- Hey everybody, today we're gonna talk about
Cognitive Dissonance.
What is it, and how do we better cope with it?
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But let's jump in to what Cognitive Dissonance is.
The definition of Cognitive Dissonance
is really that people naturally
try to find harmony between their beliefs and behaviors.
That means that like if I believe
that I am healthy and I am happy,
then my behaviors also reflect that
meaning that I feel good in most days
and that I do things that keep my body and mind healthy.
If our beliefs and behaviors are not in harmony,
we can feel really tense and horribly uncomfortable,
and that feeling is Cognitive Dissonance.
Now a somewhat easy way to describe or explain
Cognitive Dissonance is smoking.
Everyone knows that smoking is harmful to your body.
We know it's bad for our lungs, it can cause cancer,
we have all this information.
However, many many people still continue to smoke.
And you could say that that would be Cognitive Dissonance,
cause our beliefs, what we know about smoking,
is one thing, but our behavior
and what we're doing is another.
So hopefully that kinda helps you better understand.
The truth about Cognitive Dissonance
is it can get more and more intense
if it's related to our beliefs about self,
or if there's a lot of value that we place on that belief.
So if the behavior's going against either one of those,
our Cognitive Dissonance and that uncomfortable sensation
can get really intense.
And when this happens when we feel this horrible discomfort,
we can be extremely irritable,
we can lash out at people and start fights,
we can yell at those we love.
And what this really does is it causes
the dissonance to get worse and worse because then,
we know we're a good person but here we are lashing out,
and it feels bad and we already feel bad,
and now we feel worse and it kind of snowballs
this Cognitive Dissonance into
an even more uncomfortable situation.
There are many things that can cause Cognitive Dissonance,
however I'm gonna talk about two of the most common.
And the first is abuse.
Because if we believe that our parents
always do the best they can and parents
you know are supposed to love their children,
that's what parents do.
When we really believe that, which I honestly think
that children always are born thinking
that they are lovable and that their parents do love them,
but then if we're shown through abuse that they don't
and they're hurting us, or they're telling us nasty things,
screaming at us all the time,
then that goes against the behaviors,
what we're seeing in our world
do not make sense with our beliefs, they aren't the same,
then we experience Cognitive Dissonance,
we feel extremely uncomfortable,
we can be really irritable and lash out
because outside is not reflective
of what we know and believe inside.
Although every type of abuse can cause Cognitive Dissonance,
I find this to be most common with my patients
who have been through emotional abuse
because, like I talked about earlier,
Cognitive Dissonance can get worse
when it's about our belief,
it goes against our belief about self,
and so if we believe that we are innately good,
we are kind, I am worthy of love,
which I believe every child is born feeling that way,
but if a parent then goes to tell us 'no',
and 'you're terrible, and you're stupid',
and they're just screaming obscenities
and terrible things at us,
that's gonna go against our belief of self,
and that is when Cognitive Dissonance feels its worst,
and most intense uncomfortability,
and ugh, just feels bad.
The second cause of Cognitive Dissonance,
like I said there are many but these
are just some of the most common ones,
are toxic relationships.
For the same reason I just talked about emotional abuse,
toxic relationships can lead to gaslighting,
which is when someone tells us
that what we think and feel and believe, isn't really true.
And it can start to make us feel like we're crazy,
or that we don't even know ourselves,
we can't trust our own thought process or our own memory,
and all of that can make us feel extremely uncomfortable
because what we know and believe to be true,
we're constantly told is not.
And that doesn't feel good.
Okay, so now we know what it is, and what can cause it,
but how do we make ourselves feel better?
How do we cope with Cognitive Dissonance and reduce it?
The first way we can do that,
ending abusive or toxic relationships.
I know that not all of us are able
to move out of our family home
if our parents are the ones that are doing the abuse,
but we can speak up and we can get more support.
Be the squeaky wheel.
Get out, cut people out of your life
if they're terrible to you.
If they're saying nasty things to you
and making you feel worse about yourself,
that's not a good relationship for you to be in!
I know it's hard, I know that we can mourn
the loss of those friendships and relationships,
and that's completely fine, give yourself that time,
but also give yourself the space from these terrible people.
Start out with like two or three weeks.
Trust me, you will notice your mood improving immediately.
The second way that we can better cope
with Cognitive Dissonance especially
if we're not able to get away
from the toxic or abusive people in our lives,
let's say they're our parents,
and we aren't able to move out quite yet,
is we can focus instead on the positive things.
The positive thoughts and things that are in line
with our beliefs about ourself, and about our situation.
Make sure that you're not allowing
any room in your brain for any of those
negative nasty abusive things.
If someone's saying something nasty to you
know that you don't have to believe it!
It doesn't have to be accepted!
You can say 'that's bullshit, all you do is tell me lies,
there is no reason for me to listen to you
because you've done nothing but talk horribly to me,
and you're not a nice person,
and you don't have any real friends',
you could totally spin that out, push that away,
and instead focus in on the thoughts,
the wonderful lovely positive things
that are in line with your true beliefs
about self and environment.
The third way that we can better cope
with Cognitive Dissonance is to work with a therapist.
Having someone in our corner, a safe place to talk
about the trauma and abuse that we may have sustained,
can be so beneficial.
It can help us process through all that negativity,
it can also offer another perspective.
A therapist is gonna give you a clearer perspective
that's not muddied by any of the abuse and trauma,
and things that have happened to you,
they're gonna offer up a nice, positive,
more loving perception of you and your life,
and that can make us feel so much better.
And the fourth and final way to better cope
with Cognitive Dissonance is working to build up
our self-confidence.
That can be through positive self-talk,
that can be through surrounding ourselves
with positive people who are in line with our beliefs
about self and environment,
who show us that love does exist and people are caring.
The more we spend time around those people
the more we feed ourselves positive, you know,
confident, loving thoughts, and beliefs about ourself,
the better we'll start to feel,
and the less we'll feel that uncomfortable dissonance
because we'll know that those things that we're hearing,
the things that are being said,
aren't true at all, and we'll be able to kinda,
push them out and focus instead
on the things that help us feel better.
I hope you found this video helpful,
if I left anything out or forgot a certain symptom
or the way that Cognitive Dissonance can feel for you,
let us know in the comments
because I can only tell you what I know,
but with your experience, and my expertise,
we get the full picture.
Thanks for watching, and I will see you next time.
Bye.