Denial

“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life’s challenges vigorously. Don’t numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.”
—J. Donald Walters

No matter what we do in life we can either sugarcoat it into something better than it was, or curse all over it and turn it into something negative. Whether it’s a thought, an action, a fear, it is what it is no matter if we’re in denial over it or not. We deny the truth to make situations appear better than they are, as well as some sort of self-punishment to make things not seem so great when maybe, just maybe they are that good.

To deny our thoughts and feelings does not make them go away, in fact, holding our feelings inside can make us sick. Pushing down, internalizing pain brings on stomach problems, backaches, and headaches.

Denial is not noble. Courage to face our fears, feelings, and consequences of our actions is noble. Saying a thing is black when it is white does not make it white. To pretend, even to ourselves, that we are not hurt when we are does not make us free of pain. It is simply a temporary fix to a long-term issue, one that will be resolved when we are willing to be honest with our self and others in order to stop running from it and face it.

We all use denial as a defense mechanism for things that we find intolerable. Sometimes it is necessary for a while, but there comes a point in our “recovery” that we need to face all of the facts, feelings, and actions of our lives so that we may grow and heal.

When we learn to accept rather than deny we are better able to deal with life on life’s terms. Life is not smooth and easy, it hasn’t been for centuries and it is not going to be tomorrow. Living in denial about our difficulties doesn’t make them disappear.

Denial only prolongs the growth from and solution to every situation.