10 truths that others tell us that we refuse to believe

Sometimes, lying does less damage than it helps. If some truths are not good to say, others struggle to be accepted. Our sensitivity, our hopes and our beliefs condition our perception of the truth.

When we face a situation that confronts our projections, we plunge into denial. The fault is cognitive biases which act on our perception and determine our behavior. However, to improve our relationships, it is better to take others at their word. This is the observation of Sara Kuburic, the psychotherapist with a million subscribers on Instagram under the pseudonym @millennial.therapist. According to her, certain sentences are more authentic than we imagine.

We lie to ourselves to protect ourselves

Between reality and its perception, there is sometimes a whole world. In situations where the truth doesn’t suit us, we often end up lying to ourselves. A psychological phenomenon that has a name: cognitive dissonance. Theorized by Leon Festinger in his work A theory of cognitive dissonance (1957), this notion translates into the contradiction between thoughts, emotions and cognitions. In other words, when a behavior is in opposition to our beliefs, cognitive dissonance pushes our brain to believe in what it considers more “comfortable”. So, when the truth hurts, the brain receives a stress message that it seeks to evacuate, which pushes it to stay in its comfort zone in order to be “functional”. This is where the lie reassures. Enough to confirm the famous quote from Albert Einstein: “If the facts don’t match the theory, change the facts. »

The psychologist Paul Watzlawick goes even further in his conception of reality. According to him, what we consider to be true is sometimes only a perception of the mind. His work emphasizes the distinction between two understandings:

The “first order reality” which represents the image of reality that we receive from our senses, what we perceive;
“Second order reality” which arises from the meaning we attribute to our perceptions.

If the first is based on the facts, it is the second which is the subject of debate. Finding meaning in our perceptions leads to changes in behavior. Hence the need to promote the idea of a “first order” reality.

10 truths that we must learn to accept

For Paul Watzlawick, “man literally constructs his reality and then reacts to it there, independently of himself, and finally arrives at the surprising idea that his reactions are both the cause and the effect of his construction of reality “. But if our behaviors are dictated by a subjective truth, they risk being biased and inappropriate. The limits of this phenomenon are palpable: mental ruminations, relational problems, social anxiety… So many consequences which result from a failure to perceive the truth of the other. Rather than torturing our minds, what if we simply accepted these truths? Psychotherapist Sara Kuburic lists several phrases that people can say to us and that we must admit:

They are not interested
They have feelings for someone else
They are not willing to commit
They won’t appear when you need them
They don’t want to change
They blame others for their problems
They make judgments/criticisms
They hold grudges
They don’t see you as a priority
They are emotionally unavailable