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Cognitive Dissonance XV

Boot Camp Continues

By John Pistorius

While moving along the path of recovering awareness and battling cognitive dissonance, I’ve asked myself many questions. The process has been difficult at times because I didn’t have a map to guide me. Nor did I have a manual to outline any of this process. The land mines were plentiful. Every so often, things would just blow up.

 

I was stubborn and refused to quit. Most of my training came by self-preservation means. I desired to survive in this battle. Therefore, I was cautious, alert as possible and tenacious. Sometimes I teamed up with others who understood the battlefield better than me. I'm deeply thankful for their help.

My persistence brought me through the most trying circumstances. And it has served as an inspiration to me and others when the going got rough. I had to figure a way out of the constant state of disharmony that I was experiencing. I learned that to look for answers, first, I had to identify the questions. Each question already contained the answer. That sounds odd, but it was true.

 

When I asked, "What do I use to control my mind?" I had optional answers. Is it my voluntary, intentional using of known facts, ideas and skills? Or is it familiarity created through practice? I learned that I used both of these methods. This revealed aspects of my management style that I had not previously looked at.

Sometimes we are unwilling to see or believe that we are in error. Or we might deliberately choose to continue in our erroneous path of beliefs, judgments and thoughts, even though we are aware of our mistake. Oftentimes, we cannot see that we will suffer consequences for our choices.

Opening The Gate

When your mental pact with the belief in the accuracy of something gives it a form of ‘absoluteness’, how can you choose to change or alter your belief? It requires a process of opening the ‘gate’ to your thought garden.

 

In some cases, you may have bolted the gate shut. You probably have installed thought soldiers at the gate as sentries. They will tell you that the gate is closed and deny you access. You might have planted a million reasons why you are not permitted to tamper with the gate. However, since it is your garden, you have the authority to do whatever it takes to open the gate. Regardless of the opposition you may have planted, you can and must use your supreme authority to overcome the sentries at the gate. That is of course if you really want to succeed.

This is where the process can get tricky for some people. If you have given yourself over to the ideas that stop you from tampering with your thought garden, you might just give up and go away. After all, who are you to question their competence? You have learned to submit to the authority of those in charge over you in life. First, it was your parents, and then teachers and others in society. Unless you possess even a grain of desire to overcome your reluctance to stand up against the authority you have given to these thought soldiers, you will not even try. And then this will not work for you. You are the only enemy that can stop the process.

When you are absolutely certain in the trustworthiness of an idea, thought or concept, how can you break the barrier created by your trust in it? Your opinion can stand in the way of accepting the new information. You must first decide to accept your authority to do this. Then, using your personal power, open the gate to your thought garden to access the area where your belief is planted. Once you get past the sentries, you can begin the process of pruning or digging out the belief. Sometimes, like in the case of growing a physical garden of flowers or fruits and vegetables, new information comes along that can benefit the gardener. It is true with any type of human endeavor. It simply requires your willingness to proceed.

I Can Fly

Previously, one thing was thought to be absolutely true, while another idea was believed to be preposterous. However, in the blossoming or becoming process, our understanding of the world has changed. Sometimes the change was drastic and hard to accept. Other times it was a gradual process. To truly grow, you must become willing to open your thought garden gate. Otherwise, you will never get to the root of the situation that presents difficulty, uncertainty or perplexity.

It wasn’t too long ago that all of the people alive on this planet thought it impossible to fly through the air. Now, we take flight for granted. You can do the very same thing in your life by opening the gate of your thought garden. Once you do what you need to do to open it, you can get busy planting.

When you become aware of the familiarity factor and the known facts, ideas and skills you possess, you will be able to consciously choose different strategies for overcoming dissonance. I believe you can if you believe you can. However, my belief in you is only my belief. My belief is planted firmly in my understanding. You must believe it. Taking command of your mind and thoughts will put you in your rightful place as the ‘director’ of your thought life. Because you have ‘bought’ the opinion or belief, you have the power to replace it. Therefore, ‘thought’ becomes an active use of your energy to bring you to the harmony that you desire. But of course if you choose to not believe this, you will not accept this idea.

Expensive Beliefs

Especially when the price was high, when an idea you bought brings you disharmony, you might feel pressured to keep it because of the price you paid. Festinger learned this in his studies. Some of the people he studied were fully invested in their beliefs that even when proved wrong, they maintained their belief because of the investment they made in it.

Others avoid all contact with anything and anyone that might cause them to think of things differently. This is simply because of the dissonance produced. You will seek to avoid the pain. However, if you permit yourself to look at the ideas presented here, you can at least accept them as possible. And accepting the possibility opens the gate.

Ask yourself first if you really want to have balance in your thoughts and life. If the answer is yes, then ask yourself; “Why?” What is the driving force behind your desire? What purpose will a harmonious balance between your thoughts and life serve? Why do you want consonance? Consonance is pleasurable. To enjoy consonance, you need to learn to take command. Otherwise, you might never become all that you are capable of becoming. And therefore, can never fully realize the pleasure of consonance, and that is an expensive price to pay.
 

Commanding Consonance
As I have previously stated, commanding is a many-sided procedure of directing, mandating, guiding and insisting on compliance. The mind you want to influence belongs to you. Therefore, to reach consonance, accept that you possess the absolute authority to demand compliance with your directives. Once you figure that out, you will realize why you need to know what you really want.

 

Consonance equals pleasure in a basic sense of the word. So you can distill your desire for consonance to its basic form, which also happens to be one of our basic human needs, pleasure. To experience harmony in your thoughts is a desire for pleasure. It is also a means for escaping pain. These are two powerful motivating forces that drive us from deep within our beings.

When you realize and accept that you have ultimate power and authority over your thoughts, you only need to use it. To get started, uproot the underlying, embedded, mistaken, inaccurate ideas and thoughts. You must also be willing to automatically and immediately cut off the thoughts that rise in support of the belief or unwanted opinion from within your garden of thought. That takes effort on your part because sometimes the roots of the undesirable thoughts are deep and weed-like. They creep to the surface in search of acceptance and nurturing. Sometimes they do not require acceptance, only no resistance. Which is why it is important to become aware of your thought garden.

You have established an armory of well rooted, supporting grounds for believing the opinion, prejudice, conviction, and biased thought or idea. You can halt the battalions of thought soldiers that will be brought to the front line to defend their ground. Once you become aware of the process, though it is usually automatic combat, you can apply yourself consciously to arrest these defending thought soldiers. Instead of surrendering to their attack without a fight, you can install warriors that immediately protect you from dissonance.

STOP!

You can uproot cognitive dissonance that occurs. Each protest, challenge, objection and opposing thoughts can be overcome with one word, STOP. Try it. You will see that the protesting, challenging and objecting thought soldiers must obey your command. They work for you! Whether you believe it right now or not, you are the boss, indeed, the authority over these negative thought soldiers.

I’ve learned first-hand, that each of us has the power to consciously erase old information. We can replace it with fresh, precise, upgraded or amended information, instruction and insights. Yet, too often we are so involved in this life and the world, that we do not pay attention to what is happening right inside our very own mind. This busyness is an abdication of your power to command your life.

You can take command over the influences others have had on you also. The effect they had on you can be cleared. This will show you that the power is already yours but you gave it to others. Seizing it is a simple matter of comprehending your function as the commander. Tell yourself, “I have the power to command my attitudes.” Repeat it over and over. Believe that you can and you will realize your power. Accepting your position as the commander of your thought garden will give you the ability to overcome cognitive dissonance. And that is a gratifying outcome.

Listen!

When tending the garden of thought in your mind, you must keep alert, or you could be caught unaware. In the beginning, the negative thought soldiers will come and fight to regain control, after all, that is what you have them for.

Once you have given yourself permission to accept your responsibility as commander, empowering yourself to have absolute control over your thought garden becomes a matter of practice. Like training for anything in life, this process requires repetitive activity to reinforce and strengthen your position. You have given your power over to others and the ideas they have planted. All the same, you have the right to dominate and govern the thought soldiers who combat you in your garden of thought because you are supreme to them. "I can, if I . . ." can become your catchphrase.

Set aside the distractions of life that keep you from eliminating the clutter and accumulation of unproductive, undesirable material. If your response to that idea is that you don’t have time, realize that this is one of the most insidious negative thought soldiers you own. Eliminating it can be your first step to freedom from dissonance. The only thing you have of value on this planet is time. The only thing questionable is how much?

Next Time: Drill Instructors’ Attitude Adjuster