Denial…10 types
March 22, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · 1 Comment
“Denial aint just a river in Egypt” Oprah Winfrey.
Why do we do it?
We lie to ourselves to avoid pain.
Denial is a normal and natural response for coping with painful and overwhelming problems. We use sets of thoughts, feelings, urges, actions and social reactions to defend against the pain of recognising the presence of painful realities.
Once we begin to lie to ourselves (use denial mechanisms) we feel a lot more comfortable (we can cope, or we can live with ourselves).
Then, since nothing terrible has happened as a result of lying to ourselves, we kid ourselves that this is now the truth. This progresses to lying to others (shielding the truth from others). The actual truth gets further and further from our conscious awareness.
Advantages of denial
As well of the benefits of
- not having to take responsibility,
- not having to face a seemingly unsolveable problem,
- not having to deal with a serious self-defect,
there are also disadvantages with using denial.
The biggest disadvantage is that denial eventually blocks recognition of the problem or flaw. Denial creates the illusion that the problem is being solved (or does not need to be solved, or doesn’t exist).
The disadvantage is that problems do not get solved
Therefore the problem does not get solved, or the flaw in our behaviour, thought patterns or responses does not get addressed. This leads to a continuation in the processes that maintain the problem.
It is often only once the problem has escalated out of all proportion that the denail cracks open. OR if we are willing to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives, and engage in personal development or therapy activities, then we can gently break open the shell and take a look inside, and come to terms with, and ultimately deal with, reality.
10 Types of denial
- Avoidance.
- I don’t think about it. I don’t talk about it. If I begin to hear the little faint voice in my head warning me of the truth, I drown it out (with noise, with alcohol, with sex, with shopping, with TV, with anything that distracts me and prevents me from hearing the truth)
- When I dont think about it I feel OK. “All is calm, happy, and well, in my world”, I say. “I do not pry into areas that I don’t understand. Its not good for you to think too much”, I say. I change the subject. I get involved in something else and put that out of my mind.
- Asolutely Not!
- I get offended when it is suggested that I may have a problem, a flaw, or a shortcoming. I puff myself up and say, “Not me! I don’t have a problem. No absolutely not!”.
- When I puff up and say those things to myself or others, and they have been overuled, I feel really good and superior. “I have beat them off. I headed them off from the truth (or headed myself off from the truth) and I feel great (momentarily)”. Then comes the relief that I managed it. And a small part of me feels dissapointed. That part of me wants others to know what is hapening, and wants help. But that part is so very small, weak and scared.
- Minimising.
- “It’s not that bad”. Sometimes I cannot convince myself of total denial, so I minimise the problem. “Yes, it was a bit of a problem the other day, or last week / month, but not as bad as people think”.
- I reduce the effort that it would take to resolve it, “I know this is a problem, but it won’t take much to sort it out”.
- I kid myself about how resolving it is not important or urgent (because the problem really isnt that big a deal). So I say, “I’ll sort this out next week / month” Or, “I’ll address it if such and such happens, or once I get more money / time”. “It doesn’t matter that much now”.
- Rationalising.
- I need to ’understand’ the cause. I believe that if I can find an explanation for why I am like this, or discover a ‘reason’ for what is ‘really’ at the root of it all, then I can explain it away and I won’t have to sort it out.
- If it is down to my childhood, or due to the stresses I am under, or the way my personality works, then I (kid myself that I) can live with it.
- Blaming.
- If I can say that it’s not my fault, then I don’t have to be responsible for sorting it out.
- After all, “If you had a boss, wife, kids, job, life, mother, like this, then you would be like this as well!”, you reason.
- Using blaming as an excuse for not taking responsibility, “I can’t change while ever that person / situation is like that, because it is what is to blame for my problem / behaviour / thought patterns / responses”, you believe.
- Comparing.
- I find others who have more serious problems than me and I compare myself to them. Examples:
- Seeing someone have an angry, rageful, display and then believing, “someone with anger problems is a raging lunatic, I never get like that. So I don’t need anger management”
- Watching couples argue, and believing, “Even if we are upset with each other, hurt and angry, and sad, guilty or ashamed, at least we don’t humiliate each other in public like that. So we can carry on without addressing our relationship issues”.
- Learning about people with agoraphobia, who have not gone out of the house for years, “I always make myself go out, so my anxiety isn’t as bad as that. I don’t need to sort it out”.
- Knowing about someone who has really messed up their life by doing behaviours that got them into trouble or caused them to lose everything, “Well, my self-sabotage is only minor compared to that, therefore I don’t have a problem”.
- Manipulating.
- If I am boxed into a corner I try to use the people who are trying to help me. “I’ll let them help me, but only if they will do it for me. I want a quick and effortless fix”.
- If they can’t fix me, I blame them for the failure, and use them as an excuse to behave badly, or in a way that hurts myself or others. If people consequently try to step in to help, I make them feel guilty.
- The bottom line of manipulating is that we do not want to take responsibility and we do not want to address change. Using manipulation is a way of showing that no one can make us do anything that we do not want to do - if they try they will end up feeling bad (”that will teach them!”, we think).
- Flight into health.
- “I feel better so I am cured”.
- We have a moment or a day, or couple of weeks of respite from the manefestation of the problem. It feels great. We kid ourselves that there is no longer a problem.
- Because we feel great we believe that now we don’t need to do anything more. Its all gone and we act as if there is no problem. “I’ve put it all behind me”, I say.
- If this happens, it will happen fairly early on in therapy. Usually within the first few weeks. If you are genuinely free of a problem, it will feel very different. ‘Flight into health’ is usually characterised by feelings of elation, or a ‘high’.
- Change by fear.
- Once we beging to realise how our thought / feeling / behaviour patterns could destroy our life, or hurt those that we love, we convince ourselves that we can’t ever be like that again. We believe that scaring ourselves will push us into spontaneously being different. “If I stop, everything will be OK”, I believe.
- Once we convince ourselves that everyhting will be absolutely OK as soon as we stop thinking, feeling, or behaving in the way that is contribuing to the problem, then we believe that we don’t need to address it. “I can just stop doing it, and then I stay in denial”.
- Becoming Hopeless.
- We don’t believe we can change and we don’t want to try anymore. “I’ve done everything and nothing works”, I moan. It’s easier to just give up. We start to feel hopeless.
- The sense of hoplessness is actually a denial of our own power to change. It is a handy ‘cover’. If people try to help we act even more hopeless - we convey to them that we are, in fact, helpless. We even believe that we do not know why people want to help - “why are they wasting their time?” I say.
- We kid ourselves that hoplessness is depression. It isn’t.
“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 Waters
Addressing things
In order to live a stable and meaningful life, with room for joy, love and peace, we need to address and resolve any problems that get in the way of us having that.
While we are in denial we ar not doing that.
It takes courage and sometimes it takes time to address and resolve things.
Start today.
Dare to be honest with yourself, for a moment.
- what problems do you have in your life / work / relationships?
- which aspects of yourself are contributing to problems?
- what are your weaknesess / flaws or limitations?
- how long have you been putting off addressing some of those things?
Just knowing may be enough for now.
Don’t keep yourself in the dark any longer. You are putting yourself at risk of problems getting worse, or secondary problems developing as a result of not addressing primary problems.
Change is possible. It can be done very subtly. Problems can be solved or effectively managed. you can significantly reduce pain or dysfunction.
The decision about what to do is yours.
Using your strengths to produce results
March 8, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · 1 Comment
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Yesterday I took a little thin, unread, book down from my bookshelf and decided to read it. My bookshelves are full of unread books (as well as books that I have read). I find they so much come in handy when I have a weekend with no engagements planned, nothing on the TV, and I am slightly tired, anyway. Its like having a fridge full of brain-food at the ready.
It wasnt just that “MANAGING ONESELF” by Peter F Drucker looked like it could be read in an hour or so, but it was the title that appealed to me also.
“I could do with a bit of self-management”, I thought. I have recently identified a way in which I would like to be living my life differently, and I need to do things differently (obviously) to bring this about. “So maybe this little book will inspire me”, I thought.
I hadn’t realised that the book was written by a business managment guru. A bit synchronistic really, since I am currently a delegate on a Leadership and Management training course, as you know. (I had expected it to be one of those simple little self-help booklets that you get free when you give your email address on a good website).
So flicking through the internet I found that Drucker taught generations of managers the importance of picking the best people, of focusing on opportunities and not problems. In those days that was ‘out -there’.
Apparently, Warren Bennis, a management guru himself , asked Drucker how he came up with so many original insights. The reply was, “I learn only through listening,” he said, pausing, “to myself.” (I’m also a big advocate of intuition, and trusting in myself, so I liked that).
Because Ducker was born into a highly educated professional family, in Austria in 1909 (which was a time of a cultural and economic hub) his family mingled with people such as Sigmund Freud. Perhaps Druckers worldliness and style of expression is as a result of him first having met Freud at the age of eight years old, and the fact that his parents would entertain Freud, and other members of the Vienese intellectual elite, regularly in their home.
In fact, for me, the comparison with Freud could be stretched further when I read that Drucker’s most famous text, The Practice of Management, published in 1954, “…laid out the American corporation like a well-dissected frog in a college laboratory”. (Freud began by dissecting frogs in his shed at home!).
Anyway. Back to my little book. In this book, ‘Managing Oneself’, Drucker talks about managment in terms of ‘enhancing performance’. “Well, that’ll do”, I thought, “If I need to do things differently, then I can enhance my performance and see if my life is different”.
So, I’m going to share with you the bones of the book, and how I have interpreted the bits that are relevant for me - and hopefully, you too. (If you really want to, you can read the whole book in this PDF file ).
Drucker says that a person can perform only from strength. And that most people think that they know what they are good at, but they are usually wrong.
“One cannot build performance on weakness”, he asserts, “let alone on something that one cannot do at all.”
I’m not sure that I totally agree with that. And I am not convinced that I am ready to say it is not true, either. I have an open mind about those statements. With anything like that, its a case of asking myself, “How useful is it to operate as if this were true?” (See the NLP Presuppostions for more like that).
So, lets assume that this is true, because believing this will be useful. “A person can only perform from strength”.
Drucker also states that, “We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong”.
Again, according to our man, Drucker, the only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.
So, lets go now, on to discovering our strengths. This is the process that he reccomends us to use:
Take a key decision (or a key action)
My decision is ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Write down what you expect will happen:
What I expect to happen is………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
9 or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.
Instruction: Go to your outlook calendar, or your mobile phone, PDF, or whatever, and pop a reminder alarm in for you to review your expectations with actual outcomes.
I have now done this to remind me on…………………………………………………………………….. (date)
A very simple exercise isn’t it? Not very satisfactory now, I grant you, because you wanted results straight away, didn’t you? Sorry.
This method, long as it is, does have merits. You are using proper measurement. A quote from Drucker, “What is measured improves”
You are taking the guesswork out of knowing where you need to improve. If you do this across the board (i.e. with everything that you want to do / change/ become) you can see what it is that you are doing that is at the root of your failures (remember the presupposition there is no failure only feedback?) You are seeing where you are not particularly competent. You are also seeing what are your strengths (ah at last!).
Drucker is known for believing that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure. (Sounds reasonable to me, if you have an outcome in mind, and want to control the results, at least. There is also a case for not trying to predict, and just benefit from unpredictability, but that still doesn’t mean that you act without thinking).
So, now that you have the results of your feedback analysis:
- put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
- put your energies on working on improving your strengths
- improve skills or aquire new ones
- gain knowledge (in areas other than your expertise)
- remedy your bad habits (the things that you do or fail to do that inhibit your effectiveness and performance).
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Drucker states that what we should NOT do is spend (waste?) a lot of time on improving areas of low competence.
Instead of using energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity, use time and energy to improve from good or first rate, to excellence. Turn yourself, then, from a competent person into a star performer.
Additionally, Drucker states in this little book, that we should
- work out how we perform,
- know what are our personal values
- be aware of personal your ethics system
- find out where we should belong
- understand what we should contribute
- take responsibility for relationships
Knowing all of this enables you to choose actions by thinking.
You can then say to an offer or to an assignment,
”Yes I will do that. But this is the way that I should be doing it. This is the way that it should be structured. This is the way that relationships should be. These are the kinds of results to expect from me and in which paticular time-frame, because this is who I am.”
Now, Drucker becomes aligned with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in saying that successful careers (and lives?) are not planned, they develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know thier strengths, their method of doing things, and their values. Knowing where one belongs … can transform an ordinary person into an outstanding performer.
A star performer in life.
I walk down the road…
March 7, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · 1 Comment
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Many clients ask me, “Why does psychotherapy take a long time?”
I’d like to illustrate the answer to that with a short story called ‘The autobiography’
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I do not see the hole. I fall in the hole. It is very deep, and at the bottom where I lay broken, it is dark and cold. I can’t get out.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I am walking down the road. I fall down the hole. Its familiar and quite cosy. I can’t get out.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I am walking down the road. I fall down the hole. I want to get out.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I am walking down the road. I dread falling down the hole. I fall down the hole. And I look up and decide to get out.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I walk down the road. I think, “oh, ha ha, no, no, I’m not falling for that again!”. I fall down the hole. I start climbing out.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I walk down the road. I try not to, but I fall in the hole again. I get back out straight away.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I see the hole as I walk down the road. My foot slides and I fall in the hole again, but I do not hit the bottom. I cling on to the side and get out of the hole.
I walk down the road. There is a hole in the road. I step over the hole. I do not fall into the hole.
I walk down a different road.
See also
Psychotherapy
Counselling
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Presuppositions of NLP
March 7, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · 1 Comment
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There are some underlying beliefs and assumptions that are implicit within the methodology of NLP.
If we can operate out of the assumption and belief that the following statements are ‘the way that things are’ we can get some very interesting and useful results in terms of self improvement.
- Everyone lives in, and operates from, their model of the world.
- Mind and body are a system. They inevitably and inescapably affect each other.
- Human experience has a structure that can be represented by the sensory modalities
- Every behaviour is useful in some context. People always make the best choice for themselves given their unique model of the world, and perception of the situation.
- Individuals have all the resources necessary for change (what they may need help with is to access these resources at appropriate times and places).
- There is a distinction between the person and their behaviours. The positive worth of a person is held constant.
- There is a distinction between the behaviour of a person and their intention, or of the prupose of that behaviour. It is useful to assume that every behaviour has a positive intention.
- Each individual is infinately more than can be percieved by themselves or others.
- A person cannot NOT communicate (and behaviour is the highest quality communication)
- The meaning of the communication is the response it elicits. There is a difference between the meaning and the intention.
- If you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you always got. If what you are doing is not working, do something different.
- There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Every ‘mistake’ is an unprecedented opportunity to learn.
- Individuals with the most flexibility have the highest probability of achieving the outcome that they desire. (This corresponds to the Law of Requisite Variety in Cybernetics)
- If it is possible for one person then it is possible for another (me). It is just a matter of how (including time, effort, and attention).
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After reading the presuppostions, notice your response to them. Do they all seem true to you?
If some seem to be contradictory to your beliefs, use those statements as the basis for personal coaching with an NLP coach or therapist, to improve your life.
3 ways for anyone to attain life-energy
March 2, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · 1 Comment
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How can we have energy and feel motivated about our very existence?
I have identified three ways that, if addressed, go a long way toward bringing about a sense of loving life. This is possible for any of us.
Firstly, our life has to have meaning. We can have a sense of meaning in different degrees. Three levels of meaning and how to get them are talked about below.
Secondly, we need to ensure we are adequately refreshed, in order to deal with life and still feel energised.
Thirdly, the crucial thing, possible for all of us, is that we must transform our past pain into positive energy for living today.
Lets look at the first way of attaining life energy…
Meaning
What are the different ways in which we get a sense of our life having meaning?
A sense of purpose in our lives can come from a variety of different places, and may not be the same combination of places for any of us.
There are three levels of purpose: superficial purpose, underlying purpose, and sustaining purpose.
- Superficial purpose. This gives a sense of meaning that is transitory. We are engaged and entertained, but the sense of meaning does not accumulate over time. Examples are things such as, short projects, casual club associations, and social situations.
- Underlying purpose. There is usually feelings of accomplishment that add up and give us meaning which provides this second level of purpose - having children, for example, or a meaningful career.
- Sustaining purpose comes from a life-long interest that sustains us, and provides hope and powerful life-energy. These are the things that you are committed to, or are very passionate about, for example, a love of gardening, following a sports team or a musicians events through ups and downs, love of learning and growing, devotion to God, commitment to personal development, etc.
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Without a sense of superficial purpose, we may feel bored. Without a sense of underlying purpose we may have a low grade level of agitation or flatness. Without a sense of sustaining purpose we may feel that life has no meaning, and we could feel quietly despairing.
For emotional health we need to feel all three levels of purpose in our lives. Particularly important is a sense of sustaining purpose as it can provide hope in the way that love can provide happiness. Once we are engaged with life in a way that is deeply meaningful, hope develops, and life-energy grows alongside it.
The second way of attaining energy is to refresh…
Refreshment
What activities renew and refresh you so that you are able and willing to return to the responsibilities that we have taken on?
How do you re-charge your batteries?
Different things can be effective for different people.
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If you are an introvert (in the Jungian sense) then you re-stock your energy stores by being alone. Extroverts, on the other hand, spend time with others when they need to generate energy and feel charged-up again.
Some people like to meditate, relax in the bath, or have a massage. Others like to sing, dance or play tennis. For others, still, it’s a cathartic release such as a rock concert, a fast drive, or a ski holiday that does the job.
Burnout doesn’t only happen on the job - it happens to your life. That means to your relationships, your emotions and your physical state. Rejuvenation is essential. Little and often is best.
Now, the third way to ensure that we are tapping into all of our potential life-energy, and not letting any of that negative life-energy sap us, or take up psychological space, is to transform it…
Transformation
Past negative experiences can be transformed into nourishing contributions to ourselves and others today.
- Failure, disappointment, loss, pain, regret, guilt, and even shame.
All of that heavy stuff can be recycled and can become the food to fuel your energy for living today.
In the safety of the therapy room, we do something with it. We acknowledge it, understand it, tolerate it, learn from it, and heal from it. We may sometimes start with small steps, but whatever the size of the steps, we walk towards wellbeing. Motivation builds and life-energy is once again present.
Is your mind closed or open?
March 1, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais · Leave a Comment
How rigid is your mind?
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Apparently, over 15 years of an average waking life is spent just watching TV.
How many days of an average life is spent reading webpages?
Desktop publishing and the Internet have increased access to production for everyone (for me, my blog and website, for example).
These days we have a more radical understanding of contemporary life because of the information that we can access.
When we watch TV, or surf the web, we are creating our own meanings and emotions. Even our dreams and our own sense of identity are shaped by the media.
- But how much does the stuff you watch or read about influence your opinions?
- Does reading this website change your decision about how to act in your life?
Way back in 1944 America, Lazarsfeld conducted a study called ‘The Peoples Choice’ in an attempt to discover the influence of the media over the American voters. He found that voting intentions were very resistant to media influence.
- Often people had already very well defined political views - and people read the papers which supported their views, not ones which might open their minds!
- When confronted with challenging ideas, voters simply filtered out messages that did not fit their preconceptions.
Only 5% of people were actually converted.
It used to be thought a bad thing that the media had a potential to influence. Even now, people are still wary - and there is still a lot of talk of whether TV and other media influence us, and in what ways it does so.
What I am wondering: “Is it still true that only 5% of people have minds open enough to be influenced?”
Are you going to read this blog and skim over all of the personal development stuff in the articles or self-help sections and filter out all messages that do not support your views?
Or are you going to be one of the 5% of people whose mind is opened and who can be influenced by new ideas to make your life better?
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