I am sure we have all done this at times, it can seem just an easy thing to do and, in some ways, it might feel that in the beginning like it helps. But floating down the river of “De-Nile” isn’t the answer to things, it can over time, make things much worse. Denial is something our minds can resort to as a level of protection, and it is something we can choose when things are hard to face or deal with. I think that sometimes, we just don’t want to face up to things or what is happening, and we opt for this. Now you might be thinking, “Is this such a big issue? Will it be negatively affecting me that much?” Well, the answer is yes and in fact, it could be impacting you daily if you are still floating down the river of “De-Nile”.
The reason for this, is that our minds are totally black and white, and it has to fall into either black or white, there is no room for grey, that elusive unknown. This being the case, our inner mind just doesn’t understand denial in the way that we consciously see this to be. What our minds actually think, is that if you are in this state of denial then the things you are hiding from must be very dangerous and deadly serious. This will mean that every time we opt to float down the river of “De-Nile”, we are continuously adding fear and worry to our worry clouds. Living with that constant pretence is very detrimental to our inner mental health, as it can really cause lots of anxiety and trapped emotions to start building up in our worry cloud. The reasons for this are that our primaeval mind is the part of us that is listening to these messages very intently. If we are hiding, in denial, or pretending things are not happening, then we must be frozen in fear, and this must mean that whatever we are in denial over must be dangerous or deadly.
I think being British makes us more susceptible to this issue, as previous generations have grown up with this British stiff upper lip, and if this isn’t you, then your parents or grandparents will most likely have. This is where we just soldier on, pretending all is ok when in fact this is far from the truth, and we are not feeling great at all inside. We must all know people who still do this, and the older generations are the best at this. Because when they were children, they would have learnt to be seen and not heard, to hold things in and not express how they were feeling because that was just how life was back then. Emotions were seen as something that we had to hide and be scared of, if we tried to express our feelings too much, it could have been viewed that we had a mental health issue. Back in 1900, it was called “being alienated from ourselves” when we were over emotional, and people like me, were called “alienists”. Also, over-emotional people were classed as having hysteria and the treatment for these types of issues were not great at all. From being locked in lunatic asylums and having a whole array of very unpleasant treatments forced upon you. Thank goodness we have moved on from this chapter in time and we are more able to express ourselves, but this doesn’t mean our minds have forgotten how to live in denial. Darwin is very right about things, that the evolutionary process takes thousands of years to accomplish. This being the case, changing from old patterns can take time. If your mind is still holding onto those old beliefs and if you start going down this route of denial, your mind will just dig up those old patterns and habits even more, by just pulling them back into your inner mind’s orbit.
It is now time to just look at your life and the way you are living, to see if there are things that you are doing that mean you are still floating down the river of “De-Nile”. Denial can go under the radar for many of us and sometimes the people closest to us might see this more easily than us. It might be worth asking a family member or close friend if they think you are in denial over anything which will be leading you to avoid things. If we start to be aware of the denial, then we are no longer in denial. This is great, as it can then help us find ways to deal with those challenging situations in healthier more appropriate ways. One thing that is always worth remembering over denial, is that you never just keep floating down the river of “De-Nile”, at some stage this will have to stop. What we have to accept is that we either get out of denial now, or we let all those feelings that will keep growing bigger, affect our lives and how we feel. If we step out of the “De-Nile” now, we can feel much better and get on and deal with things that we will have to deal with at some point anyway.
Life is too short to be wasting time living in denial; make today the day you choose to change. Sara x
HYPNOSARA 