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Becoming Fully Engaged - Facing the Truth

Written by: Jerry Pinney

Article Overview: It is impossible to behave in accordance with our values all the time. There is often a gap between who we say we are, who we want to be, and how we act during any given day. Our behaviors reveal our character, yet sometimes we can behave nasty, lazy, and quite contrary to our values.

Becoming Fully Engaged - Facing the Truth

It is impossible to behave in accordance with our values all the time. There is often a gap between who we say we are, who we want to be, and how we act during any given day. Our behaviors reveal our character, yet sometimes we can behave nasty, lazy, and quite contrary to our values.

Not facing the truth about oneself is a major reason people fail to carry through on their goals. We say - and truly believe - that we value health and have every intention to quit smoking, lose weight, exercise regularly, and spend quality time with our families. Then, when it is time to get into action, we have very reasonable excuses. We choose to go against our true values in favor of short-term relief or gratification. At that moment, we use denial to avoid facing the truth.

It is too easy to make excuses and not do the important things in life. Until we can clear away the excuses and denial, we can't begin to change or improve. Without awareness there is no starting point from which to proceed.

Let's stop making excuses. Let's decide what is truly important and follow through on our goals. What do you truly value? If your health is important, act on it now, today. If your family is number 1, then make it number 1. Put your values into action. Prove it to yourself by doing 3 pertinent things a day for the next 21 days. Start small and build up after that. You will feel more energy once you stop the excuses.

Why Self-deception?

Here is the dilemma: facing painful truths brings up unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings such as guilt, anger, frustration, envy, sadness, greed, and insecurity. When we are trying to improve our performance, health, and happiness, we want to focus on having high positive energy. So we push away unpleasantness and use denial.

At the most basic level, we deceive ourselves in order to protect our self-esteem-our image of who we are or wish to be. But when denial becomes a habit, a way of staving off bad feelings, it becomes counterproductive.

Self-deception is unconscious and automatic. It provides good short-term relief. We kid ourselves and keep on doing what we do, then get frustrated and angry when we don't reach our goals. Or, worse, we just shrug it all off because to face the truth is too discouraging.

Our Own Department of Defense

In order to keep from facing the truth that we might be less than healthy, or not self-disciplined - maybe even a little greedy or slothful - we use a range of strategies. Which of these defensive strategies do you use to protect your self-image?

Numbing out: (drugs, alcohol, pills, and food work well here) a form of denial



Rationalization: giving a seemingly noble motivation to our actions


Intellectualization: avoiding feelings through the use of logic and reason


Projection: attributing our own stuff to other people (blaming)


Distortion: seeing things in a particularly negative or extreme way


Somatization: the conversion of unacknowledged anxiety and anger into physical symptoms such as headaches, back and neck aches, or digestive problems


Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable feelings into excessive generosity or charity (codependency)
A common form of self-deception is assuming that our view represents the truth when it is only a lens through which we view the world. Facing the truth requires that we retain an ongoing openness to the possibility that we may not be seeing ourselves - or others - accurately. This requires humility and an ability to admit our shortcomings. It also requires full self-acceptance, of our good and bad sides.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Carl Jung described our shadow self. Rather than deny our darker side we must forgive and accept it as part of our humanness. It is both a danger and a delusion when we become too identified with any singular view of ourselves. We are a blend of right and wrong, good and bad, light and shadow. Accepting our limitations reduces our defensiveness and frees up the energy we use to constantly defend and cover up.

Freeing up Passion

Instead of looking for excuses, look for what makes a task such as exercise, better eating, or spending time with your family worthwhile. Remember your true values. Once you make the emotional connection to why these tasks matter to you, you tap into the energy and passion that is already there within you. Your feelings of love and respect for your family and for yourself will click in. You will be able to say "no" to the distractions and the forces that pull you away from who you really are and what you really value.

The solution requires a balance between self-acceptance and an ongoing commitment to change those aspects of ourselves that are not ideal.

The solution, as eloquently stated by James Hillman, is in "the moral recognition that these parts of me are burdensome and intolerable and must change, and the loving, laughing acceptance which takes them just as they are, joyfully, forever. "

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Article Tags: anger frustration, bad feelings, denial, envy, facing the truth, gratification, greed, guilt, health and happiness, important things, insecurity, painful truths, performance health, positive energy, quality time, sadness, self deception, true values, uncomfortable feelings, value health



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