Self-deception: The Lies We Maintain

One way or another, we are all familiar with lies.

There will be people more courageous than others, who will be able to admit that they are lying: others, on the contrary, will want to appear completely free from these chains.

What is certain is that everyone is lying to themselves. Maybe it’s still too early for you to realize it. Today we are going to think about this.

Lying as a companion in life

Lying or deception is inherent in all aspects of life.

Even nature uses them as a resource. Think of the viruses that are able to trick our immune system into our bodies or the dance of confusion and lies between predators and prey, in order to achieve a single goal: survival.

But, what about us human beings?

Beyond the lies concealed in order to obtain something concrete, there is a type of lie which is capable of lasting a certain time or even a lifetime.

They are lies designed to evade reality and they take unconsciousness as a refuge.

Dostoyevsky wrote in “The Basement Notebooks”:

“ Every human being has certain memories that he would only tell his best friends. Likewise, we could say that every human being has concerns that he would not even tell his best friends but only himself, and even so, he would do so in the greatest of secrecy. But there are also things that you don’t even dare say to yourself. Even the most honest of humans have a lot of these kinds of thoughts stored in a corner of their mind ”.

No one is safe from self-deception

In self-deception, language is important, in addition to consciousness. Because, even if reality is as it is, we each build our own and it is through language that it is described and transmitted.

Moreover, for us, it is nothing more than a reflection of how we tell it to ourselves.

Know that we have a great capacity to create twisted beliefs in all environments of our life.

Who is really free from guesswork and storytelling?

We are victims of our own traps to survive in everyday life.

Lies to dodge reality

There is a web of lies that we harbor that sometimes attaches us to certain situations without our realizing it.

They are at the root of the fact that we often have the feeling that whatever we do, we are not moving forward.

When the force of the facts becomes brutal or threatening, sometimes the fear of suffering causes us to try to dodge reality, blocking our attention and causing self-deception.

Hence the popular saying: “Out of sight, out of heart”.

So, if we don’t see, if we are not aware of reality, the danger decreases, the anxiety subsides and we can move forward.

The facts were ignored and we changed the meaning of the experience.

The lie is present, but without realizing it, it hides behind silences, negations and castles of glass.

The sham is then maintained through the power of our selective attention which obscures, transfigures and blurs painful truths, re-crafting a more acceptable disguise for ourselves.

A disguise that reminds us of Winnicott’s “false self”, where lying is considered part of the natural development of human identity, from early childhood.

A disguise that helps to alleviate the anguish and suffering generated by the expectations that parents place in their children and that they fail to meet, by denying themselves; to finally build their character in accordance with the ideal that their parents established for them.

Daily self-deception

Self-deception can also be provoked to succeed in fulfilling one’s own expectations or those of others, or quite simply because we do not want to see what is happening to us or feel what we feel, as a way of justifying ourselves.

It happens in a relationship when, for example, we don’t want to realize that the situation is unbearable and that our feelings are not the same.

Also in the case of addictions: when the person believes they are controlling their consumption. In social and political relations too …

Self-deception is an important defense that we use in the face of threats and dangers, and which sets itself up as an armor that protects us from experiences that are difficult for us to assimilate. A “shell of character”, to use Willhelm Reich’s expression.

A shield behind which is the ego, which one uses to protect oneself from anxiety during its passage through the world which is sometimes very hostile.

So the more we deceive ourselves, the more we deceive others. Because the best way to hide a deep deception is not to be aware of it.

The effects of self-deception

Self-deception can have various effects and sometimes quite serious consequences.

In these cases, the world of the person is fragmented because the information that we conceal and that we ignore is in the unconscious, and it is supplanted by the lie of the conscience.

As Daniel Goleman states in his book “El punto ciego” (“The Blind Spot ”), the first step necessary to wake up from self-deception is to realize that we are asleep.

That is, to bring up the possibility that we might be lying to ourselves, only to then enter the spider web that we have built to escape reality.

Because we do not often realize what we do not want to see and we are not aware that we do not realize it …

Most of us unknowingly sign a pact with this old Arabic proverb:

“ Do not wake up the slave because maybe he is dreaming that he is free” .

But the sage will say: “ Awaken the slave! Especially if he dreams of freedom. Wake him up and show him that he is a slave; by becoming aware of it, he may be able to free himself ”.