The headline is a wee-bit deceiving: there are no secrets to having a brilliant career AND family life. But THAT is the big secret: There is no perfect balance, no blissful state of "having it all". Rather, women must continually pick and choose their battles, their moments to prioritize one over the other. Success is actually being at peace with this ever-alternating dynamic.

As someone who has read her share of corporate blogs, I have to give enormous kudos to Deloitte & Touche for pulling back the red velvet curtain and showing that behind the most "successful" females lies--along with the prestige and fat paycheck--sacrifice, dissatisfaction, and confusion. The firm just made public its Women's Initiative Blog (WIN Blog), a place for not only Deloitte female executives to discuss the formerly indiscussible (my word) anymore, but a forum for all female professionals, of all career stages, to work through what we all thought other women knew how to do better than us--have a career AND a life.

In a comment on WIN Blog, Ann from New York writes about how we all struggle with feelings of illegitimacy in our careers because we haven't found a way to stuff 30 hours of obligation into 24-hour days:

There is a way in which all people feel a little like imposters in their careers. If people knew the whole story, we fantasize, we'd never get away with it. But everyone feels that way I realize at this time in my working life. Everyone feels that way, artists, economists, housewives, IT people ... everyone. That's really the biggest secret of all and perhaps why people resist being transparent.

This is one of the scams perpetuated after the Feminist Movement. Sure, women deserve careers, but we haven't yet been exonerated from being human. We are allowed to hang onto the "privileges" of top positions in the workplace, provided we sweep our other niggling details--children, leisure, sleep--under the rug. Unfortunately, the rug has become quite lumpy. It's almost impossible to walk on, and yet corporations still insist upon this standard.

Deloitte's decision to create a forum for openly discussing competing priorities without persecuting women for having them is tantamount to raising the rug, shaking it out, and then burning it. All of the issues we face in our daily lives are now in plain sight.

One woman commented on the blog anonymously:

We do need guidance from those of us who that have been successful in balancing work and life outside of work. For someone like myself that just joined the organization and in my early 20's, so much of what I have learned so far is from people who are older and have been there-done that. I am anxious about how I am going to be able to do it all- have a family and work really hard and be successful. These comments are only mine but I can assure you that I know many people that work with me share the same anxiety about our future.

Heather, a more established professional from San Francisco, writes:

I think we in the over 40 set have had to keep our flexible strategies secret from men for so long that we don't give it a second thought any more. But technology has changed the game and I think we should shout it from the rooftops! We are client service professionals and are valued for results and relationships, not cubicle hours. If we are smart enough to know that we can review workpapers at night in our bathrobes faster/better than in a noisy office, we should be proud of it.

Some might argue this is a dangerous move for Deloitte. They are blowing up a huge assumption about where loyalties must lie in order to be professionally successful. The blog shows us how women conspire to get their personal needs met. I believe D&T is a first mover in a movement that is making unreasonable loyalty to a career irrelevant. Personally, if I had the option of working for a Big Five, this blog alone would put D&T at the top of my list.

I give a standing ovation to WIN blog writer and community leader Cathy Benko, the High Technology Industry Leader for Deloitte Consulting and National Managing Director of the Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women. Despite her very fancy title, which conjures visions of superhuman competence, she understands the more mortal concerns of women in the workplace. Her writing is phenomenal--yes, a corporate blog with engaging narrative! And she gets down to brass tacks quickly.

In her most recent post, she describes an encounter with her school-age son, during which she learns that he is not to put his name on a test, but rather an ID number, to prevent gender bias. She realizes that men also have to "cover-up," to some extent, in the workplace.

...does a message like compulsively transparent need to be divided down the gender line? Why this assumption? Don’t men also disguise their clever, self-crafted balance solutions? Maybe it’s to play golf (certainly the stereotypical ruse) rather than to drop off a kid at school or some other activity (although this is clearly changing), but the manner in which it’s couched is often just as elusive as women’s…shhh.

Benko points to a larger issue, one that everyone faces in the workplace: how do we live whole, fulfilling lives while pursuing demanding careers? It would seem that the latter ensures resources for the former, but Benko, and the WIN blog courageously pose the question, have we missed the point?

Jory Des Jardins also blogs at Pause, and Fast Company Experts Blog.