Lies

Lies. We lie all the time, but probably not in the way you think. When you hear the word “lie”, your mind immediately associates it with interpersonal lies. Interpersonal lies are the lies that we tell strangers, friends, loved ones, and family. The lies we will discuss today are intrapersonal lies. These intrapersonal lies are the lies that we tell ourselves.  

I propose that these intrapersonal lies represent a variety of coping mechanisms and that these intrapersonal lies are fundamental in the way that we live our lives. 

First, we must ask ourselves why we tell ourselves lies. Similar to the development of our change mindset (refer to the blog on Change), our propensity to lie to ourselves is developed at a young age. From infancy, we start to observe the world around us and make conclusions about that world. The unfortunate thing is that we lack critical thinking skills at this age. This leads us to internalize a lot of false information about the world.

For example, let’s suppose that you were rarely praised as a child. This will probably lead you to believe that there is something wrong with you. This will likely lead you to become a perfectionist. When people inevitably point out your imperfections, you will experience a lot of anxiety. More likely than not, you will lie to yourself and tell yourself that this anxiety does not stem from your childhood.  

Everyone has a unique childhood, and I could go on all day giving examples about how your value system and sources of emotional distress are attached to your childhood, but the important part is that we constantly lie to ourselves about how those past experiences affect us today.  

The idea that we constantly lie to ourselves is common in mainstream disciplines of psychology too: 

The concept of intrapersonal lying is found in psychoanalytical theory. Rationalization is the process by which we attempt to justify unacceptable thoughts/behaviors. For example, a smoker may say, “it’s okay that I smoke. I need to smoke in order to function”. Denial is a defense mechanism when we lie about the existence of a harmful belief or behavior. For example, a smoker may claim that they “don’t have a smoking problem” when confronted. 

Cognitive behavioral psychology focuses on our irrational thoughts and how they harm us. One of the irrational thoughts takes the form of emotional reasoning, “I feel like an idiot, so I must be an idiot”. This emotional reasoning is another way we lie to ourselves.   

These lies are harmful, and we see them in our everyday lives. People will pursue careers and maintain jobs that they hate because they tell themselves that they enjoy it deep down. These people will try and rationalize this by blaming their hatred for the job on the people they work with or how much they are being paid. It makes us uncomfortable to change major aspects of our lives (such as career) because they are usually connected to our irrational and axiomatic beliefs. 

We all lie to ourselves in one way or another, and it isn’t easy to confront this truth. We lie to ourselves because we don’t have the strength to recognize the truth. By recognizing the truth, we are forced to confront the consequent ramifications. Despite the difficulty of confronting this truth, it is very important that we do it. These intrapersonal lies harm us and force us to make decisions that are against our best interests. You must take an active role in analyzing your irrational beliefs and you must make the choice to be honest with yourself. Introspection and psychotherapy and both excellent ways we can remedy these harmful tendencies. Ultimately, by lying to ourselves, we are preventing ourselves from making meaningful and necessary changes to our lives.