Cortney S. Warren

“One major cost of self-deception is that we use painful life experiences to justify being non-ideal versions of ourselves.”

“Living through difficult life circumstances in not an excuse for passing trauma onto someone else.”

“I cannot overemphasize the impact our childhood has on our ability to be honest because we live out what we learned as children in our adult relationships.”

“Perhaps the most tragic way that self-deception harms us is that we start believing our lies and we teach them to others.”

“When you are not aware that you are bringing old learning to your current relationships, you will want to lie about where it is coming from.”

“We lie to reflect the aspirational goals that we unconsciously know we will not uphold.”

“The truth is that our self-deceptive lies range from seemingly tiny untruths to massive life-altering falsehoods about reality.”

“We would all benefit by shifting our focus from seeing pain as bad to seeing pain as motivation to change.”