Today I would like to turn your attention toward an aspect of the human mind that refuses to deal with anything uncertain and resorts to denial every time its “certainty model” is challenged.
As a broad generalization* most people when confronted with an idea, fact or situation which challenges their model of the world** wish they never had to face it in the first place.
*I use here the term “generalization” as in NLP, meaning ˜Generalization occurs when one specific experience represents a whole class of experiences”.
**The term Model of the World is also an NLP term meaning ˜a person’s values, beliefs and attitudes that relate to and create his or her own world’.
Every so often circumstances bring to us situations where we are confronted with other “truths” opposite to what we hold as “our truth” and we go through a shockingly unpleasant surprise. We don’t have adequate strategies to handle it. That’s when most people resort to denial – and what can’t be denied can always be ridiculed or rationalized away as false.
You will recognize the previous paragraph. You have seen something like this before. You have heard something similar, you’ve read something comparable, you saw it in the movies, magazines, and it sounds like an old cliché. Well, it is! It is itself a generalization for which most untrained people have no explanation. In fact psychology has dedicated a whole study to denial and has established rules upon rules explaining denial as a psychological attribute.
First we are not talking here about all people. I said most which only means more than half. Actually, as I think of it , much more than half! Why is that? Why is it that even when presented with facts and data corroborated by impressive scientific institutions, when the truth challenges people’s most cherished beliefs about “how it is” people resort to denial? Are they “just not flexible” enough? Are they simply control freaks? Unwilling to accept anything new? Stubborn? Incapable? Feeble? Stuck? Stupid? Dim-witted?
Try this scenario on. You buy a new blender. It was expensive. On your way home you send a quick Twitter to all your friends bragging about how much you spent on this piece of electronic wonder. It is a great brand and you can blend anything including avocado seeds. It looks impressive and the specs are remarkable. You plug it in, put in the ingredients, put the lid on top and the fact that you end up with half the liquid on the counter, on your clothes, the floor, the wall and the nearby fridge is of no consequence. You just need to convince yourself that it was you, not the blender that was the problem. The fact that the lid does not support the pressure coming from inside and jumps off every time you press the ON button, means nothing. It must be your fault.
We’ll see the rest of the story in Part 2 of this article.
Until then, be well