yesterdaywasdifferentthen:

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

—

Fyodor Dostoevsky (via misanthropyaddict)

What starts this lie? Is it a lack of belief in ourselves? Is it a sub-conscious effort to protect ourselves from pain? Is it an instinctive response to protect ourselves in the face of uncertainty because we may not have developed the coping mechanisms needed to face a reality not of our choice or making? And when our perspective of reality is altered to the point where the lie becomes hidden, and we can no longer connect the dots of our dysfunction or dis-ease back to the lie, do we then observe the end state and define a remedy based on that? Or do we start with the assumption that a state of dis-ease or dysfunction is a result of choices made at a time when we were trying to protect ourselves thereby assuming that we’re all functional and balanced to begin with, and then trying to work our way through the maze from the end to the start in order to identify the incident that led down the path that gave birth to the lie that landed us in the state of dis-ease?