By Books Author and Novel Writer Denise Turney

Self-deception can appear to keep unwanted thoughts and emotions at bay. It can serve as a defense system, allowing you to protect erroneous thoughts and beliefs or a fact of life. According to Merriam-Webster, self-deception is “the act or an instance of deceiving oneself or the state of being deceived by oneself especially concerning one’s true nature, feelings, etc.”

Do You Engage in Self-Deception?

Each person engages in self-deception at different levels. Unfortunately, self-deception is far too familiar, even when reality if self-evident. It started at a young age for me. Examples of self-deception included smiling when I didn’t feel like it and then convincing myself that I was satisfied.

One instance, in particular, stands out. It was during the second-grade. The class was going to the circus. I didn’t want to go, instead preferring to spend the weekday evening with my parents and siblings. Teachers continued to announce to the entire class that all but two students had turned in their signed permission slips so that they could go to the circus.

Finally, the teachers told the class that one of the two students wasn’t going to the circus because his family was going out of town. That’s all that I needed to hear. Right away, I knew that the teachers were making it clear that they were waiting for my signed permission slip.

Personal Self-Deception Example

After speaking with my parents, I decided to go to the circus. My parents said that it was my choice, but, as my dad said, it was a rare opportunity and I might actually enjoy being at the circus. So, I went. But, I didn’t enjoy the circus. If anything, I learned what I didn’t like. Even more, I learned how poorly I felt ignoring myself in order to give into someone else’s wishes. Yet, that wasn’t all that happened.

On top of going to an event that I didn’t want to be at, when I spotted two teachers observing me at the circus, I smiled and “pretended” to be enjoying myself. Does that experience ever stand out to me. Today, it remains one (if not the first) of the earliest instances when I practiced self-deception and my self-esteem took a hit.

Bitterness from that first instance of practicing self-deception was directed toward the school teachers. However, the majority of self-deception that I’ve engaged in since has been in effort to avoid facing facts. Thankfully, today I practice awareness, build self-esteem and focus on Awakening to steer clear of self-deception. Payoff is huge. It’s a blessing to stop practicing self-deception and free up the energy to do what brings you joy.

Reasons to Continue Awakening

You might practice self-deception for different reasons. Additionally, you might engage in self-deception in different ways. Check out these examples of self-deception:

• Procrastinating may be one of the more popular ways to practice self-deception. If you’re in conflict (one part of you wants to do something that another part of you doesn’t want to do), you might delay taking action. At the same time, you might keep saying how much you want to do what you keep putting off doing.
• Drinking or eating too much to avoid facing a fact of life. If you drink or eat to the point of not feeling “sharp” or “on point”, you could blame not doing your best on the fact that you drank or ate too much. Then again, after you start awakening, you’ll have to admit that you made all of the decisions that caused this loop. Telling yourself the truth could make it easier for you to trust yourself and build self-esteem.
• Convincing yourself that you’re little, unintelligent, don’t have enough authority, etc. to enact the changes that you want to see in your life.
• Believing that a marketing technique, financial investment or habit will pay off hugely, in spite of the fact that you’re not getting out of your efforts what you’re putting in. If you’ve ever had a pipe dream, you’re familiar with this form of self-deception. Because self-deception doesn’t yield the results that you want, it’s not a way to build self-esteem.

Why You Might Practice Self-Deception

Reasons that you might practice self-deception may, at the core, be rooted in the desire to feel valued (another self-esteem link). The reasons might also be rooted in the desire to feel in control. As an example, if you believe that people with less than six-figures in the bank don’t have as much value as people who have six-figures or more in the bank, you could convince yourself that overspending is not damaging your financial health.

In this case, you might think that living as if you’re financially wealthy means that you are in good financial health. Build self-esteem and start awakening and it becomes self evident that you’re sucker punching yourself.

And, just as your self-esteem might take a jab should you fall for a trick that another person pulls on you, avoiding self evident facts by lying to yourself (practicing self-deception) could also weaken your self-esteem. After all, it takes courage to face a fact of life. It takes courage to really look at and examine what’s happening right in front of you.

Fact of Life

To do this, you might have to separate what you want from what you see. Back to the circus example. I wanted the teachers to be content with me without my having to do something I didn’t want to do. That was my desire. What I appeared to see with the teachers’ repeated request for the signed permission slips was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

How to bridge this gap? I pretended to be happy that I was at the circus and practiced self-deception. That single decision taught me, even if only temporarily, that I couldn’t trust myself. For sure, that’s not the way to build self-esteem.

Awakening is a great way to help yourself avoid self-deception. Instead of lying to yourself or pretending that something is happening that actually isn’t, accept what you’re currently feeling. Accept what you’re thinking right now. Look at and acknowledge facts, including personal, financial, health-related and relationship facts.

Let Go

You don’t have to hold onto an emotion or a thought. Also, you don’t have to stay in a relationship or a situation that you don’t want to be in. You have choices. This could empower you to help yourself by accepting facts and reality.

But, first you have to face the fact of life that you see happening. Gaining weight? Accept that fact. Not getting on the scale won’t change that fact. It might help you to practice self-deception, but it won’t change what’s happening. And, it won’t build self-esteem.

Losing money on marketing ads? Look at the analytics and face what the numbers are showing you. Keep in mind that seeing that something isn’t working doesn’t mean that you have to abandon a goal. Using the marketing ads example, instead of no longer selling a product or service, you could reduce the amount of money you invest in those ads or you could try another marketing technique.

Awakening to Goodness

Should your awakening allow you to look at what’s going on in one or more of your relationships, consider your options. Instead of ending a relationship, you could try a different communication technique. Or, you could engage in deep conversation with the other person, offering them the safety of honestly telling you what’s working for them in the relationship as well as what they’d like to see change about the relationship.

Also, accept that you did not create yourself. Thoughts cannot change what you were created as. At your core, you’re good. Remember that as you have new experiences. Be patient with yourself, even should you get scared and become tempted to engage in self-deception. Face facts. Acknowledge what you see. Admit that you know what you know. Above all, continue with your awakening.

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