Improving Your Resilience and Relationships in an Unstable Paradigm
Guest Contributor: Rebecca (Giel) Santosuosso MHC-LP; BFA, BA, MS is a Mental Health Counselor. Additionally, Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Arts from SUNY Albany.
Today, in order to survive in our without becoming an extremist, falling for propaganda, or falling victim to the impulse to completely isolate oneself; one must gather and implore a very specific set of skills. We talk about critical thinking skills, communication skills, skills for self care and community building, but we don’t often talk about that skill of tolerating cognitive dissonance.
For those unfamiliar with the term, cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort that comes while holding two conflicting thoughts or beliefs simultaneously. Our ability to tolerate such discomfort directly impacts our ability to understand nuance, and to avoid the trap of black and white thinking. Examples could include the simultaneous understanding “I am a good person, who tries to do the right thing” and “I did the wrong thing and hurt someone I care for.” Our instinct is so often to defend ourselves, especially our egos, and deny that both these truths can exist at once. We may instead reason that what we did was not wrong, but instead misunderstood, or that maybe this mistake does indeed mean we are bad, and that there is no point in attempting repair. Both strategies, in the end, find us equally self-defeated.
Another example could be found in the recent public death of a celebrity beloved by many. The two beliefs may be “Their murder is a tragedy” and “Their rhetoric was harmful to a lot of people.” If the former is true then one should only believe they were good, in order to honor their memory. But, if the latter is true, one might feel quite conflicted in their grief. In reality, both can be true. You do feel sadness and horror, and they did say things that hurt many people and proliferated hate. If you are unable to hold these thoughts simultaneously you will either drown in self-loathing for mourning a problematic person, or you will shield your eyes from all evidence contrary to your admiration – putting yourself in danger of living a lie. This lie becomes dangerous as it separates you from a complex reality and distances you from the greater community around you. You may begin to feel you can only relate to people who see things just the way you do.
A third example might have to do with the tense family relations that this aforementioned political climate has created. You might be saddled with the conflicting simultaneous beliefs that you love your family member and feel deeply betrayed and saddened by the positions they’ve chosen to take. Maybe you feel conflicted even in loving them. It’s possible you don’t know how to hold love and anger at the same time. If you hold only the anger you will lose the loved one, and if you only hold the love, you will betray yourself, suppressing your very valid emotions, values and beliefs. Both outcomes are painful. Thankfully, both are avoidable.
The ability to tolerate cognitive dissonance, like so many skills, requires intentional practice in order to master. You must be able to notice when your thoughts or beliefs conflict, choose to closely examine the ways in which they butt against one another, and sit with the emotions such an impact gives rise to in you. Tolerating two truths requires an expansion of the mind, as well as the heart. The ability to do so allows us to be more grounded in reality, more flexible in our tolerance of other perspectives, more stable in our belief systems, and more loving in general. Without this ability we are more susceptible to influence, more prone to extreme emotions like rage and fear, and more likely to find ourselves isolated in an echo chamber of our own creation.
Ways to engage with cognitive dissonance today may be in a journal or with a trusted friend. Find in yourself two beliefs which directly conflict and find a way to allow both to be true. Let them each occupy your mind and your body equally and simultaneously. I promise you will be better for it.
