The Wolf Group Blog
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The Business of Being Fully Engaged At Work and In Life
Written by: David Wolf
Facing the Truth:
Let’s get real here
Is it possible to behave in alignment 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 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.
Today, make the choice to 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. There is a time and place for this; denial can be an excellent coping strategy. In times of crises, for example, we must carry on and deny some feelings in order to perform tasks necessary for survival.
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. The consequences--depression, anger, anxiety, numbness, and diminished performance--are a great source of energy depletion that cut us off from our natural state of joy and happiness.
Self-deception is unconscious and automatic. It provides good short-term relief. What’s one cookie or dessert? We kid ourselves about our diet and exercise 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 lazy--we use a range of strategies. Which of these defensive strategies do you use to protect your self-image?
Numbing out: (drugs, alcohol, pills, excessive TV watching, 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, courage, 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.
We all need sleep, good nutrition, exercise, time with family and friends, a sense of belonging and self-esteem. When these needs become your wants you will be on the path toward self-fulfillment and become fully engaged. Separate your wants from your needs: you need good food in pleasant company, but you may want to grab a burger or a vinti carmel macchiato. When you make the connection to what really matters to you, it will become easier to want to eat good nutrition instead of needing to. When you want to exercise you will live your life to meet that goal. When you are clear about what your needs are you will listen carefully to your wants and say “no” to the ones that pull you away from your values.
Loving oneself is easy and yet challenging because it requires recognition of character traits that are less than ideal. But, until we can see our “demons” for what they are and stop denying them, we can’t find a way to live harmoniously alongside them. The solution requires a balance between self-acceptance and an ongoing commitment to change those aspects of ourselves that create invisible barriers to achieving our goals.
The solution, 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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