Although at times, we would rather do anything than face the (often unpleasant) facts of reality, without doing so, we cannot be truly happy. Happiness comes from a balance between our internal and external realities. Trying to convince ourselves that things are somehow different from how they really are doesn’t work. We are smarter than we sometimes give ourselves credit for being, and even if your conscious mind is willing to accept a distorted version of the truth, your subconscious will rebel.

We may believe that trying to avoid the gritty truths of human existence can make our lives easier and more pleasant. However, no matter how we sugar coat facts that are hard to swallow, or how we attempt to escape from reality through any number of mind-numbing behaviors, in our hearts we know that we are not being honest with ourselves, and this can be soul-destroying. At a deep level, we know that we are not being real, and what our highest selves crave most is to be real, to be honest, and to be whole.

When we know that we are avoiding a reality check, we usually feel a sense of discomfort, and uneasiness. Regardless of how much we want to believe otherwise, deep down we know that we need to face facts in order to deal with our circumstances, and to make healthy life choices. Rather than making life easier, burying our heads in the sand actually creates both short- and long-term difficulties.

In the short-term, without the clarity that a reality check can give us, we often tend to feel somewhat lost and confused. We try to convince ourselves that everything is fine, because we want it to be fine, but our awareness is that all is not right. We can also fall into very unhealthy patterns of avoidance, and develop dependence on activities or substances that provide the escapism or lowered awareness that we crave.

In the longer-term, avoidance of reality can really lead to trouble. The conflict between what we try to believe and what we truly know on a deeper level eventually escalates to a point where something has to give. We may experience some kind of an emotional collapse, melt-down, or even complete break-down.

While this kind of crisis is obviously not something that most of us would choose to have, it can actually provide an intense learning experience, and a very powerful reality check. If we avoid reality long enough, we will be forced to confront it sooner or later. It is of course healthier if we can develop the skills and strength needed to keep a regular check on reality, but for many of us, we find it too difficult to do this until we have experienced one or more crisis points in our lives.

Another difficulty that comes from unwillingness or inability to face reality is that when we finally reach the point where we cannot avoid a reality check any longer, there is likely to be a huge backlog of unacknowledged truths to be dealt with.

In my own marriage, for years and years, Ian and I both tried to avoid conflict and confrontation. On some level we believed that if we had ugly moments in our relationship, it would mean that the relationship wasn’t good. Fortunately we have been able to come to the point of realizing that this isn’t true. In fact, a relationship that seems completely rosy is very likely to be an unhealthy relationship, as the smooth surface almost certainly covers underlying land-mines.

If these land-mines can be set off regularly, the explosions are a lot less intense, and coping with one at a time is a whole lot easier than trying to deal with them all at once. Ian and I have recently been through a very intense period of dealing with years of unexpressed, unexamined, and unreleased ‘land-mines.’ We are fortunate to have a solid foundation in our relationship and good resources to help us withstand the ground-shaking phase that we have experienced.

We have definitely realized that by avoiding potentially difficult situations over the years, we did not do ourselves any favors! From now on, we will definitely opt for the discomfort that can come with a regular reality check, and avoid the much more painful alternative.

Life is not pretty sometimes, and yet it is this grittiness, this reality that makes it rich and beautiful. By embracing real life, warts and all, we are choosing to truly live.

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