Getting out of delusion and self-deception

I am amazed by the number of inquisitive acquaintances and friends who have asked me about my healing journey when they seem to be wanting to know...

"HOW did you EVER get through that???




In looking back at my life, I even doubted my ability to extricate myself from abuse and endure minimal loss of property and preserve my own financial stability. At times, I had not believed that it would ever be possible but then again, I had not even begun to try to "think it through" to see if it could possibly be feasible. 

I remember getting an "epiphany" and it was like a light bulb had just been turned on above my head while I was sitting at my workstation one day. I started to think of "the impossible"...could I financially "swing it" on my income alone if my son and I moved out of the rented house from his father and half sister. My mother and father were no longer living with us and it had been a few months before that I realized that mom would be moving out to live with our brother. It was time for me to consider "the impossible". If you are reading this, you might have experienced this also or at least begun to believe in the possibility.

I have evaluated HOW I was able to free myself; free my mind, my thoughts and my feelings by understanding terms such as detachment, delusion and self-deception. Let's focus on the latter two...

What is the difference between delusion and self-deception??? 
Delusion is when a belief or impression is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument. 
Self-deception is the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or invalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.

Since it is TRUTH Day (every Friday) here at Singing a New Song, I was wondering about the difference of these two concepts and what it means to our lives when it comes to "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".


I believe that delusion leads to self-deception and that self-deception validates the delusion. It is a wicked, hopeless, unending circle until the "spell" is broken. (see Patricia Evan's book; The Verbally Abusive Man) 

In hopes to not lose you in any confusion, let's look at an example of how this may look in our lives. Let's just imagine for a moment that we are deluded about a belief about a person (and of course "we do not understand that we do not understand" ); they could NEVER abuse us, therefore, we choose to see their behavior as NOT BEING abuse and then this is self-deceiving in that it INVALIDATES our sense of true self and squashes out any possibility of asking the needed questions because "this is what I am supposed to do about it because I believe" this or that (this is how my abusive ex husband managed to abuse me for nearly 11 years; I was in delusion and self-deception) 


Let's look at it the other way. Let's imagine again that we are self-deceived. Of course, it is again the same situation that "we do not understand that we don't understand" something about our SELF. It may be because we do not truly know ourselves and have beliefs about ourselves that may not be based upon fact or that is based squarely upon delusion. We may have unhealed abuse damage and it is just too painful to face it so we DENY our pain, our damage and believe whatever "covers" the whole situation and how it has affected us and our beliefs. Our example will be; as in my situation, I was a christian. The premise of "being a christian" is that we are not perfect but we are "forgiven", and in my life, I had a very close relationship with a family member, also a christian, who was abusive to me in ways that she still has not yet even begun to understand. She would say horrific, hurtful and "unchristian" things and behave in VERY unchristian ways (just imagine someone who says that they are a christian but cheats, lies and betrays family members for nothing more than their own pleasure; without thinking about relationship with others any thing beyond what "they get out of it"). 

Denial, delusion, detachment, self-deception were concepts that I had deeply explored before I could even begin to "find myself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". It has been an enlightening journey. 

Though my healing journey has been enlightening, 

it has not always been pleasant. 

I had to accept that things were "not as I believed them to be".  

It was painful to recognize that I could only hold myself accountable for living in that denial and delusion. 

Once I understood that I didn't understand, I forgave myself for not understanding that I didn't understand and was not able to "break the spell" of delusion and self-deception in my life sooner.

How do we know WHEN we are in delusion and self-deception? How do we "get ourselves out of delusion and self-deception?" I have learned that I needed to be open to accepting things AS THEY ARE rather than how we think they "should be" or how we would really like them to be. This is really SO MUCH EASIER said than done; to accept the truth that is contradictory to what you have believed for so long or feel validates us as a person is earth-shaking. Taking it to a deeper level, we then need to be open to exploring our CORE BELIEFS, question their validity and truth and see how they have created the reason that we believe what we do about ourselves. We evaluate, not judge, ourselves to see what areas are being run and ruled by untruths, denial, delusion and self-deception and make a personal commitment to bravely FACE THE TRUTH. 

You can do it, I did it and we can together take one step at a time...that is how healing and the "Singing a New Song" journey starts. 

YOU ARE worth it!!!