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Family Secrets is a production of I Heart

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Radio. I'm

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Danny Shapiro and welcome to a new bonus

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episode of Family Secrets. As

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my amazing producers and I are in the midst

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of creating our second season. Blown

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away by the response from millions of listeners

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from season one, we're delivering bonus

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content to you each week that I hope you'll

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enjoy and that you'll be a part of the continuing

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dialogue we've begun about family secrets

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in all forms, the ways that

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giving voices to those secrets frees

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us. You might even say

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that we're in a moment, a movement

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in which secrecy will no longer be possible.

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I want to talk with you guys today about

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what I've been seeing out there as I've criss crossed

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the country over the past months while on book

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tour from my memoir Inheritance. For

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those of you just listening for the first time,

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Inheritance as a memoir about a discovery

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I made after taking a DNA test

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that my dad had not been my biological

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father. It turns out

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that lots of people, hundreds

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of thousands of us each year, are

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making similar discoveries. At

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my events I've met people who have just discovered

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as adults that they were adopted, people

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who have just discovered they were conceived using a

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sperm donor or an egg donor. People

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have discovered half siblings or even full

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siblings they never knew existed. Fathers

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have learned of children they hadn't known they

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had. Birth Parents who

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gave up children for adoption are

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being discovered by those children, and

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children also discovered by birth parents.

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The list goes on. Now

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there are no more secrets. Last

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month, I spoke at Harvard Medical School's

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Center for Bioethics. A woman

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in her sixties raised her hand during the Q and

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a. Her eyes were filled with tears.

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She had just discovered that the father who raised

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her had not been her biological father. She

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was quaking literally, she trembled

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from head to toe as she spoke. She

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mentioned the name of a nearby Boston hospital

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where she had been born, and she wondered

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if there might be any one in the room who could help her

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solve the mystery. After

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the event, she was surrounded by

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people offering her insight, support

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and advice, and after a

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couple of weeks, she found her

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biological father in

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Portland, Oregon, A young woman approached

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me on the book signing line. I

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could tell before she said even a single

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word, that she too, had just made

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a profound discovery. I

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found my biological father, she said. I

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wrote to him and I got two words

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back. Not interested.

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In Laguna Beach, a middle aged woman clutched

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the hand of her friend as she said, I

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realized, now I have to tell

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my thirty year old daughter. I have to

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tell her that the father who raised her, who

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died when she was young, and who she worshiped,

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wasn't her biological father, because

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I know she's going to find out.

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A man spoke privately to me at a Boston

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bookstore. He and his wife had been

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among the legions of couples who chose not

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to disclose to their daughter that she

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had been conceived using a sperm donor. His

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daughter found out and now felt

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terribly betrayed. What

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can I tell her, he asked me. How

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can I help heal her pain? Did

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it matter to you, I asked him.

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I suddenly felt choked up myself. Did

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it matter that she wasn't your biological child?

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Of course not, he said, of

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course it had never mattered. In

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ten books I've never had the

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experience before of my events

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becoming sort of like large scale

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support groups for those who were dealing

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with family secrets. It's a thing

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of such unex affected beauty.

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I'm thankful for it and humbled

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by it. One

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of the side effects of learning a secret, or

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perhaps even of keeping a secret, is

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the feeling of being terribly alone. The

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shame surrounding secrets tells

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us that we're the only one that no

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one would understand. They were better

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off just staying quiet and powering through.

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But what I'm seeing and experiencing

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again and again through my own journey

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and witnessing the journeys of others, is

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that when we tell our stories, when

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we own them, hold them up to the

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light and say this is what happened

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to me, suddenly all that

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shame, that feeling of otherness,

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alienation, difference, vanishes.

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It disappears because shame and

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secrecy can't deal with all

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that light, with all that brightness

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and clarity, with a beautiful

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community of people all turning

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toward rather than away from each

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other and saying me

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too, Me too, I've

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been there too. Over

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the next couple of months, as we produce season

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two of Family Secrets. I'm also

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still on tour for Inheritance. I'll

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be in New York City, Baltimore,

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Westchester, Milwaukee, Chicago,

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Denver, Boulder, Aspen,

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Atlanta, Sun Valley, Idaho,

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and more. If these are places

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anywhere near you, I hope you'll

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come, say hi and feel for yourself

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the shift that's happening right

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here, right now. For

5:50

more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the

5:52

I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or

5:54

wherever you listen to your favorite shows.