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Denial is Not a River in Egypt

Denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is an ostrich-like burying of one’s head in the sand, an unwillingness to hear the brutal truth about something or a resistance to looking at a problem and being willing to take the necessary steps, even when it is difficult, to face it head-on and work through it. Denial is merely avoidance dressed up in disguise. 

So let me talk about the big fat elephant in the room that many people may just not want to acknowledge right now. It is all around us. It is everywhere. It’s the heart wrenching, gut-punching, soul-destroying emotions that are swimming just beneath the surface of what is acceptable to admit and openly express. It’s our collective shadow emotions and negative thoughts, suppressed under a thin veneer of positivity and put on a smile-as-best-as-you-can face so that we can just keep going. Because, if we aren’t resilient and do not employ our well-developed ‘coping skills’, we may just very well break down or fall apart. 

So many have lost so much. They have lost jobs, businesses, incomes, lovers, opportunities, life-affirming activities, dreams for the future and much, much more. But by far the most difficult for most to swallow is the loss of our nearest and dearest; our friends, family members, co-workers, and siblings. It’s the people we love the most that we have lost. Beneath the well-formed masks, we are steeped in grief, anger, doubt, and uncertainty about the future. 

When I mention to people a desire to create spaces where people can process their true thoughts and feelings, I am met with responses like “But, you can’t present it as grief or anger, because nobody will come.” You have to “market and package” it differently. But, if you offered it to parents as a way to help children deal with their anxiety and process their grief, then people would be more interested. 

So we will do it for our children. We will do almost anything for our children. But we won’t do it for ourselves. And my question is Why Not? Why will we not do the same for the child aspect within us that we wouldn’t hesitate for a second to do for our children? The inner child that is in pain, the one that is crying out to be held and comforted, the one that desperately needs someone to give him or her an answer, a tool, a skill, a way of constructively dealing with these difficult feelings, or even just a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on.

Here are just some of the reasons we avoid sharing, discussing or processing these thoughts and feelings:

  • It’s painful and as human beings we generally tend to avoid feeling pain
  • They makes us feel weak, powerless and vulnerable
  • We do not want to be judged by others for what we think and how we feel
  • We are afraid we will never stop feeling it, once we start
  • We don’t know what to do with it or how to process and heal it

So what do we do instead? We do things. We focus on work. We numb out and distract ourselves with food, television, social media, sex, and many other forms of escapism. We medicate so that we don’t actually have to feel what we are feeling. And we busy ourselves with activity, relentless, never-ending, incessant doing, so that we can avoid facing the feelings or listening to the thoughts that we don’t know what to do with.

What’s wrong with this, you may ask? There are two main problems that denial can cause. The first is that it is harmful to our physical health. Negative energy, unprocessed, gets stuck in the organs and cells in our bodies. If neglected for long enough, this energy builds up over time, and then one day, some small event triggers us and we melt down or blow up without even knowing why. Alternatively, we get headaches, backaches, hip aches, heartaches, and all sorts of other aches and pains, because unprocessed emotional pain eventually turns to physical pain, disease, or illness, which is more difficult to ignore and forces us to pay attention.

Secondly, it is harmful to our mental health. We get depressed. We may eventually reach a place in our lives where we find that we are stagnant, stuck and having major difficulty doing the things that we used to, pursuing our goals or showing up energized, vital, optimistic and motivated every day. We start feeling listless, fatigued, drained or exhausted and we can’t move forward even though we want to. 

So if you:-

  • Are not feeling like yourself
  • Have lost people that matter to you recently or throughout your life
  • Are experiencing aches, pains or physical symptoms in your body
  • Feel exhausted, overwhelmed, disconnected or lost
  • Are medicating so that you don’t have to feel what you don’t want to feel
  • Are stuck in an addictive cycle you can’t get yourself out of but want to
  • Are feeling like you can’t do this or you just can’t go on anymore 
  • Feel all alone, unsupported and have no-one to talk to  
  • Would like to support your children or others who are grieving 

Then:

Email jax@jaxtheartist.co.za or WhatsApp Jax on 082 778 1818 to schedule a 30 minute Hearts Meet to discuss your needs.

Subscribe to our monthly Heartbeat newsletter here: https://bit.ly/JaxHeartbeat.

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