ReThink Denial: How to Stop Making Excuses and Start Seeing What Is

By iKE ALLEN, Founder of AVAIYA and Creator of ReThink & Somatic ReThink™

Once upon a time, I thought my ability to see the absolute “best” in everyone was a profound spiritual gift.

I believed that focusing entirely on a person’s potential—even when their actual behavior was destructive, chaotic, or hurtful—was the highest form of unconditional love.

I thought that if I just loved them hard enough, minimized the damage they caused, and always found a logical excuse for their actions, I was being an evolved, forgiving person.

But my journey into true awareness eventually forced me to confront betrayal, bankruptcy, divorce and more. It was a devastating reality to discover I wasn’t practicing unconditional love. I was practicing denial.

I was terrified of the pain that would come if I admitted how bad things actually were, because I knew that if I admitted the truth, I would have to make hard choices.

I realized I could continue looking through the eyes of the rationalizer—constantly painting red flags green to keep my fantasy alive—or I could look through the eyes of awareness.

I chose awareness…and initially, it sucked!

When you look through the eyes of awareness, you realize a profound, indisputable truth: You cannot heal or navigate a reality that you refuse to acknowledge.

True awakening is having the courage to look directly at the ugly, painful truth without immediately trying to dress it up in spiritual bypass or excuses.

This ReThink tool is for the person who is exhausted from performing mental gymnastics to justify someone else’s bad behavior.

The Denial Glitch

When you are faced with a reality that feels too dangerous, painful, or overwhelming to process (like a partner’s addiction, chronic deceit, or emotional abuse), your brain learns a very specific survival strategy: If I can just convince myself it’s not that bad, or that it’s somehow my fault, I won’t have to face the terrifying prospect of leaving or enforcing a boundary.

This is the “Denial Glitch.” Your brain has falsely linked lying to yourself with staying safe.

You end up walking around rejecting the present moment because you have replaced it with a fantasy of what you hope is happening. You are subconsciously saying, “If I acknowledge that they are hurting me, my world will collapse. Therefore, I must minimize the damage to survive.”

Today, we’re going to ReThink that protective reflex.

The part of enlightenment that’s actually so incredibly liberating isn’t about manifesting a perfect partner by only focusing on their “light.” It’s finally seeing things exactly as they are—accepting people’s actions at face value—without layering your own story of “they didn’t really mean it” on top of it.

Step 1: The Somatic Pause (Clearing the Static)

You cannot logic your way out of denial if your body is desperately trying to shield you from the shock and grief of the truth. The Somatic Pause gets your nervous system quiet enough so that your brain can drop the fantasy and do the heavy lifting of ReThinking the situation.

The Excuse Catch: The exact second you notice yourself rationalizing a boundary violation—saying things like, “They’re just really stressed at work,” “I shouldn’t have provoked them,” or “It’s not as bad as my friend’s marriage”—freeze. Catch the thought: “I am trying to escape reality by making an excuse because the truth feels too painful to hold.”
The Reality Anchor: Denial floats us away into a world of “potentials” and “somedays.” We need to physically drop down into the raw facts of today. Find a hard, solid object near you—a wooden table, a wall, the arm of a chair. Knock your knuckles against it three times. Hear the sound. Feel the dense reality of the object. Take a deep, slow breath in, and as you exhale, say out loud: “Facts are solid. I am safe enough to look at the facts.” You are signaling to your vagus nerve that you can survive the discomfort of the truth.

Step 2: The ReThink (Rewiring the Mind)

Now that the physical static is cleared, it’s time to enter The ReThink Shift. We have to challenge your ideas about “forgiveness” and potential by putting them on trial.

The Core Concept: Awakening is Seeing What Is. Fear wants you to believe that acknowledging a painful reality will completely destroy you (“If I admit they are an addict/abusive/unavailable, my life is over”). Grounded reality relies on radical presence (“Their behavior is harmful, this hurts deeply, and I am still going to survive this breath”). We have to ReThink denial not as “keeping hope alive,” but as a self-imposed prison. Life becomes wonderful not because everything is magically fixed, but because you stop gaslighting yourself.

The Old Story: “If I focus on their potential and forgive their mistakes, things will eventually get better. If I admit how bad this is, I will have to take action, and that is too scary.”

The New Reality: “Before enlightenment, the truth hurts. After enlightenment, the truth hurts. I am dropping the illusion of who I want them to be. I am choosing to look at who they are actually choosing to be right now.”

Your Turn: Identify your biggest “denial” trigger right now (e.g., your partner yells at you and you blame yourself, a friend repeatedly lies and you pretend you didn’t notice, you cover up the consequences of someone else’s addiction).

Line 1 (My Denial Trigger): ___________________________________________________________________
Line 2 (The “It’s Not That Bad” Story My Brain Made Up): ___________________________________________________________________
Line 3 (The Grounded Reality of What Actually Is): ___________________________________________________________________

Finding the Magic in the Mundane

The next time you catch yourself trying to transcend a painful truth by minimizing it, force your brain to look closely and identify reality.

Think of a recent time when you ignored a glaring red flag because it threatened the fantasy you were trying to maintain. How much time and energy did you waste trying to force an illusion to become real?

Write an “Awakening Mantra” to keep handy when the frantic urge to make excuses takes over. (e.g., “I choose the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable,” or “I see what is, not what I hope for.”)

A Final Thought: Awakening to What Is

You aren’t trying to generate a fantasy world where everyone lives up to their highest potential anymore.

The reality is, nothing really changes in the outer world until you stop pretending. People are still going to make destructive choices. They are going to disappoint you. The truth is going to hurt sometimes.

But when you finally drop the heavy backpack full of rationalizations, excuses, and the exhausting demand that you must protect everyone from the consequences of their actions, you realize how incredibly wonderful it is to simply live in the truth.

The suffering of self-deception vanishes. The ordinary, even when it’s messy, becomes deeply real. Your capacity to pause, regulate your body, and aggressively challenge the story that “it’s not that bad” is what actually sets you free.

I’ll Meet You Where You Are.

Keep ReThinking,

iKE ALLEN

Founder of AVAIYA and Creator of ReThink & Somatic ReThink™

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This Is How to Deal with Anger Toward an Addict

By Candace Plattor. Is it ever ok to get angry with the addict I love? The truth is that many people who love addicts are people-pleasers, which is another term for codependency. My simple definition of codependency is when we put others’ needs ahead of our own, on a fairly consistent basis. Codependent people sometimes feel very guilty when they try to have their own needs met – believing, in some cases, that they are not worthy of having their needs...

7 Ways to Recognize A Toxic Relationship & What You Can Do About It

By Stephanie McPhail. Along with physical wellness and financial security, having healthy relationships is one of the biggest contributors to a balanced and fulfilling life. Sometimes, even when we appear to have achieved these things on the surface, there are indicators that we’re lacking the necessary ingredients to sustain them. When they go unaddressed, these detrimental factors will eventually undermine the contentment we desire. By learning to recognize the signs of imbalance, we can begin to take steps to correct them and...

Codependency Recovery: 7 Steps for Healing Yourself and Your Relationships

By Michelle Farris. One size does NOT fit all when it comes to codependency. Whether you relate to a few traits or all of them – recovering from codependency looks different on every person! In relationship, the codependent person ends up doing most of the giving. You give way past the point of it hurting because you need that person to make you feel whole. When codependency is an issue, you crave other people’s approval. You’re constantly looking outside of...

What Is Codependency?

By Kevin Petersen. Addiction. It’s a disease that affects the entire family. When a person suffers from addiction, it creates a detrimental impact on one’s life, and it can be difficult to watch someone you care about go through this. But let’s face it: it’s common for family members to take it upon themselves to try to heal a loved one struggling with addiction. Without proper treatment, this can turn into a toxic..

The Life-Changing Insight That Helped Me Finally Break Free From Codependency

By Marlena Tillhon. Traditional codependency literature has you believe that codependency usually emerges in romantic relationships. We only become aware of it once we’ve had our hearts broken a few dozen times and leap from unhealthy relationship to unhealthy relationship. In my personal and professional experience, codependency expresses itself through us in all areas of life and not just in our love lives...

Stop Gaslighting Your Inner Child

By Candace van Dell. In my work, I often talk about what we do to our inner child is what was done to us in childhood. We learn to parent our inner child, punish her/him, neglect, reject or abandon (if this is what was done to us). Many of these experiences create codependency...

Codependency and Childhood Neglect: What You Need To Know

By Briana MacWilliam. How does childhood neglect contribute to codependent relationships in adulthood? In this article we will explore a definition for childhood neglect and codependent relationships, and explore how one begets the other. You will also learn how to recognize if you have experienced childhood neglect...

The Natural Attraction of Codependents and Narcissists

By Carista Luminare. I have been a relationship counselor for 44 years, specializing in how the bond with our primary attachment figures impacts our adult intimacy dynamics. Our childhood experiences and development define our capacity to know what Love IS (and is not). Because of my childhood and later life relationships...

Are You Walking on Eggshells in Your Relationship?

By Rhoberta Shaler, Ph.D. When you must tread lightly because of a fragile ego, tiptoe around someone’s short temper, or be careful what you say or how you say it… that’s walking on eggshells. Do you recognize that you are walking on eggshells? It’s a difficult and uncomfortable way to be in relationship with someone! Are you always...

How To Cultivate Self-Trust

By Krista Resnick. Codependency created much pain and agony in my life. One of the ways it manifested most was my extreme lack of self trust. I would overthink decisions to death, fearful that I would choose the ‘wrong one,’ or upset someone if they didn’t agree or were disappointed by my choice. I was terrified of...

What Codependency Really Is & What It’s Doing For You

By Marshall Burtcher. Have you been told any of these things about codependency:

That it is a disease?
That it is an identity?
That it is part of who you are?
That it is permanent?
That you’ll have to cope with it for the rest of your life?...

What Does Codependency Look Like in Family Relationships?

By Yasmin Kerkez. Codependency is certainly not a new condition, and awareness of codependency is growing in the greater community. At the same time, it’s also one of those labels that many of us have heard of but don’t know exactly what it involves. In the media and online, it is most commonly linked to romantic relationships, people who exist in a caregiver role...