Even though it seems like such a long time ago, at the beginning of this week Lisa Jones taught us about Self-deception. It was such an interesting topic because it is something I’ve actually noticed myself get caught up in so easily.
Self-deception is: the act of hiding the truth from yourself.
It was a topic she read in a book called ‘Leadership and Self-discipline’, and to start she shared a story example from the book. A story about this man who was in bed next to his wife, and he heard their son began to cry. The man is the one who had to get up early for work and his wife was a stay at home mom. In the book he goes on to share his thought process from the moment he heard his son cry, his initial thought being, “I should get up and tend to Davis (his son) so Nancy (his wife) could sleep”.
The book goes on to explain that He had two choices, one: He could have honored his initial thought, or two: he could betray his initial thought. The story states that he actually chose to betray it and then he listed all the thoughts that began to run through his mind. He started to see Nancy as lazy, inconsiderate, unappreciative, insensitive and a lousy mom and wife because all she had to do is stay home all day with their son, while he had to get up earlier to work. All the while Nancy was still asleep and didn’t hear Davis crying, but still in His mind he began to view his wife in such a negative way. Then he began to see himself as a victim, hard worker, fair, important and a good father trying to justify his actions or lack of action.
Now at first you can see that this is a bit extreme of an example, but it literally came from him choosing to betray his initial thought to take care of Davis so Nancy could sleep longer. Like Lisa said, “ we deny our instincts and try to justify our actions”.
I don’t want to just continue to go on and re-teach this whole concept but hopefully the above is an understandable example of what it looks like to fall into self-deception. I find it so interesting because it’s so true how we can love someone so dearly yet because we were faced with a decision, and our instinct tells us what to do but we choose to deny it. Then we try to come up with all these reasons why it’s okay to put everything on the other person involved, and we act as if the other person is now in the way of what we are doing or what we want.
It is honestly so crazy how we do this but we do, I do. Something happens and I can come up with all these excuses and reason why someone else will deal with why it is actually someone else issue or responsibility. Then I can go on to form some kind of overall view about someone and it ultimately sticks with me until something they do begins to contradict those thoughts I have formed (basically made up) about the person, and I realize, “well maybe they aren’t actually like that”. I don’t do it all the time but I’ve recognized a few times when I got caught in the trap of self-deception.
It’s hard to admit that we do or have made decisions to define people based off of our own assumptions or based off of our lack to honor our own instincts about a person, but we do this! I think it is unhealthy and it should be something we strive not to do. We should strive to not even let ourselves begin to, in a sense, fantasize who a person is based off of our negative assumptions which were formulated from our betrayal of our instincts. Our instincts are a good thing. I also think it goes along with discernment, when we discern a certain thing yet we sometimes choose to not listen to what we think is right or to what we should do.
Now that I am aware that I do get caught up in this, I hope that I can choose not be lazy with my choices but to instead be authentic. I want to start to honor my initial instincts so that I can look at another person without putting them inside of some kind of category in my minds. I’d say it’s pretty important and it will definitely have an impact on our relationships if we just choose to do the right thing, let’s have integrity in our thoughts and actions and watch how our relationships begin to strengthen.
-Emily