( CNN ) -- I like to watch Dr. Phil drunk . Dear Birthmother- I have great parents , I 've found love , I 'm happy . Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I 'm dead . Hundreds of secrets like these arrive in my mailbox every week . They come anonymously on artful postcards from all over the world . In seven years I have received more than a half-million . I give decaf to customers who are rude to me . [ written and mailed on a Starbuck cup ] . To the class of 1977 , I still hate you all . I leave poetry behind in library books . Watch Frank Warren 's TED Talk . When I started PostSecret as an art project in 2004 , I had no idea that this simple project would turn my life upside-down and offer such a fascinating peek into the rich hidden world that we share but do n't talk about . I printed up 3,000 self-addressed postcards inviting strangers to share an artful secret on a postcard -- something they had never told anyone before -- and mail it to me anonymously . When they started arriving I began scanning them and posting them on the web . The idea began spreading virally with people buying and making their own postcards . Today www.postsecret.com is the most visited advertisement-free blog in the world with more than 500 million hits . Most fascinating to me are the stories behind the secrets or the intimate connections that can happen between people when they share secrets . TED.com : The web 's secret stories . When I posted a secret from someone who confesses to thinking about jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge , PostSecret Blog readers sprang to action creating a Facebook group page called , Please Do n't Jump . They posted encouraging pictures and shared their own inspiring stories of hope . 60,000 people joined the group in 10 days . The next week the San Francisco City Council proclaimed the first annual `` Please Do n't Jump Day . '' Shortly after that the PostSecret community created the most comprehensive directory of suicide prevention hotlines in the world . Sharing Secrets can be transformative and this project has changed my life . I learned early on that there are two kinds of secrets ; the ones we keep from others and the ones we hide from ourselves . This project has helped me uncover secrets from my past that were haunting me . I have written my secrets on postcards , mailed them to myself , and spoken to my family about them for the first time . I have one of my secrets in every PostSecret book . The most exciting part of the project for me today is traveling to universities and sharing secrets live . At these PostSecret Events I not only show the most extraordinary secrets in my collection , I also try to create a safe , nonjudgmental social space where students feel comfortable expressing their private secrets publicly . TED.com : The happy secret to better work . Seeing young people courageously share their vulnerabilities can be highly emotional and meaningful . It reveals a secret about the nature of our secrets : They can be walls that separate us or bridges that unite us depending on the choices we make and the actions we take . At one PostSecret Event at a large conference in Austin , Texas , called South by Southwest a surprising thing happened . In front of an audience of more than 2,000 people a young man stood and proposed marriage to his girlfriend -- to the delight of the audience . Someone there recorded that special moment on a cell phone and it has been watched over 300,000 times on YouTube . Perhaps my favorite secret out of the hundreds of thousands I have received was mailed to me on a dollar bill . I carry it in my wallet all the time . It reads : . We are all part of something bigger , and we are all part of it together . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frank Warren .
Frank Warren started a website that collects secrets mailed to him on postcards . He says the site is the most popular ad-free blog . When secrets are shared publicly , they can help unite people , he says . Warren : The site has received half a million secrets since its founding in 2004 .