Denial
“How
do we grieve consciously to avoid more suffering that would come with denial,
blame, and further distancing ourselves from one another?”
Jerry Wright (The Mystical Path Less Traveled, p.58; Chiron Publications,
Asheville, NC, 2021)
As you
know, there are several stages of grief. They don’t happen in order, and they
don’t happen in a predictable period of time. They come when they come, and
sometimes stay for a long time. One of the stages of grief is denial. Denial is
a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with
reality itself is avoided by denying its existence. In the case of death, we usually
describe this as a numb period when we simply can’t let the reality of the loss
sink into our awareness. It’s helpful as defense mechanism to get us through
the immediate aftermath of the death and accomplish the necessary arrangements
for funeral and burial.
Denial
as a psychological defense mechanism for unacceptable behavior works wonderfully,
until it doesn’t. We can refuse to believe the wrong-doing took place, refuse
to even be aware that there is a problem at all, refuse to admit we have any
responsibility for the problem, refuse to believe that obviously bad behavior
is wrong—perhaps for others, but not for us. We usually employ a word salad of
blame and denial, attribute our behavior to circumstances outside our control, or
to the behavior of another person or persons. Remember Flip Wilson’s, “the
devil made me do it!” And of course, we can know full-well that we did it and
simply lie about it—but that’s another thing all together.
The
hope, psychologically speaking, is to at least be aware we are in denial about whatever
it is. I’m reminded of Jimmy Buffett’s song “Margaritaville.” The lyrics go
from “it’s nobody’s fault,” to “it’s my own damn fault,” with stops in between,
when “there’s a woman is to blame.” Of course there is!
When denial is used as a
collective defense mechanism, it can stir up a lot of trouble. When a nation
denies the reality of a problem, there will be massive repercussions. We can be
in denial about our “isms” for decades, centuries even, but something will
happen that triggers the fear behind them and suddenly, they are right here,
right now. This has happened with racism, and with all our gender-isms. We are
afraid of what will happen if we let these things, and others like them, be
admitted into consciousness. White supremacy, anti-feminism, anti-immigrant, anti-science,
all our other antis, and isms become fodder for blame and too often, violence.
Instead of standing up and making the problem front and center, and instead of pulling
together to address that problem, we stand back, point fingers and pull out the
heavy artillery. The violence in the country is at an all time high—it’s random
and non-sensical, and still, we avoid the reality of it, and we refuse to take
responsibility for it, and the beat goes on.
We have a lot to grieve
in America. We seem stuck in the denial stage of grief. I hope we can find a
way to break this gridlock and allow ourselves to be aware of both our losses
and our responsibilities. If we are to heal, we must stop denying reality. If
we join hands, I believe we can do it.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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