Self-Deception: Slippery Slope or Supposed Salvation?
An examination into the lies we tell ourselves and how beliefs and language manipulate our reality. How truth enhances connection with others.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
There seems to be a somewhat schizophrenic ideology around self-deception in our culture. And it’s important to address it, because it’s causing a lot of confusion and emotional distress.
The term “fake it ’til you make it” seems to be a primary mantra of the social media generation, with everyone perfectly curating their online personas for likes, comments, brand deals, money, attention, approval and significance.
Hence, the first message we get: it’s okay to lie about our lives in the sense of presenting half-truths; only the highlight reel will be showcased because, well, why would anyone want to show the dark or distressing sides of their lives?
The second message we get is that you must ignore reality to a degree and mindfuck yourself into positive thinking, thereby pretending that certain aspects of life don’t exist so we can keep trucking along wearing shirts that say “High vibes only!”
“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.” — S.E. Hinton
So what are the pitfalls of self-deception, of selective truth-telling and only giving our attention to the “high vibe” aspects of our lives? First and foremost, it sets up an unrealistic expectation of life. That we manipulate reality through our belief systems, our perfectly controlled presentation of our public personas and our myopic fixation on positivity to keep the wolves at bay.
The thing is, the wolves will be there. Always. Waiting to tear you apart, or rather, tear your ego apart. There’s an insane amount of spiritual bypassing going on right now, where people are completely unwilling to acknowledge, much less have compassion and understanding for, the dark, twisted, traumatized, fucked-up parts of themselves. Why? Perhaps it’s shame. Perhaps it’s that people feel they will be unloved and unsupported by showing the world the parts of themselves they haven’t even learned to love yet. But it’s by going into the dark cave with the monsters that we can reclaim these aspects of ourselves and understand that the damned thing in the cave that we fear so much… is actually us. WE are the monster we fear.
Because if we don’t go into the darkest caves of our psyche to face our inner monsters, we will continue to bullshit ourselves and play the game of “everything’s perfect”. And maybe, there’s some part of ourselves that knows we’re bullshitting ourselves, but we really like it and it makes us feel good… so why stop?
“There’s that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse where you know that somebody is bullshitting you but they’re doing it with such panache and conviction…no, it’s because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.” — Irvine Welsh
In psychotherapy, they tell you that awareness isn’t enough. Certainly, becoming aware of your own psychological prestidigitation is important. Often though, people think “I’m good!” once they become aware of their own deceptive and manipulative habits. However, there’s a big chasm between awareness and action. It’s a leap that few are willing to take, because the ego is deathly afraid of you choosing to make a decision from a soul level.
This conversation about self-deception starts to take an interesting turn if you consider the theory that deceiving ourselves is not only right but necessary, to function in a world where free will may be simply a figment of the human imagination. Whereas everything may be predestined and unchangeable, the theory that we have some semblance of control in the outcome of our lives lies somewhere between staunch self-believe and outright insane delusion. It’s tough to say which one it is.
“My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.” — Ted Chiang
So, life according to Ted, along with lauded self-help luminary Abraham-Hicks, depends on our ability to believe that we are co-creating with life, Universe, God, Spirit, Gonzo the Muppet… whatever you believe in. Perhaps there’s truth in that philosophy. Perhaps we do have some impact on the outcome of our lives. Or perhaps all we can do is either choose to respond or react to the circumstances that are presented to us. Perhaps the circumstances, the moments, the unexpected twists and turns are completely out of our control… but how we handle those things are most certainly in our sphere of genius.
Truth is important. Without truth, there’s no baseline for reality. But is there an “absolute” truth? Or is truth dependent on myriad variables? Belief systems, personal experience, religion, upbringing, nationalism, family values… the list is seemingly inexhaustible… don’t these variables help paint our relative truth? That “our” individual truth is separate from any perceived universal truths? Perhaps there are both: individual, personal truths and universally accepted truths. There is a qualitative difference between, “I think all people who love bagels are assholes” and “The law of gravity is real because we’re all bound to the Earth.” One is a relative, personal truth, while the other is a universally accepted truth that no one is challenging. Of course, until science or mysticism proves otherwise. Who the hell knows.
The point is this: tell the truth as best as you can. Develop the ability to detect your own bullshit. Become aware of your tendencies to manipulate reality through language and coercion as you seek approval, attention, validation and importance. If you observe yourself lying to yourself, well, stop it. Make a point to see things clearly, to unravel your tendencies to deceive yourself (and others) and, by all means, think positively whenever possible. Just not in a conditioned, mechanistic way that’s out of touch with reality. Some situations in life just flat-out suck and are horrific. It’s important that we don’t bypass our pain, our horror and our trauma to keep up a front of being ineffectual, artificially positive or superheroically transcendent.
One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to just be honest about things. Your emotions. Your feelings. Your current condition. I’m all about a positive mental attitude, but not at the expense of processing our pain and trauma and acting like they don’t need to be dealt with.
There’s a great meme that’s been floating around social media lately that says, “You can eat vegan food, do yoga, meditate, travel to Bali, listen to chants, go to sound baths and shop at the Farmer’s Market. But if you don’t deal with what’s going on in your head and your heart, you’re not a healthy person.”
We can delude ourselves into thinking that the right crystals, the right books, the right diet, the right fitness routine, etc, will somehow liberate us from our self-deception, our spiritual bypassing and the parts of ourselves that we loathe. But this process of awareness and healing isn’t about the external, material world. It’s about your awareness and willingness to go deep into the wounds, the dark places and the aspects of your being that you haven’t learned to love yet.
Practice telling the truth. To yourself and others. Not only will it build truth in yourself, it allows others to feel that you are a trustworthy person. It’s a foundation for true intimacy and real connection. Truth-telling is a gateway to compassion, acceptance and allowing all parts of yourself to be seen, acknowledged and loved. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all really want — to be fully seen, loved and accepted as we are in all of our imperfect glory?
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This writing was originally posted on Wellevatr.com.
