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We deny what makes us uncomfortable, ashamed, or unhappy.

Yet denial often lasts too long to be useful or healthy.

Knowing the 7 signs and 7 solutions can help us face reality sooner.

“It’s not happening,” you tell yourself. But you know it is. It’s just easier to look the other way, assign blame, ignore advice, and bury your head.

Whether facing redundancy, infidelity, or death, we don’t realize we’re in denial, refusing to accept threatening or disruptive reality.

But the mythical ostrich must eventually raise its head. What it sees depends on how long it has stayed down and what happened in the meantime. The result of this ultimate defense mode is not only missed moments but lost credibility, and frequently, regret.

So how does it start?

Egotism can play a contributing role. Proud people don’t want to accept that their views or interpretation of the world are flawed. We want to believe our children never lie, parents will live forever, and colleagues want us to succeed.

In her book, Margaret Heffernan calls it willful blindness. It’s a blind spot and deaf spot combined. We see and hear only what we want. Yet there’s a difference between hope and denial. Hope says, “This might work out,” while denial says, “This isn’t happening.”

The self-deception is fueled by wishful thinking and low coping skills. Deniers may feel they can’t manage the upheaval, shame, or pain. Often, that’s true. Golman, Hagmann and Loewenstein refer to information avoidance. It may seem more attractive. Yet procrastination simply defers inevitable adjustment.

The underlying........

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