Three Signals You Are Misleading Yourself

Show Notes

Most people assume that catching themselves in a self-deception will feel obvious. It rarely does. Brian walks through three concrete signals that indicate your internal explanation is functioning as a shield rather than a search for truth, and each one is specific enough to notice in real time if you know what to look for.

The first is speed. A response that arrives before the question is even finished is almost always pre-scripted, which means it has not been examined. The second is direction. When your explanation consistently points outward, at other people, circumstances, or bad timing, that outward orientation is doing the work of protecting something inward. The third is relief. If telling yourself a story about a situation immediately dissolves the discomfort, the story is functioning as a bandage rather than a diagnostic tool. Genuine reflection does not feel like relief right away.

• Why suspiciously fast answers are a red flag in internal dialogue
• How blame and externalization function as misdirection rather than analysis
• The relief signal and why comfort after explanation can indicate avoidance
• The difference between a default response and an unexamined one
• How these patterns erode agency over time by surrendering it to circumstances
• What the awareness phase of the ARAA sequence is actually designed to collect

Understanding these signals does not require you to judge yourself for having them. It requires you to notice them, which is the entire point of the awareness phase.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] So if it's very common for people to mislead themselves and again, not lie to themselves
[00:06] most of the time, but if it's really common for you to mislead yourself in your everyday
[00:10] basis or everyday kind of internal conversation, if you have those, um, it's really important
[00:18] to understand how you're going to figure out if you're telling yourself the truth or not.
[00:25] Right.
[00:25] Uh, because again, you're going to be the easiest person to mislead or the easiest
[00:29] person to lie to.
[00:31] Uh, when that happens, when you are, um, beginning that awareness phase where like there's a situation
[00:40] here that you're aware that you don't like what's going on or you don't like how it's
[00:44] playing out.
[00:46] The very first indicator that, uh, something is amiss is, um, that you have a very, very
[00:55] very quick response.
[00:58] When you're misleading yourself, you usually have a kind of a initial reaction very, very
[01:04] quickly.
[01:04] It's suspiciously fast.
[01:07] Someone asks you why you didn't fall through on something.
[01:09] And before the question's over, you're already explaining.
[01:13] You think about a situation and you're already immediately defensive.
[01:19] Uh, the conditions weren't right.
[01:20] It wasn't the right moment.
[01:21] And the, the idea here is if you have a canned explanation as to what's going on and why
[01:28] chances are that's based on a non, a not true thing you've got going on internally.
[01:36] Genuine reflection takes a minute, right?
[01:38] It requires you to actually go and look at what happened to go through a discovery phase,
[01:44] uh, rather than just kind of pick up a script.
[01:48] A pre-scripted response to a situation is a, is an unexamined one typically.
[01:54] And in that case, that is oftentimes based on whether or not you're comfortable looking
[02:02] or not.
[02:04] Don't get confused with, with default responses that you already have that are not based on,
[02:11] uh, uh, a challenge, right?
[02:14] The second sort of gateway here will help you figure this out.
[02:19] The second gateway is our second signal is the direction of that response.
[02:25] So if you do have a quick response, that's fine.
[02:28] If the sort of content of that response is, uh, points at other people or points at circumstances
[02:36] or points at situations, there's a really good chance that that is also something that's
[02:43] essentially a mislead, right?
[02:45] Or a misdirection.
[02:47] When, uh, for example, you are, uh, struggling with a situation in your home life and your default
[02:56] response is, you know, uh, well, my, my kids are a pain in the butt.
[03:00] Uh, it's their fault, uh, or that's why this is happening.
[03:05] Uh, there's a real good chance that there's something underneath there that is not true.
[03:13] You will use these things in your life, these entirely rational things that are going on in
[03:19] your life as explanations or justifications for not doing something or not getting something
[03:25] done or not planning or any of that kind of stuff.
[03:26] The third, uh, indicator that you've got kind of, uh, maybe something that's not entirely
[03:35] accurate is, um, that the feeling that you get right after you've explained yourself, right
[03:44] after you have told yourself the story of about why you're in this situation or why the world
[03:51] has put you in that situation, if that story, uh, makes the discomfort go away immediately,
[03:58] that's a good indicator that it is, um, being used as a bandaid and not as a discovery process,
[04:09] right?
[04:09] You're not surfacing new information.
[04:11] You're stamping down the discomfort or the uncomfortable feelings that come with it.
[04:16] So each of these represents effectively a way in which you probably mislead yourself.
[04:27] I know it, that's how it works for me.
[04:30] I know that that's the texture of how I mislead myself.
[04:33] There's, you know, perhaps other nuances there.
[04:36] You might find that there's other tricks that you pull in yourself on a regular basis, but the
[04:41] practice here is to look at the explanations, those cognitive, uh, stories we tell ourselves
[04:49] about why the world is the way it is.
[04:52] And the moment that they take away from your agency, the moment they make, they justify
[04:59] the world, the way it is, or the situation, the way it is, is the moment where you might
[05:06] have this, uh, erosion of self-trust where you are surrendering your capacity and agency
[05:15] to a system or to the world around you.
[05:19] And that's because it's uncomfortable to try and solve it.
[05:23] So you don't have to kind of dig in too deep right away in the awareness phase of the, the
[05:28] ARA sequence.
[05:30] This is really just about understanding the data, the input.
[05:34] Okay.
[05:35] We'll talk more about that over the next couple of days.