DENIAL, SELF-PUNISHMENT, AND THEIR ANTIDOTE

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328) was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic. He had perceived that we erect an array of internal barriers to protect ourselves:

·       A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of our heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as think and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. God into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

I had been so out-of-touch with myself that I used to ask, “Who am I, and how can I just be myself.” I had built so many barriers against self-knowledge that I was clueless.

When I look back at myself, I ask, “Why do we not want to know ourselves as we truly are? Why do we erect our barriers, which serve to alienate us from ourselves and others?” The obvious answer is that we don’t want to know ourselves. There are certain aspects of ourselves that are just too painful to confront.

But what can be so painful that we build barriers against self-knowledge and even against others seeing us as we are? As with any drug addiction, these barriers offer short-term comforts but long-term and exorbitant costs. One obvious one is the cost of wisdom. If we refuse to know ourselves, we cannot understand others and life in general. Why not? We are the lens through which we see everything else. If we cannot understand what is within, we also cannot understand what is on the outside.

Humility has wisdom. Why? When we honestly examine ourselves, we are humbled by what we see. Ordinarily, we convince ourselves that it’s always the other person’s fault and not ours. We might erect this kind of defensive barrier to protect our ego but at the cost of relationships and even job performance. If we are unwilling to honestly examine ourselves, we will be unable to learn and correct ourselves.

Humility is the ability to accept ourselves as we truly are, and this is painful. What is so painful and so difficult to accept? Many have observed that the human race lives in chronic denial. In a New York Times 2007 article, “Denial Makes the World Go Round,” Benedict Carey, by virtue of the overwhelming evidence, concluded:

·       Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news, like a cancer diagnosis.

·       “The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” “We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.”

We cannot stand seeing ourselves as unworthy and immoral cheaters, but why can’t we simply laugh at ourselves and move on? Well, we don’t. It’s simply too threatening. What makes it so threatening? It is not simply that we have emotions of guilt and shame. We also sense that we deserve punishment.

Most of us try to cover over this sense by proving that we don’t deserve punishment through attainments and the approval of others. Others address this sense through self-harm (cuttings, burnings) – 20% of women and 14% of men:

·       The physical pain of cutting not only diffuses negative emotion, but it can also create a sense of calm and relief. Because it works almost instantly, cutting is highly reinforcing—some even say addictive. Individuals who cut describe the sensation as an escape or a release of pressure, similar to how people suffering from bulimia describe purging.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/201610/self-injury-4-reasons-people-cut-and-what-do

Why would cutting release pressure? Why wouldn’t spending money or taking a walk suffice? Could it be that we know that we deserve punishment and therefore punish ourselves? When asked why they self-harm, many claim “I dunno!..after I cut, I felt better.” https://aeon.co/essays/how-self-harm-provokes-the-brain-into-feeling-better

Research affirms the sense of relief that many experience:

·       People who self-harm, writes [Carrie] Arnold, have “learned that, while the pain peaks with self-injury, it then comes down the other side. The physical pain lessens – as does the emotional pain.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/theres-scientific-reason-why-self-harm-makes-some-people-feel-better-180953062/

However, when we accidentally cut ourselves, we don’t feel relief. Why then would the cutter feel relief? Evidently, the relief derived from cutting is not strictly biochemical. There must also be a psychological component. However, the relief is only very temporary, like a drug fix. Why? Cutting and drugs do not address the underlying psychological problem.

Of what then does this problem consist? Self-punishment, as some have recognized:

·       “I started self-harming as a teenager as a way to punish myself.”

·       "Sometimes you feel the urge after just the smallest negative feeling. One thing goes wrong like you dropped a book or missed the bus and you immediately feel so inadequate that you want to harm yourself." https://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/self-harm-confessions

Whose standards are we failing? Not those of our parents, who would quickly absolve us. Instead, it’s our own standards!

·       “Every time I cut, I was trying to save myself.” https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/why-do-christians-harm-themselves

Indeed, self-harm is often associated with religious practice. Nadim Kazmi has written that among Shia Muslims:

·       There is also nothing strange in seeing participants who, immersed in what appears to be a spiritual ecstasy, are made to calm down, often to prevent further injury to themselves. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/28/religion.islam

Why “spiritual ecstasy?” It seems that the experience is similar to the relief that self-punishment offers to others. How? We need to feel that we are good and worthy. Why don’t we usually feel that way? We correctly sense that we aren’t good and worthy. Instead, we have a sense that we deserve punishment, and once we are self-punished, we can regain that sense of worthiness, at least temporarily.

Often the cure tells us a lot about the nature of the affliction. Once I had giardia. My doctor prescribed just the right antibiotic, and the giardia was killed. This confirmed that my problem had been giardia.

As I grew in the understanding that Christ loved me so much that He died for my sins, my sense of unworthiness and condemnation disappeared, and along with it, my defensive layers of denial. I longer needed them to protect me. Christ became my cure! I was free as Jesus had promised:

·       “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

What a privilege I can now enjoy:

·       Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience... (Hebrews 10:19-22)