LEAVING THE WORLD OF DENIAL

LEAVING BEHIND CONTROL STRATEGIES

The sole purpose of the ‘ego’ is CONTROL. It wants to return a ‘hurt’ for a perceived hurt, and get things back to the way they were.  It is to cling to, hold on to and try and salvage a relationship that has been damaged or destroyed.  It is done by pretending to forgive the perceived injustice too soon after the trust has been broken.

How is pretending done?  A hurt is perceived & experienced, someone’s triggered pain is felt, and then the strategy of ‘blame-switching’ occurs to deny the ownership of that pain. It may look like punishing another & demanding respect. It may look like burning property in reaction to being upset. This destructive strategy of blaming another is used as a form of control.  It is a form of denial to minimize, rationalize, justify or spiritualize away and deflect responsibility of blame. Instead of standing in one’s own truth, a control strategy is used on the other. When feelings are ignored or rejected, minimized or rationalized away, or when a wrong has been justified or spiritualized, these are signs that the strategy of denial is attempting to lure you into placing trust into an untrustworthy situation. A perceived hurt gets returned with more hurt. Now you’re trapped in your own guilt caused by your own wrongdoing.  There is a ‘promise’ of justice that you’ll be absolved of your wrongdoing, but it is really only a tricky form of deception to continue being deceived in falsehood. If one begins to take personal responsibility and STOP TRYING TO COVER UP ONE’S GUILT with more wrongdoing, then one will see that one’s value can not be found in relationship with another.

Let’s look at a scenario. The control strategies (minimizing, rationalizing, justifying, blame-shifting, spiritualizing, avoiding) attempt to hide John’s past sin & present guilt by justifying and rationalizing his repeated ‘wrong-doing’ by blame-shifting it on to Susan. He hurts her, but does not acknowledge it because of his belief that he is right. He stays in denial due to his minimizing, rationalizing, justifying and blame-shifting.   His denial sends the message that the reason he did wrong initially was Susan’s ‘fault’; that he was angry and she deserved it.  John appoints himself as redeemer, and absolves himself of his guilt.  But not really. Not in reality.  It’s an illusion of absolution. The only One who grants absolution is God. There will still be no trust, love, respect and safety in the relationship. There really IS no relationship anymore, but neither want to ‘see’ that.  John’s deceptive tactic attempts to convince Susan that she is at fault for the wrongdoing; the injustice.  She now feels ‘false guilt’ (John’s guilt) and takes it upon herself to ‘right the wrong’ and get the trust back.  This is not her job, but as long as she feels ‘guilty’ of her own hidden guilt, she will take on John’s guilt & blame and try to get trust back.  If Susan falls for the control strategy, and continues to give her TRUST away for the sake of the relationship, she will predictably react to his future control strategies with more control strategies of her own: false sympathy, pity, false loyalty, fearful concern, justified worry, obligated agreement, compliance, fearful obedience, suspicion, irritability, frustration, stubbornness, resentment, arguments, retaliation, or revenge, (at worst).  The good and bad emotional supply coming from Susan will train John that she will always take the blame for his wrongdoing, give him her TRUST, and stay in the relationship.  She will remain guilty, angry and resentful on the inside, showing both compliance and argumentativeness on the outside. John may also do the same for Susan.  It becomes a merry-go-round. The deception and secrecy continues. Both are afraid of taking responsibility of their own wrongs, their own remorse, their own guilt.  They will never admit to themselves or each other that they have no rights justifying doing wrong to the other.(contrition) They are afraid of confessing to themselves & God that they are hosts to ‘lies’. The strategies are an attempt to continue denying the truth, temporarily easing their own guilt & sorrow, and giving both a sense of well-being for a ‘hopeful’ future.  They are fooling themselves.  They are only heading to increased suffering. This relationship will only ‘appear’ to be in place with their bodies living together, but it’s only a matter of time that one of them will get to their threshold of pain, and wake up out of denial, and face the truth of the broken trust, and leave the broken relationship. The unhealthy relationship will end.

When one stops feeding the relationship with control strategies, the relationship will lose its negative energy, its appeal will be lost, and it will come apart. Letting go of ‘control strategies’ triggers one’s own hidden pain to come to the surface and that person’s healing journey will come into awareness.  If Susan does not have the courage to take responsibility for her own sorrow & remorse, her own admittance of wrongs, letting go of her perceived rights to do wrong, then she will go into an emotional hibernation, piggy-backing off the company of others who will only give her a false sense of trust, respect and safety. She must stay in someone’s company, commiserate with them, to get love & attention for herself. The belief that she is flawed, blamable, defective, disgraceful, no-good, undeserving, shameful, unfit, vile, wretched, broken, unworthy, unlovable, & valueless human being will be upheld by a lie.  But lies are not true, never were true, and will never be true. She is Innocent but doesn’t know it. If on the other hand, Susan does has the courage to get into a recovery program, take responsibility for her own character defects, release all unhealthy control strategies, her own wrongs, confess her wrongs & recover from the lies of her unworthiness, she will find true relief and serenity.

Then, any future control strategies that come to her from others, Susan will be able to spot right away.  They will have no more power over her. She will not return control with control. She will not return anger with anger.  She will not return resentment with resentment or retaliate the wrongs done to her with more wrongdoing.  Over time, Susan will not have the attraction for unhealthy relationships & she will find herself responding only with love, trust, respect and care. It takes great desire for Truth, and that can only be found in developing trust and faith in a relationship with one’s own Higher Power. Always stay true to that.  God be with you on your journey.