What Is a Denial?

Eliminating thoughts and beliefs we have come to regard as false, limiting, or negative. True denial releases the energy expended in holding nonproductive ideas.

Denials are often partnered with affirmations. First, we clear away or release a false belief, followed by affirming an important truth. Together they make a valuable and rewarding tool.

What Is an Example of a Denial?

Denials about money:

  • I release the idea that there is not enough, that I could run out of time or money.
  • I am not subject to the mass consciousness of fear and insecurity with every turn of the market.
  • False notions of lack and limitation have no hold on me.
  • My value is not defined by my present net worth.

How I Think About Denials

By Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett

Spiritual denial is not the same as the psychological term that means refusing to face reality. We never suggest denying the facts or glossing over feelings.

This spiritual form of denial—a term coined more than a century ago—means to release or renounce. It is dis-identifying with and eliminating thoughts and beliefs that we have come to regard as false, limiting, or negative. True denial releases the energy expended in holding nonproductive ideas.

In this sense, we can deny:

  • Any belief we have been harboring about the permanence of our circumstance or the length of time it is taking to resolve.
  • Negative interpretations of the circumstance, such as making it mean that something is broken, wrong, or missing in our life.
  • Identification with the condition, such as naming it “my” disease or making the condition a bigger part of our life than it actually is.
  • Believing what I have been told and what “everyone” knows about a condition. A good example is claiming seasonal allergies because “everyone” has them.
  • Self-punishing beliefs about God and about human nature.

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