What Is Denial? - It Is Kind Of Like Being Asleep

Denial is Like Not Being Awake

My sleep is useful. My sleep dreams allow me to explore lands, relationships, powers and abilities that I may not ever know in "real life". It is a safe place and an undirected discovery of my unconscious mind. My sleep is more often rich with cues and lessons that I cannot see when I am awake.

Being "asleep", however, does not benefit my "awake" state when I am unconscious of my waking actions.  What happens when a part of me is asleep while I am up and about during the day? My conscious mind perceives best without illusion. But sometimes my emotional self isn't ready for my full attention. I act or think in a way that is remote from my actual attention.

This is what denial is for me. My experience of denial is that the rest of me, the most of me, is aware of what I am doing. It is aware of my actions and my choices even when they are detrimental! I may be, in fact, turning a blind eye to what I am doing that is harmful. This is not intentional. In fact, that is part of the problem; the action and the choice are not in line with my life intentions.  And I just don't see it. That blindness can harm me: my emotional, energetic, spiritual or physical health. 

So what happens? How do I wake up? How do I open my eyes? In my experience it comes in flickers: I am reminded of my life purpose, or my intentions, or my values and notice that what I am doing no longer supports them. Then the curtain falls again. Once more, I see the dissonance between my choices the misalignment with who I want to be. Something in my behavior is not in accord with my values. And for a longer time, I see. And so it goes; aware /unaware. Awake and asleep. Until, miraculously, I make the ultimate change; denial is no longer an "option", I wake up and  I transform.

I think that the greatest illusion that we have is that denial protects us. It is actually the biggest distortion and lie. In fact, staying asleep is what's killing us. Eve Ensler

Turning Toward Pleasure

I took a three day workshop recently that was based on turning toward pleasure. We find the range of challenge, perhaps the edge of difficulty and then draw back into pleasure: in a yoga pose, in a discussion, in life. I was shocked. As a woman in recovery I am suspicious of pleasure. What if I get "hooked" ? What if I indeed crave something that isn't good for me? I nearly felt panic as she used that word, pleasure, over and over. I have just gotten used to turning into my pain! (A topic for another day.)

While I counsel students to find the sweet spot of engagement in yoga poses, I am often fall shy of doing this myself. "I can take it" has been my repeated phrase (I won't use "mantra" as that is a healing term, curative not harming.) And in life, I have been finding more opportunity for contentment and compassion, but pleasure? 

Maybe this is semantic, and I want to be sure I am not over stepping my puritanical origins by finding joy and thus surely falling short of maximum effort. Perhaps the word itself has been defiled by past use and is a trigger word for me. Perhaps I need to tough out feeling GOOD as I am already practiced in feeling bad.

So this moment, perhaps all day, I will practice turning toward pleasure. The danger, as Epstein states below, is the clinging. And maybe the craving.

​be well, have pleasure​

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Clinging—not desire—is where we get stuck, and it’s possible to embrace desire without clinging by infusing it with awareness. Desire, in fact, can be a powerful meditative tool on the path to enlightenment.

—Mark Epstein, "In Defense of Desire"

Unifying the Divided Self

Without denial and avoidance I want to understand and unify my selves.

I don't want to repress the negative, unpleasant or unlovely thoughts and feelings I have. I don't want to deny them. Nor do I want to perseverate and stubbornly repeat them obscuring the positive. 

l don't know if you have done this, but I surely have. I have a negative emotion (resentment, fear, even concern) and I roll it over in my mind like a favorite hard candy, savoring it and exploring it - nearly hoping it will not dissolve and disappear. I am all about the suffering. Not purposely to suffer, but to be sure I am getting it all. I may hold on to it long beyond its informative value.

On the other hand I don't want to crunch and swallow (to continue the image) barely understanding the flavor of my difficulty. Hurt feelings, fears about change, remorse over past actions- these do require examination so I can mine the lesson, the purpose the usefulness of the negativity. Then I have to let it go. I need to let go of the division between pleasant and unpleasant; the separation between "me" and my experiences, good and bad.

By focussing exclusively on one part of me, one experience rather than the whole, I cut myself into pieces and focus on better or a worse parts of myself.

I am both, I am all, I am complete. I am difficulty and I am ease. I am challenge and I am simplicity. I am hurt and I am peace. It is the separation and the denial of any part that causes or enhances discomfort.

Just for today I will accept it all, in and out, "bad" and "good", easy and difficult. I will practice being whole; integrated and varied.

Ending the Internal Divide

Most human beings spend their lives battling with opposing inner forces: what they think they should do versus what they are doing; how they feel about themselves versus how they are; whether they think they’re right and worthy or wrong and unworthy. The separate self is just the conglomeration of these opposing forces. When the self drops away, inner division drops away with it. - Adyashanti, "The Taboo of Enlightenment" BIO: Kyczy Hawk RYT E-500 Author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” , “Life in Bite-Sized Morsels” and “From Burnout to Balance” she continues to submit articles to recovery and yoga oriented publications. She is currently completing her next book for Central Recovery Press:”Yogic Tools for Recovery: A Guide for Working the Twelve Steps”. Kyczy has been teaching recovery focused yoga classes since 2008.  Taking the foundation of a traditional yoga training she received from the Lotus Yoga Teacher Association (of the Himalayan Yoga Institute), she has combined the wisdom and inspiration from other teachers along the way creating S.O.A.R.™ a program to help prepare yoga teachers to bring the practice to people in recovery.   You can join Kyczy and a host of other people in recovery every Sunday morning at 8am PT (11 am ET) on In The Rooms for the Yoga Recovery meeting. Kyczy is very proud of her family; husband, kids, and grandkids, all who amaze her in unique and wonderful ways. More about her work can be found at www.yogarecovery.com.