Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies. – William Paul Young
Dishonesty is a trait that most of us have no problem pointing out in others.
We feel a sense of anger, disgust, and mistrust towards those who try to deceive us. In fact, deception is such a dishonorable quality to us that we spend large amounts of our time reading about shady politicians and watching shows that center around lying and cheating characters. Secretly, it feels good to point the finger at others because it makes us feel morally righteous.
But here’s the truth:
at the end of the day, most of us fail to see that we also lie – to ourselves – frequently.
Sadly, most people aren’t willing to explore their hidden tendencies and face the truth. Deception is such a despicable quality that we would rather disown it than face it honestly. Unfortunately, the more we disown our darker tendencies, the more deeply we bury them within our Shadow Selves, and the more delusional we become. And the more delusional we are, the less mental and emotional clarity we have, which leads to a legion of problems. Some of these problems are life-destroying.
4 Reasons Why We Lie to Ourselves
If deceit is such a contemptible quality, why do we lie to ourselves? Here are a few reasons why:
- It’s comfortable – you don’t have to face the hard truth
- It’s convenient – you can keep doing the same thing without having to change anything
- It makes you feel better about yourself (preserves self-esteem)
- It helps you to avoid self-responsibility for your actions
For example, a man who cheats on his wife may justify his actions by saying, “If only she had given me more affection and love, I wouldn’t have strayed.” This justification, of course, is a form of self-deception because it prevents the man from fully coming to terms with what he has done. Furthermore, lying to himself helps him to preserve the belief that he’s a “good and faithful” person.
Examples of Self-Deception
The following examples might help to deepen your understanding of self-deception more. See if you can relate to any of these examples:
Example 1: A woman gets a high-paying attorney job at a popular firm. After months in her job, she begins to experience chronic illness and panic attacks. Convinced that she’s just going through a bout of bad health, she continues working in her high-stress job until she has a nervous breakdown.
Example 2: A man is in a relationship with a woman who he believes is his soulmate. The man continues to believe that the woman loves him, even after she has repeatedly told him that she wants to break up.
Example 3: A student is preparing for a college exam. He finds himself frequently procrastinating and keeps telling himself that he’s “not in the mood to study.” He then takes the exam and fails. In reality, he was procrastinating because he was scared of the pressure that comes with good grades.
Example 4: A woman has joined a local church. She loves hearing sermons about love, acceptance, and compassion. But after the ceremonies, she observes that the fellow churchgoers are judgmental, racist, and narrow-minded. She turns a “blind eye” on the behavior of these people, convincing herself that she is on the “right moral path.”
Example 5: A man decides to become a monk. He believes that his choice comes from the desire to live a religious life. In reality, his choice comes from the desire to escape his problems.
Example 6: A couple loves to travel. But it isn’t traveling to other countries that they really enjoy; it is escaping from their inner sense of emptiness.
Example 7: An entrepreneur keeps being offered amazing opportunities to expand her business, but she turns them all down. She keeps saying, “I don’t have time,” and “I have too much work.” The truth is that she’s scared to expand because she lacks self-confidence.
9 Signs That You’re Lying to Yourself
Are you lying to yourself? Answering this question can be hard because our self-deception is so often unconscious.
But if you suspect that you might be lying to yourself, congratulate yourself! It takes a tremendous amount of courage and self-awareness to even entertain the possibility. It can be scary to own up to the fact that you might be deceiving yourself, but this honesty will take you far on your spiritual path.
Here are some signs you should look out for:
1. You feel like you’re running away from something
It’s hard to admit … but you feel like you’re trying to escape something; maybe a thought, a realization, a harsh truth? Something is lurking in the darkness, and you don’t like it. You feel the need to escape, but you don’t know why.
2. You keep justifying other people’s behavior
In order to evade the truth, you find yourself making excuses for other people and their bad behavior. For example, you might tell yourself that your emotionally abusive husband is just “blowing off steam from work” or that your backstabbing friend “just made a stupid mistake.” Justifying other people’s behavior is much easier than facing the truth and making hard decisions.
3. You keep justifying your behavior
“I didn’t hurt him, I just taught him a lesson,” “I don’t hate my career, I’m just feeling a little stressed,” “I can’t move, I have no other option,” “I’m not terrified of moving out of my comfort zone, I’m just busy with commitments.” Self-justification is deceptive: on one hand it makes us believe that we have a “good reason,” but on the other hand, that reason is blatant bullshit. Unconsciously we know that we’re just making excuses, but consciously we’re oblivious.
4. You have a rigid attitude
You cannot accept blame or responsibility for anything that has happened, instead, other people are always to blame. This tendency to perceive yourself as always being right, and others as always wrong, hides a tremendous amount of fear. Beneath the narrow-mindedness, you’re secretly afraid of answering to the truth, so in an attempt to escape reality, you form rigid mental barriers and point the finger at others.
5. You feel inauthentic
You can’t seem to shake the feeling that you’re a “fake” or “sham.” Inside of you, there is a sense that you’ve lost touch with who you really are. You go places you don’t want to go. You make friends with people you don’t like. You buy things you can’t afford. You laugh when the joke isn’t funny. You don’t know what makes you happy or who you really want to be in life anymore.
6. You prefer to wear rose-tinted glasses
You prefer to live in a dreamworld rather than in reality. For example, in your relationships, you project your fantasies onto your partner, believing that everything is fine, even when it isn’t. The idealist in you believes that you can make everything work out, but your idealism is a form of escapism that obscures the truth. In order to buffer yourself against the harsh realities of life, you prefer to see the world in a naive way.
7. You don’t like listening to other’s advice
When a friend, colleague, or family member gives you a fresh perspective on your situation, you immediately close off. Feelings such as anger, sadness, and irritation are triggered within you, often causing you to lash out at the poor soul who dares to help you. Why does this happen? When you are lying to yourself, you will tend to only favor others who reassure you – not challenge you. Anyone who challenges you, even with the best of intentions, poses a risk to exposing your elaborate self-fabricated lie.
8. You carry around deeply-rooted anxiety
No matter what you do, you feel a sense of subtle unease and insecurity following you everywhere. This pervasive sense of unease causes you to constantly second-guess yourself and privately wonder if you really are doing the right thing or making the best decisions. Sometimes this deeply-rooted anxiety may manifest as a sense of guilt that you do not want to face and try to bury.
9. Your heart contradicts your mind
You keep trying to convince yourself that everything is fine and you’re in control, when emotionally, you are a wreck. You might find yourself exploding in anger at others or trying to hide your tears, and you might wonder where such emotions came from. If you are extremely disconnected from your heart, you might find your emotions manifesting in your body instead. You mind might believe that everything is peachy, when your body is suffering from tension, high blood pressure, infections, and other afflictions.
How to Stop Lying to Yourself
We all lie to ourselves: no one is excluded. In fact, self-deception is part of being human, and in a sense, is necessary for our inner growth.
If you feel embarrassed and uncomfortable about this topic, you’re not alone. I have caught myself in my own web of self-deception many times, and it isn’t an enjoyable experience.
However, for any true soulwork to occur, we must all honestly take a look at ourselves. Lies only serve to alienate ourselves from the truth of who we are.
If you think you might be struggling with self-delusion, here are some useful pieces of advice:
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- Journal and write down your true feelings. Journalling is a safe space which allows you to let out all of your suppressed thoughts and emotions. Don’t hold back anything: go wild. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to fully “unleash the Kraken,” but with patience, you will find this practice invaluable. Read more about journalling.
- Honestly examine your fears. Ask yourself, “What am I running away from?” Take some time to introspect, preferably in solitude. Solitude is easy to create: simply set aside half an hour a day to spend with your thoughts. If you have a busy schedule, prioritize, and see what other tasks you can shorten. Read more about solitude.
- Focus on gaining self-esteem from within yourself. Often, what triggers self-deception is the desire to please others and gain validation. Notice your tendency to look outside of yourself for your self-worth. Are you relying on others to make you feel special, worthy, or loveable? Realize how unstable and dangerous gaining your self-worth from others is: at any moment a person could turn against you, and thereby crush your self-esteem. Begin to gain approval from within yourself. Work on loving yourself and embracing who you are.
- Open up to other people’s points of view. Different perspectives are always very valuable, even if they aren’t necessarily right. However, often those closest to us have an uncanny way of seeing the truth that we too often can’t perceive. So don’t close yourself off. Listen.
- Figure out your needs vs. desires. Needs are always honest, desires can be misleading. What do you truly need? What do your heart and soul crave for? Answer these questions, and you will free yourself from self-deception.
***
So, after reading this article, what are your thoughts?
Please understand that there’s no need to punish or blame yourself if you do discover that you’re lying to yourself. Most of us lie to ourselves unintentionally as a self-protection mechanism. So treat yourself with kindness. You are not a “bad person”; you are simply a human being with flaws. But now that you’re at least partly conscious of any smokescreens that are enveloping you, you can work to bring more truth into your everyday life.
reading this article, i feel i have to comment on the example of the man who thinks he has found his soulmate and continues to believe she is in love with him even after she repeatedly tells him she wants to break up. i have been this person (telling someone i was in love with that i wanted to break up), and so i can say from direct experience that continuing to believe that someone who says they want to break up with you is in love with you not always an example of self deception. it s definately a sign that there are some serious problems, which we all handle differently- when someone feels like they’re not being heard when they express needs or like they are being controlled or dominated, their response may be to try and end things, even if this will be extremely painful for them (not all of us have the same level of intellectual idealization of finding “the one”- some of us are caustic punks who idealize respectful friendship and being happy alone and have a very low tolerance for anyone who doesn’t respect boundaries. some of us have a self destructive streak, also. ) so, if someone feels like they person telling them they want to end it is actually very in love with them, they may be right. then comes the question of trying to understand where the problems are coming from, (ie are you ignoring requests for space because you don t understand why someone who loved you would need time away from you? are you doing things that the other person can t accept, regardless of the intensity of their feelings? etc etc) which hopefully will help things get better, hopefully the person pushing away can feel like ending things isn t their only option and that the other one actually cares about their needs and feelings and thus they can stop supressing their own attachment to them….
I feel so much shock in ways impossible to feather thanks
I felt like if this topic was written for me
I know the feeling….I’ve been a person that can waiver back and forth for years on what the truth is… I think I’m finally gotten a hold on it. It “seems” to me now, that my soul is that raw energy of emotion, and I never really understood before how the purpose of my ego was to embrace her, protect and care for her…. even be a be discipline in protecting her, so that I wouldn’t get so needy, or confused, or wish washy. So that I would be strong, by bringing self esteem to my core, operating with confidence from that. Its been a long road… It seems as I age, the lessons that were so important at some time, have dropped off, and I’m left with bare bones again, always starting from today.
It takes a lot of guts and courage to find out you lie to yourself and other people just to make you feel good i am still looking at this in myself but now i see others doing it more Lie to others and themselves very great post that everyone should read
Exactly, Kevin. It takes so much courage to see this tendency within ourselves. It’s so easy to immediately find someone else to point the finger at and judge (there are so many options!) but very few people turn that finger around and point it at themselves. Hats off to anyone who does!
It takes a lot of guts and courage to find out you lie to yourself and other people just to make you feel good i am still looking at this in myself but now i see others doing it more Lie to others and themselves … very great post that everyone should read
An excellent article.This is an issue that I am constantly faced with.Lying to myslef is something I have developed to a fine art-always making excuses for everyone.I have started journalling and it really helps.I full intend to work with the other points as well.I have just turned 70 ,but still feel it is never too late to make changes.Thank you. I read all your articles and they are always interesting and spur me on to become a better person.
It’s never too late. Life is a constant process of growth. I’ve seen 70-80 year olds more alive than 30 year olds. Aliveness, to me, is about being willing to grow and explore — and once that dies there is only stagnation and death. So keep at it! :)
Hi,
So I think I’m repressing stuff. A lot of it, as in abuse. I believe it to be sexual. I experience a lot of the mentioned signs, and I have gut instincts too. Every time someone asks me I start getting the physical symptoms of a panic attack/ the feeling I get when I lie, despite not having conscious memory of anything to prove otherwise. I also know the feeling of sex with a male, despite having never had sex with a male (in fact I’m a lesbian). There’s a history of emotional abuse with my father, enough to have had the CPS called. I don’t know where to start, I want to live my truth. I go to college soon, and I’m sick of running.
dear jade
what you are experiencing is unfortunately not that unusual
in nursing school
(vanderbilt ’11) we were trained to assess ALL patients for current or past abuse
i say this to let you know you are not alone
i would like to suggest as a first step that you reach out to your school counsellor or regular doctor
if these options dont feel safe, i suggest you start with the crisis text service
they will help you find the right resources where you live :
“Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the US, anytime, about any type of crisis.”
best wishes in moving forwards — you are brave to speak up and please let me assure you that you are stronger than you know and can find the right doctor, therapist, pastor, teacher, social worker, therapist or nurse to help you through the next steps
my son just went off to college and i want to encourage you in doing the same
everyone is dealing with something, and you will find your way
best wishes and God bless you as you sally forth —
lisa bolton rn fnp
nashville
Jade, it breaks my heart to hear what you have gone through. But I can feel the strength within you and the intense urge to heal. Please consider contacting a private therapist or support group about what you’ve been going through. Lisa above also made a great suggestion. I think it’s admirable that you are starting to face all the stuff you’ve repressed — that takes a lot of courage and guts. Seek out support from a trusted counselor who specializes in sexual abuse and take it one step at a time. Thank you for speaking up. <3 Lots of love your way
Jade,
What you describe sounds a lot like symptoms of PTSD and/or repressed memories. I can relate to much of what you’ve said and implied. I was taken away by CPS when I was a kid, yet I “didn’t know” I was in foster care until my mother told me when I was 22 because I had repressed the memory. I have memories from before and after but absolutely no memories of being in foster care. What’s interesting is that psychological studies indicate that our behavior is still influenced by past events that we have absolutely no conscious memory of. Repressed memories do indeed affect us very deeply, but it can feel confusing. Sometimes I’ll be reading a book and a seemingly random word will trigger something in me. I suddenly burst into tears and don’t know why. My head will pound until a memory of something traumatic surfaces. The odd thing is I actually feel much much better after I remember. The inner turmoil and struggle between what feels like a memory fighting its way to the surface and the conscious mind desperately trying to push it back down is sometimes the most painful part. I believe what you experience may be related to memories trying to surface, but it also sounds a lot like PTSD to me, or a combination of both. People asking you questions may be actually trigger trauma connected to being questioned as part of an investigation as a child. People don’t seem to like to hear this, but I feel like the most violating and abusive part of the experience I had was being interrogated by family, cops, countless therapists, having to discuss very personal things with complete strangers, having to repeat painful things over and over, having adults act like they didn’t believe me and didn’t care what I had to say unless it fit with their version of events and what they wanted to hear, having to learn about sex from strangers, having to have a virginity exam when I was in first grade, I could go on and on. So the very act of people asking questions– yes, for me, this is very painful in and of itself, and can trigger my PTSD. Alternatively, it is also possible that whatever they’re asking you about brings to mind painful memories and those memories, or repressed memories, trigger the distress. The involuntary “flinch reaction” when someone reaches out to touch you unexpectedly, as well as vacillating between feeling emotionally broken and completely numb after memories are triggered, are also common with PTSD from physical/sexual abuse. I also feel compelled to mention that children’s minds can be very susceptible to having false memories implanted by adults by the power of suggestion. So if you don’t remember sexual abuse, it is of course possible it didn’t happen. I, of course, don’t know. I can only list as many possibilities as I find plausible. Only you know. However, whether the abuse was of a sexual nature or emotional, I personally still believe that the trauma of a CPS investigation can have lasting effects for a lifetime. I can also tell you from personal experience though, you won’t feel that way all the time for the rest of your life. Your symptoms may very well wane and seem to disappear completely after several years with no incidents. For me, they started to go away after several years of feeling safe in a stable relationship. Keeping a healthy distance from toxic family members also helps. You may have set backs but things will get better over time as you become more independent. I’d like to believe that these memories aren’t brought forward until we are ready to deal with them. Find your safe place and make people respect your boundaries. Open up on your own terms when you feel comfortable. Good luck.
“Release the Kraken” –oh, that made me laugh! I so appreciate your writing, Aletheia. I’m sure I’m not the only one to tell you that the articles always seem to come at the right time, with things I am especially needing to be reminded of. Sometimes I know I am deceiving myself and I’m unhappy and I can’t seem to figure it out. Then I see something written about self-love and realize that still, I am deriving most of my sense of self-worth from the opinions of others. As much as I know (intellectually, anyway) that this is a trap, that it will only make me unhappy, it is deeply deeply embedded in my mind and behaviors. It seems that 90% of my problems, at least, stem from this difficulty. …And I’m reminding myself that it’s alright to still be strugging with it, to not be perfect, to still have a long way to go.
It’s frustrating, though, because it prevents one from having fruitful interactions with anyone who they don’t feel fully accepted or trusted by. I guess all I can do is keep plugging away at it, keep looking, keep forgiving myself and learning to let go.
Haha, thank you Gentiana. That’s synchronicity for you. ;) And I can relate to that sense of frustration. I think a big part of this struggle comes from believing that there’s an “end point” in the future where everything will be fine and dandy and perfect — that’s the trap of “self-improvement” (which I wrote about somewhere here on the website). When we’re striving for an ideal self we are always unhappy in the present moment. The thing is that the ideal self doesn’t exist and cannot exist: self-improvement is like an endless hamster wheel. Many people run on that wheel their entire lives before realizing that all of the quirks and flaws are perfectly fine, and there is nothing essentially or innately “wrong” with any of us. So to me, instead of self-improvement I prefer *self-growth* which is more centered around growing for the sake of learning and expanding, rather than chasing a phantasmagoric ideal. But from the sounds of it, you might have realized this?
This article has come at a good time… just when I thought I knew all my darkness… “hello” there is another one. A new perspective to consider in self-examination. Thank you.
It’s a pleasure to help Susan. <3
Luna, I know you’re busy as fuck but if you can, I need help: I’ve been through a lot lately and quite frankly my whole life, I have just cut ties from a narcissistic friend whom I’ve known for 5 years whom I’ve grown addicted to who gaslights me, I am an empathic narcissist really, not in the sense that I am proud of it but I just read a couple of your articles (I loved it by the way) growing up was tough, I had my father emotionally, sexually and physically abuse me paired with an enabling mother has made me addicted to this narcissist in my life. I crave to be myself like my child (albeit baby) self. I am taking concrete steps to better my life like being with people that actually have an ounce of respect for you but anyways.
Being an empath for as long as I can tell, I can notice nuances around me whenever lightning strikes near my place (poor ears of mine) I can feel the static all around my body to even in my own thoughts and whenever in every time I get abused, in retrospect. I always end up resisting the fact that I becoming less whole, more self centered (when you get so abused badly, you just want to escape in your mind and keep a bird eye’s view of everything which is why I know myself in that way).
Is resisting that fact your abilities to read people are diminishing; the feeling that you might get possessed by a demon gets stronger and fighting for my idea of myself being more empathic prior to the incident okay?
I hoped to narrate everything down to the detail but I don’t have enough time as of the moment.
Thank you
Hi Jumbo,
Could you please clarify this question: “Is resisting that fact your abilities to read people are diminishing; the feeling that you might get possessed by a demon gets stronger and fighting for my idea of myself being more empathic prior to the incident okay?”
I wasnt as Empathic as before and I’m worried about
it*
So it sounds like you’re becoming *more* empathic? You might be going through a wave of inner growth. Often heightened senses develop around this time.