LYING TO ONE'S SELF?

Have you ever thoroughly and repeatedly lied to yourself, about yourself?  Have you ever brushed over reality with the hues and textures of your own, better, revised version of your true self?  Are you lying to yourself now?

In "The Brothers Karamazov"  Russian author and philosopher Fyodor Dosteyevsky writes, “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 

The theme for the my own personal journey of the last few years has been - "know thyself", or "know thyself better," or "know that I have what we call "the issues" -which requires wise counsel and a well-aimed tazer to the temporal lobe." 

Oddly enough, there are apparently numerous "self" aspects to "self-awareness", one of which is self-delusion.  It is deceiving ourselves about ourselves.  Voltaire wrote, “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.” 

Deceiving ourselves can look like:

• I'm not apologizing! I didn't do anything wrong! (The Arrogant Lie)
• I've forgiven them, but........  (The Righteous Denial Lie)
• Justin Bieber is a GREAT musician!  (The Crack Lie)
• I've been this way my whole life, I can't change now!  (The I'm Stubborn Lie)
• She's a good friend.  But did you hear what she did?!?  (The Gossipy "friend" Lie)
• No, I don't need you to pray for me.  (The Prideful Religious Person Lie)
• He/she is disagreeing with me because they just don't "get it."  (The "I can't be wrong" Lie)

One that makes me sick is "I'm not a racist, but....."

We deceive ourselves about our goodness, our badness, our honesty or our spiritual maturity and faithfulness.  Check out the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector!

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Aberforth Dumbledore says to Harry Potter, "You're Lying!  Not to me; that doesn't matter.  You're lying to yourself!  That's what a fool does!"

In my journey of Self-Awareness, I'm learning that I've lied to myself; sometimes wounds of the past distort what really happened.  The more I relive that memory, the more distorted it becomes until my new version of reality has set like concrete inside my heart. It's not unlike fights, feuds or wars where people have forgotten why they started fighting in the first place. I've lied to myself about my fears, lied to myself about hurts. I have lied to myself about how I've treated people or lied to myself about how I had been treated by someone (often making excuses for them, looking past their jackassery).  Reality is traded for what is easy, comfortable and non-threatening, at least to me.

As Dosteyevsky said, the concluding result of lying to oneself is "he ceases to love." Ironically, I have seen people who lie to themselves and eventually cease to love (for other people don't feel any love from them). Upon reaching this pit, He can then lie to himself again -convincing himself that he DOES love, oblivious of the trail of broken and damaged people lying on the road behind him.

At the conclusion of Aberforth's rebuking of Harry Potter, he makes a statement that I could easily hear Jesus saying.  After saying "that's what a fool does" he looks at Harry and says "you don't strike me as a fool."  He sees hope in a fallible person.

Above all, don't lie to yourself.  You deserve better than that!  Plus, you don't want to be tazed in the temporal lobe.


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