Denial is a Two-Edged Sword

“Blocking or avoiding the truth is used anytime we don’t want to shatter a belief we are holding that we feel protects us from pain.”

Howard Falco, I AM

Denial is a protection mechanism. It helps us to avoid the truth we don’t want to face about life, ourselves or others. Subconsciously we know that facing the truth would force us to challenge our belief system. And we’d have to think beyond the steel walls we’ve erected to keep our little world safe. In this light, denial seems like a good idea—a sure fire way of avoiding emotional pain. But it rarely works to our advantage.

Denial is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The problem is our belief system. All of us have certain beliefs that we cling to tightly because these beliefs provide stability in our lives. Even the belief that stability is good provides a problem for us because life is constantly changing. The more we try to keep it the same, the more we bump our heads against reality and the more internal pain we create for ourselves. Still, many of us would rather fight reality than open our minds to new ideas and new beliefs. What we don’t understand is that the longer we fight reality through denial, the longer we choose to suffer. We can’t win.

Identifying denial in our thinking is as easy as becoming aware of our tendency towards resistance. Many times I have picked up a new book, paged through it and felt a wall of resistance erect itself inside my chest. I knew what I was reading was true. I knew I needed to hear what the pages of the book were telling me about myself, but I didn’t want to go there. Inside, I developed an intense need to close the book, put it down and walk away—which I usually did. To keep reading would mean I would have to face the truth about myself, my beliefs and my life; and it was more than I could handle.

In the moment, that’s OK. In the long run, it’s not. When we have these moments of awakening from our denial system, we need to eventually face the truth. We need to get beyond our resistance. We need to pick up that book again and continue reading. And we need to be open to changing the beliefs that are being threatened.

Religion is one of the systems we use to box ourselves in. Religion provides primarily black and white rules. We follow the rules and we earn salvation. It’s a simple formula and one that many people don’t want challenged because it frees them from having to think for themselves. Everything is neat and tidy until someone pulls the ribbon off the box and the walls come tumbling down.

Many of us, as children, were discouraged from exploring religions other than the ones our parents practiced. We were encouraged to play with children who attended our churches and we may have attended church-run schools. We were told that when we grew up, we couldn’t marry someone who was Catholic or Lutheran, Jewish or Muslim because those people weren’t saved. We became boxed-in to the idea that people who practiced our faith were good and people who practiced different faiths were bad. This belief may have provided security to us as children, but as we grew into adulthood, it most likely caused us all sorts of problems.

What happens when a fundamentalist Pentecostal meets a nice Catholic man? Or an Anglican meets a Jewish woman he feels greatly attracted to? Well, one of two things can happen. Each individual can face the truth, which means challenging their life-long belief that they can only have a relationship with someone of their own faith, or they must go into denial about how they really feel in order to protect their belief that inter-faith marriage is forbidden.

If we choose denial, we have immediate comfort. We tell ourselves that we are doing the right thing and that this person is obviously a false temptation. We bury our feelings and we are free from the hassle of entering a serious relationship. We also free ourselves from facing turmoil within our families. Certainly we know that if we choose to have a relationship with a non-believer, we will face a wave of opposition and estrangement from our family. On the surface, everything seems stable and good. But underneath, everything is not so cut and dry; especially if our guts are telling us we are making a big mistake.

If the Catholic man or the Jewish woman is really our soulmate, then we are refusing one of God’s greatest gifts to us. We are refusing this great gift to protect a belief that is obviously false, and for the sake of momentary peace, we are facing a lifetime of misery. We may eventually marry someone of our faith background—someone who is wrong for us—and everyone will be happy-- Mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, minister—everyone but us. The only comfort we will have is in knowing that we stuck by our belief (took the easy way out) and avoided the many headaches that come from facing the truth. Yes, we may still find solace in believing we’re saved, but we’ll never know the happiness God really intended for us to experience in this life.

The difficult choice is in facing reality. If we choose to face our feelings for this person who doesn’t fit neatly into our vision of life, we are making a difficult but ultimately rewarding choice. The first difficulty comes with reexamining our belief that inter-faith relationships are taboo. If we are able to do so and we begin exploring a relationship with this special person, we face a few more difficulties. First, we face getting to know something about their faith tradition and getting comfortable with it, and vice-versa. We may then need to resist any need we may have to convert them to our way of thinking. Most likely, if the fit between us is really right, we will find a middle ground where we feel right with ourselves, each other and God.

The greater difficulty will most likely come with having to convince our families that their long-held belief about inter-faith marriage is wrong and that we are doing the right thing for us. We will need to be able to stand strong against any desire we have to people-please Mom or Dad. We will also have to deflect any shaming tactics they may use against us, such as “Oh, where did we go wrong? If you marry this person, we will all be doomed to eternal damnation!” Ultimately, we may have to face being cut-off by family completely, if they are unable to open their minds to new beliefs. But that’s OK. We will have the reward of knowing that we did what is right for us and that God approves. We have to live our lives for us. We can’t live our lives for Mom or Dad or anyone else. We are responsible for ourselves and our own happiness, and they are responsible for theirs.

Either choice we make—giving into denial or facing reality—will cause us some emotional pain. The emotional pain of giving into denial, however, is likely to last us a lifetime. The emotional pain of facing the truth will eventually set us free. We can never be happily married to the wrong person. We will always be happily married to the right person. Facing the truth may alienate certain loved ones from us, but there will always be the possibility that time and love may eventually bring them around to accepting what they can’t change about us.

This is just one example of the many belief-based denials we face in our lives. If you are experiencing resistance to anything, stop fighting it. Open up and ask your resistance to lead you toward the truth. God will help you to see past your denial and to turn your life from a denial that guaranteed misery to a truth that eventually guarantees happiness. Allow your soul to shine!