When you decide to reclaim internal locus of control in life and engage on the path of ‘consciously creating your own reality,’ it’s pretty much inevitable that at some point you’ll have to deal with a phenomenon known as ‘cognitive dissonance.’
While we usually hear more about its detrimental and self-sabotaging effects, cognitive dissonance is really a neutral phenomenon that carries a huge amount of potential power, which can have an effect on you in either of roughly two directions:
- You can unconsciously let it disempower you and possibly spiral down into harmful denial of self-responsibility…
- Or you can consciously channel its energy in your benefit.
As such, it’s very useful to understand as a concept, in order to gain control over it and leverage it to your advantage.
So let’s dig in…
Cognitive Dissonance
The term ‘cognitive dissonance’ may sound very highbrow and spawned from the realm of intellectual jargon, but what it comes down to is really very simple:
It basically means that you’re in two ‘minds’ at the same time, where one ‘mind’ is contradicting the other.
Here are some official definitions of cognitive dissonance pulled from various sources:
- “Cognitive dissonance is the mental conflict that people experience when they are presented with evidence that their beliefs or assumptions are wrong.”
- “When two simultaneously held cognitions are inconsistent, this will produce a state of cognitive dissonance. Because the experience of dissonance is unpleasant, the person will strive to reduce it by changing their beliefs.”
- “An emotional state set up when two simultaneously held attitudes or cognitions are inconsistent, or when there is a conflict between belief and overt behavior. The resolution of the conflict is assumed to serve as a basis for attitude change, in that belief patterns are generally modified as to be consistent with behavior.”
So based on these definitions, let me translate and summarize the nature of the concept in simple terms:
- Cognitive dissonance manifests as a state of mental and emotional unease or disharmony, which we experience as an uncomfortable feeling of tension.
- It’s brought up when an attitude or conviction is contradicted by experience, information, and/or behavior.
- Our minds then insist that we eliminate the dissonance, by somehow resolving the contradiction that’s causing it.
So how do we tend to resolve such a contradiction?
Well, it turns out that for most people, their first inclination is to do so by means of self-deception, in that they justify their existing attitude and/or behavior so they avoid feeling ‘wrong’ or ‘at fault.’
In the words of Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith:
“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”
Put differently:
- Most people either dismiss any information and experience that point out the fallacy of their current beliefs and/or the futility of their current attitude and behavior as untrue without further investigation…
- And/or they justify their self-sabotaging or ineffective behavior and beliefs by concocting some rationalization for it.
So as you’ll understand, seeing through this mechanism and taking conscious control over it as much as possible is extremely relevant to our ability to gain a sensible degree of internal locus of control in life without sabotaging ourselves.
So to make sure you get a clear idea of the concept, let’s go through a few examples and illustrations…
Examples & Illustrations
Example 1 – A ‘Dilbert’-comic explaining the general idea:
So are you beginning to get an idea of the mental effect cognitive dissonance can have?
Either way, it’ll become clearer as we progress, so let’s move on to the next example…
Example 2 – Aliens:
The late Leon Festinger was a prominent social psychologist who was responsible for the development of the theory of cognitive dissonance.
In 1954 he and two colleagues infiltrated a cult group that followed Marion Keech, a woman from Chicago who claimed to have been contacted by ‘aliens’ that told her that a great flood would bring an end to the world before dawn on December 21st, 1954.
Her followers left their jobs, educational pursuits, and families… even gave away their money and possessions… as they believed they would be taken away in a spacecraft at midnight on December 20th, a few hours before the disaster was due to strike.
Festinger and his colleagues joined the group, because they believed the situation would provide a perfect example of cognitive dissonance when the flood and the spaceship failed to manifest.
And indeed, dawn broke as normal on December 21st.
Obviously, the fact that the aliens and the flood failed to materialize brought about unpleasant, stressful mental conditions (i.e. cognitive dissonance) in group members. After all, their belief in both the aliens and the flood clashed emotionally with the fact that neither appeared.
So in the face of these unanticipated developments, they were basically left with two alternatives:
- They either had to accept the fact that they had been duped, which would resolve their mental tension by bringing the conflicting belief and experience together as a whole.
- Or they had to find a means to explain what happened in a way that would preserve their original belief and support the validity of their behavior.
Here’s what happened:
- Some members acknowledged they had been fooled and left the group to get back to building and living their lives…
- But strikingly, the majority stayed, and even became more enthusiastic and passionate in their cause… despite the fact that the prophecy that led them into the whole ordeal in the first place didn’t even happen.
I stress again that the latter group included the majority. Here’s how they solved their dissonance:
They rearranged their relationship to their belief and behavior by saying that the flood didn’t occur because their small group had spread so much light during the night, that God had saved the world from destruction.
You might recognize this type of response from the adherers of the various ‘end-of-the-world-prophecies’ that we keep hearing about… or as being similar to the logic of Ernie (Bert’s friend of Sesame Street fame):
Example 3 – Ernie’s Logic:
Take a look at this video: (<– The first part sets the context, but the second part, starting at about 45 seconds into the video, is the part most relevant to our discussion here…)
Now let me recap what’s going on here in the context of this article:
- Ernie explains the reason of his unusual behavior of keeping a banana in his ear to Bert as having the aim of “chasing away the alligators.”
- Bert then decides to make Ernie aware of the futility of his actions, by pointing out the reality that there are no alligators in Sesame Street.
- The conflict between Ernie’s behavior and the new information conveyed by Bert would then create cognitive dissonance in the mind of Ernie (<– although we’re no direct witnesses to that process). After all, if there are no alligators, then there’s no use in chasing them way, especially not through the dubious means of sticking a banana in the ear.
- However, when presented with this information, Ernie doesn’t change his behavior by taking the banana out of his ear, as Bert expected (and probably hoped for)… Instead, he responds differently:
He justifies his existing behavior and belief, stating that the act of holding a banana in his ear is doing a particularly good job at chasing away the alligators, thus providing us with another entertaining illustration of what cognitive dissonance tends to do to us.
Now let’s explore another example to increase your understanding some more…
Example 4 – Alternative Healing:
If there’s one field with plenty of experience in dealing with cognitive dissonance, it’s the orthodox branch of mainstream medical science.
Often riddled by what it can’t explain on the basis of its established way of thinking, it regularly puts on display its profound inability and/or common disinterest in processing new and unwanted information.
For example, if a patient happens to recover using some alternative therapy, the medical establishment often responds accordingly by simply explaining it away:
- Either the patient must have been wrongly diagnosed in the first place…
- Or the patient must be responding to some prior orthodox medical treatment (even if it was given years ago or if the patient is undergoing spontaneous remission).
Basically, the medical establishment accepts anything but the fact that an alternative cure or treatment can have actual results, because it has already decided in advance that it’s a ‘quack’ that doesn’t fit its limited concept of what’s possible, and therefore it can’t possibly be effective.
Now let’s explore our final example, which will get us to the point that I want to make in this article…
Example 5 – Smoking:
Another common example relates to the habit of smoking.
Now just to be clear:
- I’m not describing this to pass judgment on anyone who does or doesn’t smoke.
- Instead, the scenario described below is merely a clear illustration of the two different directions in which cognitive dissonance can steer your attitude and behavior.
- So while the scenario here pertains to the habit of smoking in particular, the underlying principle it conveys, applies to many other contexts.
With that said, check out the scheme below and how it illustrates two possible responses to the unpleasant tension of cognitive dissonance:
So let’s say you’re a regular smoker and you’re presented with new information that says it’s unhealthy. As the scheme depicts, this gives you two general choices to respond:
- One: you can decide to quit smoking. In this case, cognitive dissonance serves as the driving force to change your behavior in the light of new knowledge, namely that smoking is unhealthy and it’s better to break the habit and quit.
- Alternatively, you can find an escape route and give yourself a justification to maintain your current behavior (i.e. smoking), based on the perception that the evidence that it’s not healthy is not conclusive. In this case, cognitive dissonance cements your current attitude and behavior in more firmly.
And this brings us to the most important thing to take from these examples…
The Driving Force of Cognitive Dissonance
The examples discussed above illustrate how cognitive dissonance is not a ‘bad’ thing in itself. While its feeling of tension may not be particularly pleasant, the phenomenon itself is neutral.
It’s how you respond to it that matters. Because your response will determine whether it will have ‘empowering’ or ‘disempowering’ effects on you.
As such, cognitive dissonance indicates a pre-eminent opportunity for introspection and being honest with yourself, and to consciously decide what type of response will serve you best. And that’s where your power lies.
In this context, cognitive dissonance can roughly steer you in two directions:
- A destructive direction, implying external locus of control, which usually cycles into disempowerment…
- A constructive action, implying internal locus of control, which usually leads to consistently increasing empowerment.
Let’s explore both directions more thoroughly, so that we can make sure that we keep ourselves from cycling into disempowerment, and instead put ourselves into a consistent flow of ever-increasing empowerment.
A Destructive Spiral Cycling Into Disempowerment
In this case, we place responsibility anywhere but within ourselves. It’s probably safe to say that all of us have fallen for this destructive effect at some point in our lives, including yours truly. Let’s face it: we’ve all played the ‘blame game.’
And sadly, this is how most people deal with the unpleasant experience of cognitive dissonance. As a kneejerk reaction, they attempt to retain their original self-identity, by justifying their current attitude and behavior. Anything goes, as long as they’re not ‘at fault.’
But how much does such a reaction actually serve us? Think about it:
If you’re like most people reading this, you’re looking for ways to make changes in life circumstances that you’re not (entirely) satisfied with.
But in that context, accepting and admitting that we were somehow involved in shaping those circumstances (<– thus acknowledging that we might have been wrong or at fault, and succumbing to the potential loss of ‘status’ or perception of ‘being perfect’ that might come with doing so) can be an unpleasant prospect in itself.
So instead of stepping into our power by taking responsibility, we’ll be more inclined to concoct whatever justification for our current attitude and behavior we can come up with to avoid feeling ‘wrong’.
And thus, whenever something ‘bad’ or ‘unpleasant’ happens (or whenever we do something ‘bad’ or ‘unpleasant’) we quickly tend to make up excuses, such as:
- “It was you who made me react like that!”
- “It’s not my fault!”
- “They deserved it!”
We may get very creative in coming up with such excuses, but there’s usually a common denominator to detect among them:
- Whatever we come up with hardly ever has anything to do with us, but is usually all about some other reason that turns out to be the fault of someone or something else…
- Or it’s just ‘the way it is’ or ‘the way we are,’ and we’re powerless to make a change.
Now here’s what so destructive about that:
- First, by freezing reality into a static state, we implicitly exclude the very possibility that any change is possible in the first place… while both reality and we ourselves are really in constant flux and dynamically changing all the time.
- And secondly, even if we wouldn’t do that, by passing the buck on responsibility we still implicitly ignore our own power to change the situation, because we’re placing that power anywhere but within ourselves.
After all, if we had no role whatsoever in creating it, or if ‘the way we are’ is set in stone, then we can’t possibly do anything to improve the situation, can we?
That’s the victim mentality in a nutshell. In other words: we’re implying external locus of control, i.e. being at the mercy of the whims of circumstance and/or the hands of destiny.
But that’s not all… There are in fact more far-reaching ramifications of this attitude:
By pushing off responsibility, we also block the process of mental and emotional healing of the very underlying causes for why we’re inclined to respond in the way described above in the first place (<– as was explained in this article).
Without such healing, it’s likely that we keep recreating self-fulfilling prophecies, where we keep running into situations that evoke similar discomfort as the one we keep refusing to take responsibility for.
Meanwhile, as we constantly point away from ourselves for the cause of this discomfort every time it arises, we keep (implicitly) reaffirming our own victimhood.
And so the best we can hope for in that case is a so-called ‘deus ex machina,’ i.e. some external rescue that’s unlikely to ever come, and we implicitly consider ourselves powerless to do anything about it.
And for most people, that’s exactly what they’re trying to ‘manifest:’
They set their sights at some kind of ‘rescue’ that would alleviate an uncomfortable tension they consistently or even temporarily experience in life… such as a bag of money, the infamous unexpected check, a fancy car to up their social status… that kind of thing.
Now don’t get me wrong, because I’m not saying that it’s impossible to do so…
It’s just that through the very act of setting our sights on manifesting something we see as a ‘rescue,’ we implicitly affirm external locus of control, and thus subtly cement our own victimhood under the guise of becoming the causative ‘manifesting’ force in our lives.
Fortunately, there’s another, more constructive way to deal with cognitive dissonance…
An Upward Spiral of Increasing Empowerment
In this case, whenever cognitive dissonance occurs, we simply take responsibility. That is: we claim our power to deliberately choose our response.
We acknowledge that impulsively and reactively looking for blame and pointing out all the things and people that are ‘wrong’ and ‘at fault’ is a vast waste of energy, and that it’s far more constructive to deliberately decide what type of response will serve us best in the situation at hand.
That way, we leverage the urge to resolve your cognitive dissonance as a driving force to recognize the unpleasant experiences for what they are: mere reflections of deeper, perhaps unconscious disharmony in your system that requires harmonization. After all:
To accept a trait or situation, no matter how unpleasant, is to have the power to change it. By doing so, the dissonance (and the accompanying desire to resolve it) becomes a tool we can use in life… an instrument on our path of evolution and growth into the person we’ve set out to become.
From there, we can deal with the inner disharmony (<– as we do for example in the Crack Your Egg Program), and then get back to deliberately and consistently embodying the values, attitudes, and behaviors that we want to see reflected in our lives instead (<– as covered this in earlier articles, like this one).
And while doing so, we can remain open to all possibility, as opposed to becoming fixated on one particular means of ‘rescue.’
That’s the way to deal with cognitive dissonance constructively. And it’s crucial to cultivate such an attitude if we want to build a sense of flow, momentum, power, livelihood, passion, inner peace, and contentment in life.
And all you need for that is a slight shift in perspective…
A ‘New’ Perspective
An important aspect of overcoming the potential disempowering effects from cognitive dissonance is to simply realize that it’s okay not to be ‘perfect’ (whatever that is), that it’s okay to be ‘wrong,’ and that it’s okay to make mistakes.
Whenever that does happen, and you realize it is so, there is no room for excuses and justifications if you want to be ‘at cause’ in your life.
As said, to accept a trait or situation is to have the power to change it.
True enough, even with such self-honesty, cognitive dissonance is still likely to occur in life… However, it no longer demands that you concoct an ever-changing story to protect your self-image of being ‘perfect’ or ‘just the way you think you are.’
Instead, you can celebrate your freedom from ignorance: take the experience, and move on.
Sure, we’ve all been ‘had’ some time… and it’s all for goodness sake. It’s called ‘experience’, the nature of life itself.
We live in a world that (by design) challenges us emotionally and morally to the extreme, and we experience this reality through ‘bodies’ with endless programs of thoughts, feelings, and behavioral urges that are constantly being triggered and played out.
So yes, when you decide to take matters in your own hands and start taking deliberate steps to transform your experience… then chances are that life will present you with challenges as part of that process. (<– There’s a particularly empowering perspective on this described in this article.)
But if you keep seeing your life as some random result that’s always the fault of other people or circumstances, you disregard your own power and responsibility (i.e. your ability to respond and do something about it)… and you’ll impulsively protect the self-identity and attitudes that got you into living the very experience that you’re not entirely happy with to start with (even if that happened unconsciously).
By doing so, you subtly perpetuate the same experience, because you constantly maintain your self-delusion that your current life experience doesn’t have anything to do with your own inner state. From your perspective, it all remains because of something or someone else.
Thus, while the prospect of having to accept your responsibility in creating this experience may not be the most comfortable one at first, the long-term ramifications of failing or refusing to do so will be much more discomforting than taking the constructive route right away… because chances are you’ll keep having to deal with re-occurring, similar tension over and over again.
True enough, your thoughts and feelings about yourself and about life in general may have been imposed and manipulated by education, media, religion, experiences in life, misinformation and misunderstandings on the topic of the ‘Law of Attraction,’ and so on.
So yes, in this way, other people and ‘outer’ circumstances may have played their part in creating and/or perpetuating your beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and thus the nature of your life experience…
However, that doesn’t change the fact that you are still the one holding on to those thoughts and beliefs. Pointing blame doesn’t get you anywhere. It is what it is now, so the real question is:
What are you going to do about it?
That’s why it’s important to make a crucial distinction:
It’s not may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. You have the ability to consciously choose your response without having to succumb to the whims of circumstance or surrender to the hands of ‘destiny.’
And your power to bring about the kind of change you’re looking for is far greater than what I have room for to describe in this article. (<– More about that here, here, and in upcoming material…)
For now, let me give you some steps to practice…
Steps To Practice
As explained, cognitive dissonance is a powerful phenomenon that’s in many ways inevitable. But it does present us with a choice:
- We can either let its power overwhelm us and trigger us into concocting whatever rationalization would preserve our existing self-image, attitude, and behavior (and thus cement our existing patterns more firmly)…
- Or we can leverage its power to our advantage in the process of growing more powerful as a person with true internal locus of control.
That choice is yours. And to make it consciously, ask yourself whenever discomfort occurs:
What type of response would serve me best in this situation?
Here’s a suggested approach in line with our earlier ‘Stand Your Ground’-article:
- You can treat the very sign of stress (dissonance) as a signal pointing at something inside you that you need to let go of. You’ll have to ‘read’ and ‘interpret’ these challenges as reflections of your own inner imbalances, and take them on as opportunities to ‘crack your egg.’
- As such, your initial response to it could be something along the lines of: “Copy that, loud and clear.”
- Subsequently, you can follow up with appropriate action to bring about change… either in the situation directly… or in yourself, so that you’ll either be inclined to respond differently in the future, and/or might never get into the kind of situations that triggered that type of dissonance to start with.
And besides that:
- As we’ve learned, when we hold two opposing ideas in our mind, our minds will be more inclined to reactively change our beliefs to match our behavior, as opposed to the other way around.
- So while all we keep hearing about is making changes in your mind and beliefs first, so that your actions and results in life will follow (an approach that certainly has a reasonable degree of merit)… it’s extremely valuable to amend your practice with the opposite approach…:
- Start behaving the way you want to believe.
Given what we’ve learned, our minds will be inclined to change our beliefs in reaction to doing so, in order to have a supporting self-image and logical ‘reason why’ for that behavior.
As such, your attitudes and beliefs will shift swiftly, and often turn out to not be as fixed and inert as we’re often led to believe.
This is in fact a highly significant missing link in by far the great majority of contemporary self-help approaches (at least at the time of writing this).
But without including this in your practice, you’ll be inclined to wait until everything feels perfect mentally and emotionally before taking any kind of constructive action to make things happen in life.
And as we all know, we hardly ever feel as though we’ve reached that point… and we usually never will if we don’t amend our practice as described above.
Thus, the wait tends to turn into a perpetual one (<– and probably one for which the resulting ‘cognitive dissonance’ will have us explain it away as something along the lines of: “You see, none of this stuff works… It’s all a bunch of BS… I just can’t change… I’m powerless after all… etc.”).
Now you know what you can do about that:
Keep this practice up consistently. It will seriously accelerate your results in the process of changing your beliefs, and your life along with it.
You’ll notice your experience improving by the day… just like your inner sense of power and internal locus of control will keep growing exponentially.
But nothing will happen if you merely wait…
So just take the steps. And in the process, leverage Leverage your new understanding of cognitive dissonance to Crack Your Egg!
HENK,
I ALSO MEANT TO COMPLIMENT YOU ON THE LAYOUT OF YOUR PIECE. IT WAS OUT OF THE NORM AND BREAKS UPALL OF THE WORDING OF THE ARTICLE.
Thank you, Henk. Great article on dissonance. It reminded me of an experience I had with NLP.
In NLP speak I hold myself as superior and I am almost always right and even when I am wrong, I can justify why I am really right.
I think our subconscious mind doing its duty of keeping us (safe) has a big influence on why we are reluctant to admit our mistaken beliefs. We have our self-esteem tied to our beliefs. To openly admit we are wrong directly affects that self-esteem.
In the past when I learned something new and couldn’t wait to tell it to everyone I knew, I ran into almost total denial. of course that caused disonance in me pointing to an issue I had about nobody listens to me.
So all said and done life just might be the perfect teaching program for us if we just let go and go with the flow.
Copy that loud and clear – very timely. Have come on leaps and bounds this last year (WIP of course) but repeatedly stumped in one totally crucial area. CD explains a lot. What are you going to do about it? Take responsibility (been trying), make a choice, TAKE ACTION anyway, and see what follows…. I think the fact that the action will produce the desired internal self-belief/changes is a huge incentive. Thanks so much!
Superb article on cognitive dissonance.Pity more practitioners don’t understand the Blame Game.
I’m so grateful for this article at this particular time. I visit and comment on a Spiritual blog regularly. So does someone who only believes in what has objective, compelling evidence gathered through the scientific method. His stated purpose there (and, he says, on other blogs about religion) is to point out that science has no evidence for any force that would have an effect on our material world, thus concluding there’s a 99.99% chance there is no God/Goddess/Divine Energy. He states that those of us who’ve had subjective experiences (premonitions, sudden knowings, “psi phenomena,” etc.) are deluding ourselves. When we disagree, he brings up the idea of cognitive dissonance. He says we experience it because we won’t admit that we don’t know what we don’t know, and/or that we don’t accept what’s obviously true to him. Whenever any of us state that science has much more to discover, or that funding is financially or politically motivated in the sciences, he says we’re only acting from cognitive dissonance. I know, however, what I’ve experienced. I know that it’s up to me (not him or anyone else) how I choose to define those experiences. I define them as Spiritual, and act from that. I don’t feel any conflict, unease or cognitive dissonance in doing so. You’ve helped me understand why I don’t, and may have helped me explain it in a new way the next time he brings it up. So, thank you for that! I’m going to reference this article at the blog site, so you may end up with more comments.
Thanks Henk for another excellent article. In an astonishing case of synchronicity I turned to Shakespeare right after reading your piece, and there in Sonnet 150 is “To make me give the lie to my true sight” (Line 3). So the Elizabethans knew about cognitive dissonance, although not by that name.
Thank you, Henk. I have been insisting to folks for half a century that we always have the power to choose – not to choose the external event, but to choose our reaction to it I had not heard the term cognitive dissonance, but it is very useful and I am happy to include it in my kit. Now I am wondering how it came to me – or more what took it so long so that I only received it in my email just now. Your exposition is simple and clear and resonates with the reality that I experience.
Henk- you certainly cracked the egg open with this article – thanks. Justification: how easy it is to do versus taking responsibility for a reasonable and researched choice.
I am at a crossroads. This article is of tremendous value. Thank you Ora
It’s great to finally understand clearly about cognitive dissonance. Not sure yet how to solve my internal dissonance precisely, but at least I have tools to begin. Thanks Fran
Than your for this article it’s timely
I love this !Thank you!
Thank you for another wonderful article. You are so 100 percent on the mark, Henk, as usual. I love reading your insightful articles and look forward to everything you send. God bless you.
More great stuff at just the right time!
These two little words so aptly describe the opposition I have found from police hierarchy in 3 well-known Missing Person cases. However, I can see chinks of daylight in the gloom of their disbelief.
Thanks for the inspiration of your excellent articles and God bless you Henk.
Great article – thought provoking and as accurate as, well, all the ones I’ve seen so far. Easy to follow and well put. Thanks, Henk!
Henk
Thank you very much for sharing you wisdom!! You have mapped the behavioral trap that millions of people get caught into unconsciously!! Your article in a very wise way helps the reader trace their own discomfort zones and disengage themselves from these mental blocks.
Thank you once again!
Regards
Thanks for articulating, simply and lovingly, useful gems of practice, useful by practice, on our way to being whatever it was we set out to become.
“Start behaving the way you want to believe.”
Thanks Hank for helping me to be ME!
Very nice article on cognitive dissonance. I like the feeling of dissonance a lot, because it is a red light, informing me that something is going on that I don’t fully understand but that is important for my life experience.
Could it be that predestination is not about our lives being fixed upfront, but about the challanges being fixed? Could what we need to expand on, learn about, be set at birth – however with the freedom to chose between shaping the future by taking responsability or not shaping the future? With in the latter case a constant manifestation of the same things that are there for you as a way to give you a new chance to expand on the issue? With cognitive dissonance as a signal that there is a conflict between the electrical pulses of the brain and the magnetic pulses of the hart? No electo-magnetic field can arise in such a situation, no solution can be attracted…
I find it strange how people I know get in EXACTLY the same situation over and over again: being beaten, being hired by a boss that takes advantage, having similar car accidents, … How big is that chance? I never meet these beating guys, exploiting bosses or whatever. But I do have that one thing that keeps repeating in my life. Less frequent, as I really try different reactions. But still… I see it as my predestination, but as well as my freedom to be confronted with the same thing over and over again. This article gives me new food for thought on how to use cognitive dissonance as a way to find the path.
Again excellent. When I became a field biologist about 20 years ago and focused a lot on science my paradigm shift was massive at first. Then I got us to the fact that nothing is ever ‘set in stone’. Knowledge will always be ‘as we know it know’ and this is why true scientist never speak in absolutes.
As Andy Shaw states in Creating A Bug Free Mind, ‘currently we know of two things in our lives, (1) we will die and (2) we must live every day until we die. Everything else is a choice.’ I suspect a we as human advance even those current statements may be questioned. For now ‘as we know it’, they are absolutes.
Years ago when I stepped into ‘Christianity’ many many things never set well with me. I could not explain it. All I felt was an uneasy sensation. When I stepped ‘New Thought’ and began to see and hear others tie many things from the books within the bible, then many many things started formalizing. Maybe it is the scientist within me, I do not know. But I am loving the journey!
When the student is ready the teacher will appear
Hi
Your articles are uplifting and informative. Thank you. I am trying to find an answer to
why when I have a solution to solve a) If I go with the knowledgeable and experts I get it wrong
b) When I go it alone I get it wrong. It seems that no matter which way I go at the cross road it will be wrong. Thanks
malcolm
once again wonderful eye opening ideas. I am so grateful to you for your unending flood of actionable insights. Thanks
Henk, You are the King of the Egg crackers-us just the egglets…..the true perfection we seek in this life we live it ALL up to us—no if’s, and’s or but’s! If we are wanting the desire to live our lives with the meaningfulness we want then the only way to be in life is to realize that we are in control—yes we are transformed by all this stuff around us but the internal person we truly are needs to be the one in charge—taking FULL responsibility for all we do—WAKE UP! It does work just do this little trick 4-5 times a day–I do it in the car–yell it out–your brain will tingle because of the fact you just woke yourself up to your own reality—instead of that “cruise” control we set life at. Then you KNOW and you THINK and you are BEING in life as it was meant for you to be—in fact the only thing that keeps you from you as your internal “safety net” is your ego. Plane and simple! Henk I love ya for the “WAKE UP” call to/in life—-the others never even came close to it…….another interesting fact to ponder-especially around this time of year-the number ONE person to ever walk this earth who was completely “EGOLESS” was Jesus! Role that one around in your brain for awhile and then do yourself a favor—for the rest of your life and “WAKE UP” and find what is truly “awesome about this moment in time in your life? 4-5 times a day and see what miracles happen in your life—– I personally have lost count all thanks to you Henk—keep up the fantastic door opening commitment to life you have for us all— GOD Bless you! MarkSD
Quite revealing. i have battled with this feeling of dissonance for a long time. i have seen it in people around me. Your article has made me realize how to harness the benefits of this phenomenon. Thanks
I read your articles because they help to keep me on track. Most of which I am aware of, but need reminding of their importance in overcoming all those obstacles that keep creeping in to my consciousness..
I am reminded of what Rabi Kula refers to as the Messiness of Life. He tells us to “Embrace the Messiness of life” and learn from it. I am aware of the dissonance you speak of.
I can be quite honest with my self, but i have not always been that way. There was a time I did blame others, but I am fully aware that I create my own experience
I have a very challenging situation with a relationship with a man who has not learned that he is responsible for his own experience, not someone else. He is bitter and resentful, and feels he has been betrayed, but does not want to talk about it. He does not see that he is his own betrayer. He will tell you he does not trust anyone. I can see that it is because he is his own worst enemy. He does not trust himself. He has a strong belief in his unworthiness.
I, too have this same belief in my own unworthiness and have sabotaged my own good. I also know the only way I can help him to overcome this faulty belief is to “Be the change I want to see come about” This is the one way I can meet this challenge by changing my own faulty belief about myself. I “KNOW” I am worthy and I DESERVE to have a fulfilling relationship, I have to stay with that KNOWING or I will fall back into that old pattern of feeling helpless and powerless. I have to be on guard and consistent to stay in that state of consciousness.
There was a time when I felt others could not see my light because they wee not looking or they judged me. I was not taking responsibility, but looking for a place to put blame unconsciously. I did not have a strong sense of my own worth. I was, my own worst enemy, too.
I have to work on changing this faulty belief constantly and feel I am making headway. Belief is now becoming a knowing pattern, and I am able to be more consistent in this state of consciousness as each day goes by. For once I am beginning to feel that dreams can become reality.
“Knowing” is coupled with “Gratitude” for what I now have and expect to have more of in the future. The knowing comes with a deep down feeling of excitement and anticipation. This “Knowing” is something new for me and I know it can bring about a change in the direction of my life. Knowing must be consistent with “TRUTH”, though, and I see how vital it is not to allow appearances to be deceiving and throw me off balance and to control my knowing. I also know if I am not getting the result I want, I must change my approach. Dissonance is keeping me aware of this. It does have it’s value. I think the “Knowing” is much like what some one called the process of putting your objective on “Auto Pilot”. I have been using that for some time. and I know it works
Thank you again for keeping me on track. I need all those reminders to be able to stay there. The shift between belief and that of knowing is a very crucial point and can be easily missed. It requires consistency and discipline.
I look foreword to reading all of your articles.
Simplemente Genial su Explicación
A great article. Thanks. It explains human’s position in many situations in which holds two contradictory cognitions simultaneously held. It almost amounts to compulsive behaviour, exhibited by him some time against his wishes which at the end, leaves him tense and exhausted. A strange way of tiring oneself!! wonderful explanation. Thanks
Thanks, Henk, another excellent article! Three months of joy, punctuated by a little cognitive dissonance today; the synchronistic timing of your article couldn’t be better for refocusing my attention on what I am creating for myself. Thank you, as always!!
I have three children, separated twice and being in a new relationship with a woman and her daughter. I must get it right at this point in time. All the Hank articles are helping me to keep all together. to live a life as individual and at the same time in a relationship has been my hardest task. It is like having two minds.I am able to see clearly where I want to go. I don’t want to sound like the one who postpones and procrastinate on things to be done. But I’ve decided to go with your program. I love the ‘ Participant/ Observer method. I just watched a video where Tony Robbins was doing to a woman who were suffering a severe form of fear after witnessing a accident happen to her daughter’s life. Detaching from the emotion is a very powerful tool. From my heart the Love of the creator bless us all.
Antonio Scionti
Henk,
Thank you for sharing this awesome article. It makes all the sense to me! Very interesting. Thanks for also explaining it in simple terms.
Blessings,
Denita
“It is okay to make mistakes’
‘It is okay not to be perfect’
‘It is okay to be wrong’
‘To accept a trait or situation no matter how unpleasant is to have the power to change it’
Thanks for the above expressions. What a wisdom?
Remain blessed in Jesus name
it is absolutely an extraordinary article that can revolutionize one’s ways of thinking. Henk, the way you advance your argument is auspicious for everybody’s life. You, you deserve avalanche thanks. Henk, English is my fourth language so I may not express my gratitude as others did, but I guess that I benefited more than the rest.
God remember you in his kingdom.
temesgen from East Africa.
All your articles are interesting. This one has helped me a lot more. As you say, it would be great to just think your way to a perfect life, but there are times when you need to act contrary to your “beliefs” in order to make progress.
This article taught me that cognitive dissonance was causing me to justify my own limitations, when I could have easily removed them instead.
you’ve cracked the code on this one! well done, sir. i love your in-depth exploration of c.d.–something i’ve always been interested in and experienced plenty of both with myself and my clients. bien hecho!
Your service to humanity is purely beautiful, and i am honored to be able to witness such a magnificent outpouring of wisdom. Keep em coming brother!!
Hey man! What can I say….I mean , I already bought your program..which is one ( if not the only one) of the most brilliant, yet still most grounded, compared to other programs that kind of swim out there in other realms, I have come across…man, I got tell you….even after I bought it…I still long to your articles…they always seem to open my eyes to areas in your program that I could not understand in more tangible ways, or better yet, they point me to other higher level of consciousness from which I should deal with my stubborn disharmonies….
Longing for more, brother…
Truly yours…
Mohammed
Fabulous article!! I had no idea what ‘cognitive dissonance’ was..But truly described much of my life. And all I can say is ‘Thank you’ for the enlightenment.
Great information on a very real & true subject. I must say thee articles that you provide here is very much an exercise for the mind! I definitely get it and it makes one want to change for the better, knowing how powerful the mind is. I so appreciate and very grateful to you for sharing. Thank You and may God continue to Bless us all.
very nice article “cognitive dissonance”. Understood it very clearly particularly the example of smoking, as i am in the process of becoming ex-smoker.
Thanks for your enlightening article. I am reminded that we see and think through the “filters” of our mind, the filters set into our subconscious by our life experiences. Our views and way of thinking are threatened by views or way of thinking not consistent or in opposition with our mindset. To be aware is to recognize the filters of our mind, and to know if they are doing us any good or needs to be “cracked” and replaced. In a way, the article reminds us to accept our errors in thinking, and to change ways of thinking that doesn’t work.
Thank you for article….very interesting! Enjoy all your writings very much!!
Henk….what a splendid article so well thought out and detailed that I could grasp what you were saying all the way. It is unusual to find anyone these days writing a long an detailed post on a single subject. And as I read along I could see some of my own responses to cognitive dissonance and see where I need to make some changes. Especially: start behaving the way you want to believe.
Thank you so much
Nick Grimshawe
Put me down for a “Ditto” to all the rest.
I just LOVE the way you write – even though, for the most part, I already know most of what you say, it just seems to become really clear – when I read it – the way you write it.
Thank you for this ‘free’ article on cognitive dissonance…it really makes a lot of sense to ‘accept’ your own imperfections/imbalances rather than passing the Buck on to someone, but it is easier said than done because of lot of emotional insecurities and lack of stable support system becos’ of the controlled circumstances you are in. Will try my best to use the Constructive approach for further empowerment. Thank you again for this wonderfully inspiring and guiding article.
Henk,
As someone said in the comments, I sit here with tears streaming down my face…..deep emotion/appreciation/Gratitude for having received, took the time to read, slowed down, Breathe/d, and drink/drank fully and deeply from the WellSpring of your article and the insightful comments of others.
I ‘cracked my egg’ (even deeper) in Dec 2009 – car accident….so your ‘catch phrase’ is very personal to me.
Mostly, what I can offer is my Love, Light, and Gratitude for You, Your words/wisdom, Your generosity in sharing, Your ‘commenters’ and Trust that you are doing ‘what you canNOT – Not do’ and Loving every minute of your creation – which is so deeply and sincerely appreciated by so many!
What you have ‘spoken’ here is a match for the practice/art of Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian way of ‘making right’.
Mahalo Nui Loa!
Well explained. Keep it up!
Wonderful information as usual Henk.
Here is one of my favourite quotes, and one of my own.
“If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes our deepest thanks to the person who has rekindled this light. Whose light will you rekindle?
My own quote
“From Gods spirit of the place most high, a gift that’s earned that no one can buy, for those who are looking , but do not find are using their eyes and not their mind.
For all those lost souls who have been led astray, search for the one who is with you every night and day.
With your journey through life on the wheels of time, take all your friends to find this wonderful mind, it may be lost in the deepest, darkest dungeon with no key, but it can be found through god’s love from that beautiful person who is called me”.
Just wanted to add my name to the already long list of people who’ve said ‘thank you’ for this great article. It really resonated with me (as do all your articles).
Thanks, Hank, enjoyed every word of your article. Also the comments that the people made. You
have a very smart or intelligent audience, I learned from them too. God bless you for your care and
ability to communicate in such simple language about deep and hard to understand subjects. Continue to use your woderful gifts………………..Thanks,……………………….Amelia N.
Sometimes we need to be “smacked” up side the head, to remind us of a reality that we somehow started to forget! Thanks for the “slap”!