Mastering Cognitive Dissonance: Conquer Anxiety and Achieve Inner Harmony - Video Transcript

Hey, everyone. I'm Kristen, the anxiety therapist. Today I want to talk about cognitive dissonance, a concept that creates tension and anxiety. It's common and something we've all experienced. Cognitive dissonance is a mismatch between our beliefs, values, and actions. Our brains seek consistency, so this conflict creates psychological discomfort that we try to lessen.

Let me give you some examples. As a parent, you may feel that it's bad to yell at your children, but you find yourself just yelling at your child. Or maybe you recognize how unhealthy smoking is, but you find it hard to resist the urge and so you continue to smoke. Or maybe you think that anyone who lies is a bad person, but you just found yourself telling a white lie to your boss.

So what happens is, when our behaviors don't align with our belief systems or values, it creates this uncomfortable feeling and this cognitive dissonance that leads to a lot of anxiety because our mind is trying to sort of resolve this conflict and reduce the discomfort that we feel.

So some signs that you might be experiencing cognitive dissonance are spending a lot of time rationalizing your behavior either to yourself or to others. You might be feeling some shame or embarrassment about something that you've said or done and try to hide that from others or avoid people who know about it.

You might spend a lot of time agonizing over a decision, either before making it or after making it, and really kind of second-guessing yourself. You might give into peer pressure or maybe go against your better judgment out of fear of disappointing other people.

You might experience some guilt or regret about your actions and you might feel kind of defeated and hopeless because it's not really clear what is going on or how to address what kind of feels off.

So the way to address cognitive dissonance is to recognize and accept that it's happening, right? Nobody likes to experience this discomfort, but it's a very common phenomenon that happens to all of us.

So just kind of recognize it for what it is and lean into that discomfort a little bit and then really kind of identify what the beliefs and values are and what the action is and see if there's any room to change either of those, and sometimes you might need some help from other people or a professional in order to do this.

Because I think a lot of us have these blind spots where logically we know that we're supposed to be doing something or not doing something, but we find ourselves still engaging in that behavior. And so sometimes we really need to dig a little bit deeper and recognize what is motivating that behavior or if there's some sort of self-sabotaging going on.

But I think really the biggest way to overcome this is just to, again, lean into the discomfort and really become a little more reflective upon what's going on. And again, if you need to reach out to others and have them help you sort of evaluate things more objectively and make informed decisions, then that's a good way to kind of sidestep some of the discomfort or tension.

And, by all means, if you need help with this, I offer free 15-minute video consultations, and we can talk about what's going on and if there's something that I could do to help you through this process, so feel free to visit my website Cathartic Space Counseling dot com or follow me on social media at Cathartic Space Counseling. And I hope this video was helpful. I will see you next time.