Thought of the day

Think back to your youth. Do you recall this conversation? “OK… who broke the cookie jar?!” mom said looking suspiciously at you. “not me mom honest… I didn’t touch it!” Denial – it’s been a part of our life longer than you realize, and no one really had to teach it to you.

Denial is designed to be a healthy coping mechanism produced from a healthy ego. It is the egos way of protecting us from more hurt than we know what to do with. When you were five, if your mom knew YOU broke the cookie jar (as if she didn’t already know) you knew you were in for some big time hurt in one way or another.

But what about when denial becomes a problem, and trust me it does quite often! Those little times when you take that extra piece of cake even though you are trying to loose weight. Spending that extra $100 on new shoes you don’t really need, but dang they look good, AND they are on sale! Going for drinks with the guys after work, just to wind down from a stressful day, or going to the track on the weekend even when you know money is tight. We can so easily justify these each and every one of these acts… and simply put that justification is denial; unhealthy denial.

Is this form of denial a part of healthy coping with harm? In a small way, yes, but more than anything else it’s a way to justify a weak or unhealthy ego. Some religious traditions tell us we need to rid ourselves of our ego, and it is for just this reason. I say keep your ego, it serves you well when working properly… just make sure it is working properly!