256. How to break the cycle of secrets
If you’ve ever been told:
“Keep the peace.”
“Don’t air our dirty laundry.”
“What happens in this house stays in this house.”
…this conversation is for you.
These phrases may masquerade as loyalty, but in reality, they muffle truth, perpetuate harm, and create the kind of vocal tension I help people unwind.
In this episode I’m joined by the inspiring Katie Delimon — a living example of how speaking up can heal generational pain. Katie’s life was shaped by a litany of family secrets, including discovering at 38 that the man who raised her was not her biological father.
We dive into:
The moment Katie uncovered the truth about her parentage.
The physical and emotional toll of long-held secrets.
How to approach difficult conversations with courage and compassion.
Why speaking your truth does not break families — it breaks the silence that’s been breaking you.
Somatic signs your body is carrying someone else’s silence.
Practical steps to start breaking your own cycle of secrets.
This is one of the most powerful episodes we’ve ever recorded. It’s raw, healing, and proof that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Transcript
Hello, I have such a special episode of That Voice Podcast for you today. If you have ever been told or believed that you should keep the peace, don't draw attention to yourself, don't air our dirty laundry. Don't dredge up the past, what happens in this house stays in this house... this episode is for you. These phrases masquerade as a love or loyalty, but they muffle truth, perpetuate harm, and create the kind of vocal tension I help people unwind. If any of those phrases resonate with you-- sweeping things under the rug, not bringing shame on the family, why you being so dramatic? Can't you just get over it? Forget about it, this episode is for you. Maybe you're holding a secret right now. Maybe you've experienced family secrets that have come out in a messy way, a cycle of secrets, shame and unspoken truths settle like sediment in your Voice Print, and you may not even realize you are carrying the weight of someone else's silence.
I write about this in my book Voice Print. I have my own story about holding a secret from my family, and maybe I'll share more in my solo episode next week. I certainly write about it in the book. Please go and pre-order Voice Print. The link is in the show notes, and please get your ticket for the big launch party in Brisbane on December 7th. Our guest today will certainly be at the party, and she features in Voice Print. I'm talking about the beautiful, wonderful, amazing Katie Delimon. Katie is a shining example of how speaking up heals generational pain, and now she's helping others do the same. She grew up with a litany of family secrets, including finding out at the age of 38 that the man who raised her was not her biological father.
In this episode, Katie tells us her story and explains what happens in our body when secrets fester. How do we go about speaking up? How do we have those conversations and the healing that can be facilitated. When we do, when we do step forward with courage and have those hard conversations? Speaking your truth does not break the family. It breaks the silence that's been breaking you. This could be the most important episode of That Voice Podcast you've ever listened to.
Sally:
Katie Delimon, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. How are you?
Katie:
I'm good. Thank you so much for having me on, Sally.
Sally:
So when we hear the phrase “breaking the cycle of secrets”, what does that mean to you?
Katie:
Hmm. Well, for me, it feels like I was born to do it. Well, I was a child born out of infidelity, and the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. Now, this is quite common for babies to have the umbilical cord wrapped around their neck, but for me it was a significant sign that, you know, stay quiet, throat shocker, cut-off, keep quiet, keep secrets, because like I said, I was a child born outta infidelity, and that secret was kept my whole life. So my mom passed away when I was 26. She was 55 years old, and I didn't find out that the man who raised me is not my biological father until I was 38 years old, less than a year ago. And so it's been quite a journey, but that wasn't the only secret in my life. My whole childhood was basically wrapped in silence and secrets and shame.
Sally:
Wow, Katie. Yeah, what a story. So what, well, first of all, let us know how you found out the information that the man who raised you wasn't your biological father. How did you find that out, and then how did that news hit you?
Katie:
I'll start with eight months ago. I took an ancestry.com, DNA test for fun. It was actually a Christmas present from my in-laws. They were like, what can we get you? And I was like, well, I've always wanted to do ancestry.com did the test, the results came in. It was six in the morning on a Monday morning. I was sitting down on my meditation cushion, and of course I get distracted like everybody else. I'm like, Let me just check my email first. Oh, my results are in from ancestry.com. Clicked on it. And the one thing that probably should have stood out was that I had no Eastern European or Polish descent in my background. And my dad, or the man who raised me is a hundred percent polish. And I kind of thought, Well, that's kind of strange. Maybe his parents lied to him or something.
Katie:
I thought maybe that was the case. But then I went right over to the direct matches and I saw that I had 20% DNA with somebody who I didn't know. And this person, it said was either my half-brother or my uncle, but I recognize the name. So in my book, my memoir, Trust the Flames, I talk about my mom having an affair when I was little to this guy named Jerry, we'll use his name, and the name on the ancestry.com test was Jerry. And then the last name. And I couldn't remember the last name, but I'm like, Surely this is his son, which means that is my biological father. So I immediately called my brother and I asked him like, What was Jerry's last name? He said it, it was confirmed. And I said, he's my biological father. And my brother said, I know, I know.
Katie:
And I was like, I know, you know, because you actually told me this 20 years ago. So when I was 18, my brother, who is actually adopted, and we can get into that secret story, my brother told me when I was 18, he came into my room and he said, Kate, I don't wanna, you know, freak you out, but I don't think that daddy's your dad. I think it's Jerry. And I said, No way! I was crying. I was freaking out. I didn't tell anybody. I never talked to my mom about it. I never talked to anybody. My husband didn't even know that this was an option. I shoved that idea so far down into my subconscious. But the funny thing is, it's come up throughout my life. The last 20 years I've meditated on it. I actually was in a meditation retreat and it came up and I was like, well, let me meditate on it. If it's real, how am I gonna feel? What is my response gonna be like? What am I gonna be angry about? And I actually have meditated on it. And again, it is something that I never actually approached until it came to the service with this ancestry.com test. So even though it was already there 20 years ago, it wasn't really talked about or let's say acknowledged and processed until just recently.
Sally:
Yeah. So recently you went over to the States, and I know because we were catching up before you went over and it was, you didn't really know how it was gonna go, how the man who raised you was going to receive this information and how it was gonna go down. How did it go?
Katie:
Yeah, so my biological father and my mother have already passed. They passed within a year of each other back in 2011, 2012. And so I knew that the only person I wanted to talk to about this was the man who raised me. And first I wanted to ask all my, like my close family members, my siblings, my aunts, and anybody who I knew as close to me or my family. Did they know or was there, you know, was this ever talked about? And so my siblings didn't know except for my brother, but my brother put it together as a child. He didn't know for sure. He just put it together because of observation. And I think because he was also adopted and that was kept a secret and nobody told him. So he was quite hyperaware of things. And my whole entire family, all my siblings, my aunties, nobody wanted me to tell my dad.
Katie:
And they said, If you do, you have to do it in person. And I said, That's cool. Like, I'm happy to do it in person. I would rather do it in person. But they, I mean, my one aunt was saying that I was selfish, was ridiculous. She couldn't believe that I was doing this. I was gonna hurt my father, this was gonna kill him. I even had a psychic reading and the psychic pulled my mom through from the other side. And my mom was saying that I shouldn't tell my dad either because it was gonna ruin his health. So I had all of these people and all of these things coming at me, saying this was the worst thing I could do and that I shouldn't do it. But I knew deep down inside that I had to do it. This wasn't just for me, this was also for us--me and the man who raised me, as well as these karmic ties that I have in my family and with my mom. Like I was ready to cut those karmic ties, like the secret ends with me. There is no more lies, there is no more shame. We are talking about things from love and vulnerability. And long story short, I went over to America by myself. This was like my, my journey over there. I, I had planned on doing it actually on Mother's Day. I landed on Saturday. I was gonna do it on that Sunday, kind of like this whole full circle moment with my aunt being murdered on Mother's Day back in 1982. And I'm actually named after her, which is another secret that was never really told to me. And I couldn't hold it in that Saturday when I landed and it came out, we talked about it and it honestly couldn't have gone any better.
Katie:
He said, What a relief, thank you for talking about this. Because he's always wanted to say something to me because he's known but my mother gaslit him. She denied it. She said that the people who claim that this was true, they were crazy. And who are you gonna believe them or her? Somebody had written my father a letter when I was little saying that I wasn't his. He didn't keep the letter unfortunately, but he approached my mom multiple times. But it always turned into a fight. And she would leave and not come back home for days. She would deny it and it just made things worse. So he just dropped it and he said, You know, he's wanted to tell me over hundreds of times and he was gonna put it in the will. Can you imagine if that's how I found out by the will?
Sally:
It's extraordinary that you know so many families, I know this is the work that you do now, have this rhetoric of "Don't say anything. Keep the peace. You're gonna just gonna hurt somebody. Don't bring it up. Don't dredge it up.". And Katie actually features in part of my book, Voice Print on a chapter about prolonging the print. And the quote I use, which is one of my favorites in the whole entire book, is, "You are not damaging the family by speaking up. You're acknowledging the damage that's already been done, and offering a chance to heal."
Katie:
Yeah. I knew in my heart of hearts that that was the way it was gonna go, because for me, I know that the truth never hurts anybody. I would love for somebody to give me an example in the history of time where the truth has actually hurt a relationship. It hurts relationships that are dysfunctional and emotionally immature. Absolutely. And I'm not saying that it doesn't charge or activate your nervous system and you don't get dysregulated. I'm a big believer in the nervous system. And when you find out the truth, you can go and fight-flight, freeze-fawn, or maybe multiple reactions at different times. I know when I found out I was angry the first day I was completely in shutdown. I was like, I just remember being in like a brain fog, like spacing out of conversations, not really wanting to do anything, kind of wanting to sleep and avoid.
Katie:
And so it's very normal for the body to go through these different dysregulated states, but it doesn't hurt you emotionally. Mature people are not afraid of the truth. They're afraid of avoidance. Emotionally, immature people are afraid of the truth because they believe that it makes things worse. And that comes from their past experience. And my past experience in my childhood when I spoke up, I either got punished the silent treatment or it made things worse. There was more yelling, there was more chaos, there was more shut down. And so we tend to react in the present from our past, but through these years of rewiring and healing my nervous system and my body to stay in the present moment and to know what was true and right for me helped me do this. And so I know that I shoved that down 20 years ago because I was not ready to process it.
Katie:
And if I were to of responded back 20 years ago, it probably would've been very ugly. I would've been very angry, probably very spiteful. It probably would've made things worse. I know my mom didn't tell me because she was afraid that I would probably disown her or not talk to her again. And you know what? I might have, I have no idea how I would've reacted as an 18-year-old immature woman, emotionally immature, let's say. Like, I understand why my mom did it. You know, I'm not angry at her. I wish I could ask her some questions, but that just wasn't our story in this lifetime.
Sally:
Yeah. And that's why I love the title of your book being Trust the Flames, because that's what it really is. It's like, it's not saying the flames aren't gonna be there, it's just trusting that once you go into it, heal what needs to be healed. You come out the other side stronger. So what would you say to people who are in a situation like this in their family where there are some secrets not to be spoken of? What happens in this house stays in this house. Why are you bringing trouble and shame on the family? Why are you being the troublemaker speaking up? Where can they start? What do you suggest they do?
Katie:
Yeah, I see this not only with like, say these extreme secrets of the family, but even what I call "dishonest harmony", where we sweep things under the rug and we just don't wanna ruffle the feathers. And if we speak up about that, it's just making things worse. Or you're bringing up the past for no reason. And so first of all, you know, always ask yourself what is your intention and what are you hoping to get out of it, right? And you know, from there, if it's coming from a place of, I'm doing this to help myself heal, and it's not coming from a place of anger or resentment or trying to get back at somebody or make somebody else feel hurt. You know, so intention is a big thing. And I can only speak from personal experience, but for me, what has really helped was meditation.
Katie:
Because I had to get quiet and still, and listen to myself first before I could have any, any ability to express myself properly. So getting, still getting quiet, understanding like what my story is, how I feel now, how I felt at the time zooming out and understanding other people's pain and situation as well. So you wanna, you don't wanna rush it. Meditation, mindfulness is about coming back into the present moment. So I practice this informally, informally and allowing yourself to come back into your body and back into your breath and getting, instead of getting stuck in your head or too focused on other people's reactions. So I think that was probably an issue when I was younger. I was so obsessed with making sure that other people's reactions were how I wanted them to be or to be, you know, happy and healthy. Like, if they don't react in this way, then I shouldn't say anything at all.
Sally:
And I guess that's the main reason that people hold, hold secrets. Like a lot of these secrets that have been held. People think it's for the best, don't they? Yes,
Katie:
Of course they do. And I believe that that's, that also quite a generational thing. And back then, in those days, that's, that's definitely what happened in, to go back to my generational trauma. So my aunt was murdered back in 1982 and my mom adopted her son and raised him as her brother. And my mom and dad were like, we're not gonna tell anybody. My brother found out when he was 15. We all found out because of all the fights that were going on in the household. So we, we didn't find out because anybody actually sat us down and had a conversation with us. We had to find out through conflict from overhearing conversations. And my grandmother also had nine kids to three different men. And one of my aunts thought that her dad was a different guy. I think she found out in her forties.
Katie:
So this is literally generational trauma passed down. So my grandmother did the same thing, or my mom did the same thing my grandmother did. We learn through experiences and I always say that children don't listen. They watch. And going back to what I would tell somebody if they were going through something like this, it's get quiet, get still, what's your intention? And delivery is everything, right? So timing, place, how you say it. So for me, a big part of how I was able to speak my truth is through writing things down. It took me four years to write my memoir and it was not easy, but I feel like it was like 20 years of therapy. And I really recommend everybody to write their memoir, not to publish and to share with the world, but to get a clear understanding of what happened, what's going on, where are your patterns and behaviors and conditioning coming from, and validate those experiences and share them with people you love and you feel safe with. Because that's how we heal secrets. I always say like shame only lives in the basement and in the shadows and sunlight is the best disinfectant. You have to bring that stuff up out of the basement.
Sally:
Yeah. Shame does not survive the spoken word, shame does not survive being witnessed, you know? So putting that story out there, speaking it aloud all of a sudden loses all its power. I love that. Sun is the strongest disinfectant, as you said, when you are bringing these these secrets out into the light, having these conversations, it's not just about healing yourself. As you said, the secret stops with me. This is breaking the cycles of silence. This is changing the way communication happens in families for generations to come. So that can take a lot of courage, especially when the pattern has been so entrenched for many generations in some cases.
Katie:
Absolutely. But I believe everybody is capable. It does take effort, it does take time, and it also takes a lot of uncomfortableness and not being perfect. This is the thing people get stuck on, is, well, if I don't say it right and perfect, I shouldn't say it at all, or I'm not gonna say it. I tell my clients all the time, like, I share my own experience. Like when me and my partner first got together, we got married after only knowing each other for three months.
Sally:
It's all in the book. It's a really good story.
Katie:
This has been 10 years we've been together and who knows if we're gonna be together forever? That's not the point. The point is to have a happy, healthy relationship in the present moment. And the way you do that is through having boundaries and honest communication. And that was my like number one since day one. And I was so scared to set boundaries. I literally would write them down on a piece of paper and I was so scared that I didn't say them the right way. I would just read off my paper even if it looked really silly and my voice was shaking or maybe I was crying, like I just did it. And I knew that regardless of how the response was gonna be, I was proud of myself for speaking up.
Sally:
Oh yes, I love that. Truth and the voice of doubt and emotions, they can come out in a messy way. The most important thing is that they come out because this fear of not saying things perfectly is just another block holding the voice down and preventing these cycles being stopped. So Katie, you do a lot of somatic work and somatic healing. What are some feelings in the body when secrets are untold?
Katie:
Oh, well, anger is gonna be your number one. Anger and resentment. Resentment and this fear of being judged and being, taking things very personal. So you can feel very charged when something per you feel like everything's almost a personal attack on your own image. 'cause You have this like need to keep the image. I believe it's a lot of anger and frustration and really resentment. And that's gonna show up physically. So it's gonna show up in your dysregulated nervous system, whether that's IBS issues, inflammation issues, maybe autoimmune diseases, and it'll also show up mentally. So anxiety, depression. For me, I had chronic fatigue, I had all the symptoms of this stuff. I was also a functional alcoholic in my twenties. So addictive behaviors, I was in toxic relationships in my twenties. Like these are all signs of dysregulated nervous system, aka, I had secrets that were just festering inside of my body and so much anger and so much resentment.
Katie:
But I was, I was fine. I was living my best life with my best friend in New York City, traveling the world, just living my best life on the outside. But on the inside I was literally exploding. I was on fire. Another big one is, is like resistance to weight loss. When we suppress our emotions, we suppress our immunity. So we get sicker more often. All of these things that women will just, and men as well will just say, oh, it's my stress at work. Or it's, you know, having a busy schedule with three kids, or what, you know, the economy inflation. We always wanna blame the outside instead of taking on that honest, cold, hard look on the inside.
Sally:
Oh, well Katie, you are just the picture of levity. You've got such a lightness about you. You've got such a glow. And I went to a yoga class with you and my gosh, you are like extremely good at yoga as well.
Katie:
Well, I've been a teacher, I've been a teacher for almost 10 years, so I'll give you that. Thank you, though.
Sally:
Bit of advantage. But would you say now looking at, you know, how you were in your twenties as to now, I know you've done a lot of personal development work, would you say bringing these secrets out into the light and having these conversations has been a big part in this transformation of how you feel?
Katie:
Oh my gosh. Like absolutely life changing. It is literally physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually changed my life for the better. Like speaking up has only deepened and enriched my relations. It has not worsened. But you know what, also, Sally, I've had quite a few relationships that have floated away, melted away, dropped away. And these are people who are family members, close friends, you know, even, you know, business partnerships, whatever it is, the people who do not stay, the more authentic you become, the more you speak up for yourself, the more you put up boundaries, that's okay. And it doesn't mean they're bad people or you are a bad person or you are good and better than them. It just means that they're not aligned. And being your most authentic self is the most important work that you can do. And you can't be authentic when you have secrets. And I talk about this all the time, that me and my mother loved each other. And I wouldn't say we had a toxic relationship. I think it was colorful, and at the best of times it could have been unhealthy, but it was inauthentic. Because we both couldn't be our authentic selves. Because she was keeping a secret, as was I. And so how can we be our authentic selves if we weren't truly being able to be seen and validated for our truth?
Sally:
Absolutely. I share this story in the book as well, but I was by day a confident news reporter on TV, but by night in a relationship where I was walking on eggshells and, and not knowing what the truth was and I could feel my voice retreat. There's a big difference between speaking with confidence and speaking your truth. This stuff is so powerful. Oh, Katie, was there anything else you wanted to add?
Katie:
If anybody has any questions or if they are going through something similar, like please reach out.
Sally:
Yeah, how can they find you?
Katie:
Yes, so everything is just my name, my website, all my Instagram, TikTok, Facebook is my name, Katie Delimon. K-A-T-I-E-D-E-L-I-M-O-N.com, or that's all my handles. And my book is called Trust of Flames, My Wild Ride from Mindlessness to Mindfulness.
Sally:
Yeah. And it's such a good book, and if you didn't know that it was your memoir, you would think it was a really great fiction, you know, know, like the truth is stranger than fiction, isn't it?
Katie:
It is!
Sally:
So, it's a really, really good read and I'll make sure I put those links in the show notes and also to my book as well where Katie features in the chapter about prolonging your voice and, and breaking that cycle of silence. Katie Delimon, thank you so much for joining That Voice Podcast.
Katie:
Thank you so much for having me, Sally.