Owning Up to Denial

Living in a state of denial is, in hindsight, almost fascinating.

Now I know the word fascinating seems almost inappropriate because a state of denial is considered rather serious business as it usually centres around some fact or truth that we don’t want to face up to, but when we have had the courage to face up we certainly can marvel at our own ability to lie to ourselves.

Many of us do not consider ourselves dishonest and we would be most indignant if we were called a liar, but many of us lie to ourselves on an ongoing basis and that is as dishonest as if we were lying to someone else. The effect of lying to ourselves is also equally as damaging as being lied to by someone else. Lies encourage an environment of insecurity, and lying to ourselves is certainly no exception. It becomes a habit and that habit eventually becomes a way of life. As it becomes a way of life, we become less and less aware, on a conscious level, that we are lying to ourselves, we become more insecure and so we begin to experience a deep feeling of emptiness. An emptiness that keeps reminding us that something is wrong, and believe me – something is very wrong!

Self deception so often seems easier than facing the truth. There are so many reasons why we lie to ourselves, but they are all driven by fear. Be it fear of being found out, of losing someone, of losing something, of change – it all comes down to fear of facing the facts, the truth and the consequences.

At times our fears are totally unfounded and based on our own misconceptions of a situation, but often we can actually see the facts, we know the truth and we know that we are living a lie, but we choose to look away and continue in a state of denial that can only lead to chaos because the truth always has the odd habit of surfacing at some stage, and often when we least expect it.

What fascinates me about denial is that mentally we have the power to completely convince ourselves of something that is untrue. We make excuses, we wilfully look the other way and we will defend our standpoint with such conviction that we can even win others over with more lies. Sometimes our thinking pattern can become so entrenched that we do believe our own lies, we feel totally convinced. The only problem is that that feeling of emptiness just grows and grows. Like some irritating, misplaced spotlight in the middle of the night it keeps drawing our attention, blinding us momentarily if we look right at it, but never quite slipping out of view. We can somehow never find the switch to turn it off. It is the light of truth reminding us, beckoning us.

I have come to the harsh realisation that I literally spent years of my life in denial. Living a lie! Refusing to face up to problems that were my responsibility, laying blame, trying to control situations and willing my desired end result. All of this left me totally lost, unfulfilled and desperately unhappy. The ever burning spotlight of my soul kept telling me something was wrong. I kept trying to live a lie by avoiding what made me fearful and uncomfortable.

So if we do become aware that we are living in denial, how do we remedy this situation? The answer is actually much simpler than we imagine when we’re trapped in denial and self deception. Once we are aware of our own dishonesty, we need to muster all our courage to make a conscious decision not to live in denial any longer. I do admit that the aftermath of that decision can be very painful as we first have to clear all the lies and deception that we have fed ourselves and we have to face the consequences that we have brought on ourselves, but at least we can find closure. This decision inadvertently initiates changes in lifestyle and unfortunately, some people will distance themselves from us and often we need to distance ourselves from others, but these people would generally all have been part of our lies. These people no longer need be part of our energy. It doesn’t mean that we don’t mourn the loss, but the peace of mind that we find by far outweighs our initial feelings of sadness.

When we learn to be honest with ourselves, when we learn to love and accept ourselves we find that our coping skills become so much better. That’s because we have freed ourselves of fear of change and the need to control the outcome. We know that everything is as it should be, that change in life leads to growth and that the seasons in life pass as they must.

It is when we have found this peace of mind that we are able to see just how fascinating it is that we could have lived a life of denial and self deception, juggling roles, accepting the unacceptable and falsely laughing off our own inner needs because we feared the outcome.