Course 3: PL 102 - Denial & Distractions (Discussion 3)

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words? ÃÂ

I would define denial in my own words is like avoiding the truth. A person may think this is what happened, so basically they are believing their own lies and if the person feels attacked, judged or guilty, they will create their own reality of what had happened.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

The most important thing I learned about things that operate outside of awareness or unconscious is that when you are not aware, things happen automatically, so for instance another good example is breathing. It is only when we are aware of it, the pattern of our breathing changes.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

The top 3 distraction systems are Food, Online Distractions and Social Media. Social Media is the most powerful because we live in a society that is evolving. It is all about what is ‘trending’, we have an urge to feel we need it, to the point some people are obsessed with social media. Sometimes I will see people crossing the road, literally glued to their devices, which is not good. This deprives you of your sleep, which leads to insomnia, and will affect your health.

1. How would you define denial in your own words? ÃÂ

According to me, Denial is when we do not accept reality and use different mechanisms to save ourselves from facing that reality. We do this when the reality is difficult, embarrassing, painful and hard to accept.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

The things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious are the things that were once learned. When we repeat and practice them, they go into our unconscious and become automatic behaviour.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

For me, the top 3 distraction systems are Food, Wealth, and Social Media.

Food is the most powerful of these because now people are addicted to food. It is like a drug to them because consuming food makes them feel relaxed. Especially junk food has a similar effect on the brain as the effect of the drugs in the past. Keeping ourselves busy with consuming food helps us to avoid the realities of life and painful emotions.

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

For me, denial is being willfully ignorant to something in front of you, crafting your own reality to live in blissfully.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

We can be living with bad habits without even noticing it, because of how natural it has become.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Food, internet, and money. I think money as a whole has been the most distracting. A lot of people lose sight of important things in front of them, their family, health, or personal interests, so they can make more money.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Simply put, as mentioned in the previous post, Denial is burying your issues and covering them up. For instance : You had a long day at work and are very emotional etc. You hop on the video game to cover it up or , "bury it", and as it mentioned in the book, throw it in the bag you've got following you. Video games are one of many burying tools. Beer, TV, phone, apps, reading, matter of fact anything can be a burying tool if you use it in that way. An example of how it can be bad. Your burying tool is making tea, you make your pot of tea, enjoy a cup, then the tea runs out. You get anxious and start thinking back to your day only to be in front of the stove, brewing another pot of tea. Basically if you bury it , it will always be there.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

It's got a huge influence. ie: TV,Music,Moives,Shows,Interactions, Websites. You are what you consume, that isn't only food ladies and gents.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Technology, being phones,consoles,tvs, etc. The most powerful, I'd have to say is the cell phone. The kids are getting them younger and younger, and the older folks are figuring them out to stay glued. A huge majority of society is glued to their phones at family functions, parties, in public, anywhere. As stated , the phones have apps. and websites. which bring relief, and that tool being in your pocket 24/7 or around you. In your hands. Is almost like that culture of fear in chapter one. It's that device that administers that dose of "feel good" medicine. Like Soma in Brave New World. People spend more time interacting on their phones, then they do with the people around them. Think about a bus, a subway, a train. Glued to their phones, when there's people all around to communicate and interact with. They pick the phone. The safe route. The one that's been proven to "relieve" them.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial can be defined as someone refusing to acknowledge someone else's (or one's own) needs, situation, emotions, result of an event, and so on. There is an intentional disengagement from reality in order to protect themselves or to avoid conflict, be it mentally, emotionally or physically.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

They are mechanisms formed by our perceived need based on our interactions with our sociocultural sphere. Some are helpful, some are not.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

I would say food, online distractions and employment/school.

These take up the most of our time when we consider averages over the world. Everyone needs food, everyone has access to the internet (or, well, everyone with money that corporations want) and an overwhelming amount of people either are in employment or in school. The most powerful one is indubitably online distractions, because they spend literal billions trying to find new ways to "hack the human attention system". And they succeed at it. The internet is where you find an excess of everything material, and also where you start to compare with people who have completely no relation to you and about whom you have absolutely no context to go off of. It's illogical and irrational, but we were never that logical and rational to begin with.

1. How would you define denial in your own words?
Pretending things away.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?
It's a bit like automation. It just happens and builds over time.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?
Sweets, which serve no purpose other than I like the way they taste. Online distractions, which encourages me to read the news too much and worry too much. Social Media isn't a problem for me, I don't engage with it, but I understand that it's a problem for many others. Anything that takes away from our reality, without enhancing our lives, isn't a healthy coping mechanism.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial is something that we decide to believe in, to ignore pain and hardships and make us falsely believe that everything is ok.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

We can learn negative habits if we are not wary of them through addictive foods and websites, and we may also be lucky enough to learn positive habits if we work hard at them.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Food, alcohol money the internet. I think that food is the most powerful because there are so many different addictive carbohydrate foods out there that are designed to be irresistible.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

Denial is - refusal to admit the truth or reality of something unpleasant . Denial also acts as a defence mechanism to some people when confronted with a personal problem or to avoid the existence of a problem or harsh reality.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

When we reinforce something over and again and once that is mastered , it automatically moves to the part of our unconscious mind. So it's something that we gradually learned and implement it unconsciously.
In terms of behaviour, it's greatly influenced by parents to their children at a very early stage where the basics are learned . When certain behaviour/feelings or attributes are less acceptable, it is then invalidated by parents, hence it then moves and becomes a part of the child's unconscious mind. That reflects later on their lives, especially in areas of unconscious relationship patterns.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems?

1. Food
2. Online Distractions
3. Social Media

Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

In my perspective, online distractions is one of the most powerful form of disraction because in the modern era of technology evolution, the internet is a readily accessible tool. People rely upon it for entertainment purposes and even as a form of distraction or an "escape" from an internal or external triggers. As a result of that, the chemical reaction in our brain - dopamine (happy hormone) is hijacked which leaves us addicted, wanting more and more to no limits.

@GlenM

Money – It distracts you from reality as you can buy anything including friends, the problem with that is, that it doesn’t give you the reality, it creates a fantasy while hurting others.

The internet – seeing other people post about their lives drives the jealousy up. How dare they achieve what I wanted to achieve, and I will spend hours imagining I was successful.

Family – they have an idea of what they’d like you to be, and if you fail their dream, you let them down, feeling pressure and eventually causing drift between family members.

@GlenM

1. How would you define denial in your own words?

I would say denial is something that we unconsciously do, in order to protect ourselves. Most of the time it has the opposite effect though, and we find ourselves only deeper in our issues than before.

2. What is the most important thing you learned about things that operate outside of awareness or the unconscious?

That maybe we are not able to control what happens, but we are able to control how we respond to it.

3. What do you believe are the top 3 distraction systems? Which one of these is the most powerful and why?

Wealth, as it distracts us from what really matters and only draws our attention to materialistic things.

School, as we keep hunting down grades, and forget about why we were even there. In our minds it wasn't ever education, it was stress and anxiety and worry about getting an A.

Video Games, they might be fun from time to time, but at a certain point we keep spending more time in a virtual reality than in the real one.

But the main problem I see, are accomplishments. We spend so much time in our heads, making plans for the future that once we are there, we can't even enjoy the moment.

So rather than being distracted all the time, we could choose to focus on what matters to us and spend more time in the present.

❤️