
Privacy is keeping everything to ourselves. Drawing the curtains and hiding our struggles and bewilderment to the world.
Most of us keep parts of ourselves private even to ourselves–plunging them deep into our subconscious. Maybe we keep our feelings and thoughts private from our child. We might keep other parts private from our partner; veiling them to protect ourselves from the real or imagined possibility of further hurts. Or we keep our relationship struggles private from other couples or relatives, shared with no one beyond the confines of our homes.
It’s not surprising that many of us do it this way. We live in a mainstream culture that profits from the privatization of all life by individuating all beings. And that includes us too.
Privation is the act of depriving, of taking away something that is necessary for our comfort. It leads to a poverty of spirit.
When we chose privacy, we cut ourselves off, separate ourselves, disconnect. Some of what we loose are the blessings of intimacy and the health of our relationship to our child’s partner.
So what to do? Recognize the cost of privacy to our souls and our relationships, and celebrate our interdependence.
How? By turning away from privacy towards the personal, reintroducing ourselves, and our partnership, to community. Share the full breadth of our lives with people who have earned our trust. Expanding this circle of trust, then planting our child at the center of that circle.