We started the first week of the year working Step One. Next, I shared a review of my new favorite book. And in week three we started our series Virtues-n-Vices with the topic of Honesty. This week we begin a series of posts called Healing Hurts with the focus today on Denial.
Denial: is a defense mechanism in which a person, faced with an uncomfortable fact, rejects it, insisting that it isn’t true despite overwhelming evidence. It’s an unrealistic hope that a problem is not really happening.
We use one of the following…
- Simple denial: denying the reality of the unpleasant reality altogether.
- Minimization: admitting the reality but denying it’s seriousness (rationalization).
- Projection: admit both the reality and the seriousness but deny any responsibility.
Denial, a type of pain reliever, represses stressful thoughts from the mind; whether subconsciously or consciously, the goal is to avoid dealing with the situation or problem. People expend exhausting amounts of energy maintaining their denial state.
Denial is serious. We can’t heal as long as we pretend our hurts don’t exist.
The Celebrate Recovery Bible lists six negative effects DENIAL has on our lives:
D – isables our feelings
E – nergy drain
N – egates our growth
I – solates us from God
A – lienates us from other human relationships
L – engthens our pain
The bottom line…
The faster we engage (feel) our feelings, even though it hurts, the quicker the pain will end and our life will truly be happier.
God will be with us if we will just let Him into the pain with us.
Press through the pain, step out of denial into the victory of freedom! Trust God, He will take care of you!
Copyright © 2012 Reaching Hurting Women Ministry
