Leveraging Denial

A short coaching-style YouTube episode by Connor Beaton explaining how denial functions as a protective but informative mechanism and how to 'leverage' it to identify self-sabotage. He encourages listeners to ask themselves "What am I in denial of?" as a practical prompt, gives examples (relationships, health, routines), and includes promotional invitations to a men’s weekend and his Instagram.
Chapters
Welcome. I'm Connor Beaton, and on this week's midweek mini episode, we're going to talk about leveraging denial. That might seem very counterintuitive, but that's okay. Stick with me here for a few minutes and I will unpack this, because denial is an integral and incredibly important part to creating substantial change and finding clarity in our life. Before we dive into that, just a few housekeeping notes as a reminder. We have the men's weekend coming up in March, and we are almost sold out for that. So if you are looking at coming, if you're looking at joining us for the men's weekend, I would strongly suggest that you do so now. If you've been looking at studying your partner or wanting to suggest that he join us, then I would recommend you do so now. It's going to be an incredible weekend. We have some amazing men joining us from around the world, and we will be doing a deep dive into some shadow work, helping you overcome the things that sabotage your relationship, your sex, your finances, and helping you process through some of the things that have gotten in the way of you really having the fulfillment and the joy and the success that you want in your life. Not only that, but you'll be in man camp. We do some workouts. I teach you breath work and meditation and very specific meditation styles. You can bring that home with you and practice it, and you get connected with an incredible group of men that afterwards you stay connected with and. And you have some accountability there. So it's a really incredible weekend and I hope that you join us. So if you're interested in that, head on over to connorbeaton.com and sign up on the website. So let's dive into denial. All right. And this is an incredibly important topic. I'm going to read you just a quick little quote starting off here. Denial is a deeply underestimated state of being. Denial can be a marvelous and splendid thing when you see through the lens of its ability and capacity to mercifully blind the identity from the hard parts of life until it is ready to move on. And this is a quote from David White. He's a poet and philosopher. I've quoted him before. He really does have some phenomenal breakdowns of certain concepts. So here's what I love about this idea of leveraging denial to produce better results in your life and leveraging denial to overcome your own sabotage, your own lack of clarity. The reality is that denial, just as David White says, is there to mercifully blind us from the parts of life that we don't want to admit to mercifully blind us from, from how we are behind sabotaging our health or our morning routines, or mercifully blinding us from the emotions that are coming up, right? So denial will often present itself, will often show up when we're feeling sadness or grief or guilt or shame. And we don't want to experience that. And so denial pops up to insert itself so that we don't have to experience those emotions. Now, denial is also incredibly important because not only is it the thing that is blinding us from our behaviors, but it's also the access point. It is the vehicle in which we can use and leverage to see how we can produce those results almost immediately. So this is, in essence, we can leverage denial to, to be more of a self led man, to be more of a self led woman. And we do this by asking ourselves a simple question, what am I in denial of? So if you are someone who is starting off the year and you're trying to get your health in order, or your finances in order, or you are trying to wake up and build a morning routine or whatever it is, you're trying to work on a relational challenge, look at that challenge. Okay, let's say it's a relational challenge and ask yourself the question, what am I in denial of? And almost immediately your intuition will give you some form of an answer, right? It might be, I don't necessarily want to be in this relationship, I know it's not right for me, and you're in denial of that fact. Maybe it's, I'm holding back from actually committing to this relationship wholeheartedly, and I'm in denial of that. Maybe it's I continue to sabotage and allow the belief that I'm not good enough to continue to run the show. And as soon as we come face to face and sort of stare into the sun of that denial, we have very clearly identified the exact thing that is causing the sabotage that, that is preventing us from producing the result that we ultimately want in our relationship, in our finances, in our health, et cetera. And so we immediately have evidence of what we need to do in order to counter that story. So denial can be an incredibly powerful access point for us to understand what action, what specific action we need to take in order to gain more clarity, in order to produce better results, in order to have the depth of intimacy that we are looking for within our relationship. So my challenge for you, dear listeners, is that you ask yourself the question. If you are starting this year and you're setting the intentions. And you're trying to, let's say, go to the gym or do the yoga program or whatever else that it is. Ask yourself, what am I in denial of? What's one truth about this that I've been avoiding? And very quickly you will be met with something that you can take action towards. Maybe it's something a little bit more esoteric, like, well, what I've been avoiding is that I don't believe in myself or I don't believe I'm worthy of this relationship, or I don't believe I'm worthy of that promotion. Or maybe it's something more tangible, right? Like, let's say you're trying to build a morning routine. And what you've been in denial of is that you are not willing to to get uncomfortable. You're not willing to actually push your edge and get outside of your comfort zone. And you've been relying too much on being comfortable and sleeping in the mornings. So there you go. You have very clear evidence. And from there, the action that you know you need to take is counter to what you are in denial of. So if you've been in denial of not wanting to get uncomfortable, then you know that you need to get uncomfortable, right? The very clear action presents itself out of that space. So I encourage you to use this. Let me know how it goes. Reach out to me mantalks on Instagram and don't forget to share this episode. Although maybe preface it with I don't think that you're in denial, but maybe look at where you're in denial just to confuse the hell out of the people that you're sharing it with, whether it's on social media, with your followers, or with your friends. But take a look at where you're at in denial in your life because it can be an incredibly powerful tool and at realizing and setting ourselves free. Because far too often, denial is the thing that we are clinging to, right? There is an answer within us that we already know to be true. Our intuition already knows the truth about a specific situation, whether it's our relationship or our health or a routine or a habit that we're trying to create in our life. And denial can be the access point that shines a light on the action that we need to take. So thank you so much for tuning in this week. I hope you enjoyed. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.
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