(note: a reader suggested that I include a brief reminder of the definition of Cognitive Dissonance with each essay for our memory impaired readers.) Psychologists use the term "cognitive dissonance" to describe the bothered state of disagreement, sometimes pained state of mind that occurs when new evidence contradicts a current belief or outlook. When such dissonance occurs, either discarding the belief or discarding the new evidence must occur to resolve the conflict.

Soldiers and Gardens

by John Pistorius

 

As I wrestle with this writing project, I question my authority in this matter. I mean really, who am I to attempt to explain the idea of overcoming cognitive dissonance?

 

Many of my friends, associates and acquaintances are much more educated in the field of psychology. Some have high degrees from prestigious universities. This self-doubt causes disharmony in my thinking.

 

How can I know with any certainty that my choice to continue writing about this subject is valid? In this case, I am using feedback from trusted people to assist me in making the decision to continue. They have reminded me that I am sharing my opinions, ideas and understandings of the matter. Their supportive approval inspires me to continue. Telling me that they believe my experiences and knowledge can be useful to others, helps me to overcome the negative thoughts that arise. I’m grateful to these people for their honest words of encouragement. So I continue to slay the thought soldiers that might otherwise halt my progression.

Four Powerful Battalions of Thought Soldiers

1. Our mental approval or acceptance of the truth or actuality of something
2. opinions/prejudices/biases
3. Our absolute certainty, conviction or surety in anything
4. Doubtfulness, skepticism, distrust

These four concepts stand like soldiers at the gate of our thought garden to defend themselves and the deeper convictions they represent when challenged. Sometimes they represent opposite positions, forcing us to choose between them.

I use the analogy of a garden to give us a mental image to assist in the cleansing process. We must uproot the underlying, embedded, erroneous ideas and thoughts. We must also be willing and able to automatically and immediately prune thoughts that surface in support of the belief or unwanted opinion from our garden of thought. It is our garden, and we are the gardeners.

These thought defending troopers’ mission is to protect the opinions, beliefs and prejudices that are sown in our mind and keep us safe from contrary evidence that could cut down or uproot the planted material. They work within certain boundaries to keep us in check. When confronted with new evidence which is contrary to the position they defend, these fighters immediately rise up in our mind launching powerful, convincing objections. One weapon in their arsenal consists of thoughts of evidence which supports the position in which they are entrenched. Often, we are not even aware of the battle until we ‘feel’ uneasy because we do not pay attention to our internal dialog.

Cognitive Dissonance occurs as every protest, challenge, objection and opposing thought are fired from the depths of our mind to defend the opinion or belief and shoot down new evidence. We have established an arsenal of well rooted, supporting grounds for believing the opinion, prejudice, conviction, and biased thought or idea. Battalions of thought soldiers will be brought to the front line to defend their ground. Usually, they will engage in combat automatically, without our conscious application of energy, to refute the new idea, thought or evidence. Too often, we simply surrender to their attack without a fight.

Sometimes an idea is so deeply seated in our mind that it does not supply supporting evidence. Like a mother who replies, ‘It just is’ to the child who asks, ‘Why?,’ the belief, biased idea, prejudice or opinion offers nothing but absolute conviction.

As I’m writing, I’m reminded of a precious friend and lover. In spite of compelling evidence to the contrary, I believed that she was faithful and defended my belief with conscious and unconscious energy. In the end, objective reality won. She was unfaithful. My belief in her faithfulness was in error. My mind automatically fought in her defense against the unmistakable information that I received contrary to my established position.

How can that be? The visible grounds for believing the existence of something else was clear. Yet, my mind automatically refuted the evidence with an arsenal of contrary ideas. Eventually, I was able to confront the new evidence honestly and thereby resolve the pained state of mind that resulted from the conflict. The resolution did nothing to resolve my emotional turmoil, but at least my mind was at ease. This experience was one of many that taught me how to overcome cognitive dissonance.

I’ve learned that we have the power to consciously erase old information and replace it with new, accurate, improved, or revised versions.

I’ve spent many years overcoming biased thoughts, beliefs and opinions which were planted in me by other people and experiences. The process continues. All of us have been conditioned by people in our lives who were conditioned by still other people. Each person has been influenced by others since the beginning of time. Their influence becomes an intrinsic part of our thought processes. It is not always detrimental. However, when it is, can we go to them for help? Not usually. We may not even recall the connection between the belief we hold dear and the person or persons responsible for planting the seeds that grew into our belief or opinion. Even if we could, they probably would not understand themselves enough to help us. Many times, our closest beliefs and opinions are formed over an extended period by many feelings, emotions, experiences, education and people that we might not even recall.

Changing our internal beliefs can be difficult. I’ve been told that it is impossible to automatically change positions, however, my personal experience has positively influenced my understanding of the exact opposite. I can change anything about my thinking, beliefs, opinions and any prejudgment tendencies planted in me. In fact, I’ve taught myself to do it automatically, immediately and without effort. However, sometimes the process can be painful. The Marines have a slogan that challenges their men, ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body.’ When applied to cognitive dissonance, I would replace ‘body’ with ‘mind.’

We run from pain, yet pain does not need to equal suffering. Experiencing and/or avoiding pain is a core, objective reality of the human condition. To conquer the pained state of mental disharmony called cognitive dissonance, we must first be willing to triumph over the soldiers of thought which are stationed in our garden.

So, I ask myself, "Am I willing to overcome mental disharmony?"

Sometimes, it can be easy to make the choice between current beliefs and new evidence. As in my weather forecast example from the first part in this series, we can simply make a conscious choice to either accept or reject the new information which contradicts our belief or opinion. Then, according to our selection, we face the consequences. Other times, vanquishing cognitive dissonance requires careful consideration and deliberate, commanding action.

Anyone who has tended a garden understands the insidious intrusion of the roots of undesirable species. Sometimes the roots are slyly powerful and can be nearly impossible to eliminate completely. When tending the garden of thought in our mind, we must keep alert, lest we be caught unaware, for the soldiers will come and take captive the master if we sleep.

Ask yourself this: , "If it is my mind and I own it, am I permitting myself to have absolute control over it?"

By default, we give our power over to others and the ideas they have planted. Nevertheless, we have the right to command and overrule the soldiers who guard our garden of thought because we are supreme to them.

How many times have you told yourself, "I can’t, because . . .?" Regardless of the objection, I would replace the statement with, "I can, if I . . ."

During my personal battle with the thought defending soldiers that I had stationed to protect my beliefs and opinions, I have had to fight long and hard. These troops were professionals. I was only beginning to gain knowledge of battling them. I had to learn to identify thought soldiers as either friend or foe. Many were ideas that had just settled in and became occupants by my nonperformance of what ought to have been done. I believe the distractions of life were sufficient to keep me from tending to the housekeeping chores that would have otherwise eliminated the clutter and accumulation of unproductive, undesirable material. Maybe I didn’t care to keep the garden clean because I was not taught. In any case, as I realized the need, I began forming mental images of the cleaning process. I imagined myself unrestricted by physical bounds, uprooting and raking away the debris.

While visualizing the cleaning process, I caught glimpses of hidden areas and barriers around which I could not see. I realized that these were particularly difficult areas to clean. They would require a dismantling of the barrier or some other strategy. Some have required professional cleansing assistance.

It is my mind, why would I want to let all of this unproductive, weed-like, debilitating, junk-thought material to continue to obstruct my harmonious, equitable distribution of the elements of my life?

Like so many people, I found myself to be a few pounds overweight. Cutting out a few calories and increasing the metabolism of calories proved to be difficult. The defending troops argued, "It runs in my family." All kinds of defensive soldiers stood up and fought for the cause. However, I was determined to fight them off. The most insidious of these soldiers were able to fatten me up with silky lies like:

• having desert would not hurt
• extra helpings were Ok
• I needed the nutrition
• I’d burn off extra calories and
• tons of other supporting lies.

We live with the harvest from our thought garden. As we have sown, so do we reap. Upon my satisfactory dismantling of these thought barriers, and dropping the extra pounds, I realized that I was the commander in charge. But then other people told me that I would gain the weight back and more. This was a moment of cognitive dissonance that required deliberate action.

I realized my ownership of the mind in question. I accepted ownership of it. I agreed that if it was mine and I owned it that I had the power to use it to benefit me instead of permitting it to be filled with others’ ideas. Then I had to figure out what that meant. The first thing was to reject the other people’s notions that were contrary to mine about regaining weight.

Then, indeed, what did it mean to reach a point of understanding that my thoughts are really under my authority? It caused a great deal of uproar and additional dissonance in my mind. Now I had to deliberately work to overcome the soldiers that came to the front line in defense of my core beliefs in relationship to ownership and control of my mind. At first I questioned how I learned to give away my power. Realizing the futility of that, I chose to eradicate that mistaken belief system.

If you are still interested in vanquishing Cognitive Dissonance, read on in Pt. IV, Digging in, Planting, Fertilizing and Watering Your Garden.

 

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. -Henry David Thoreau

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