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negative thoughts

YOUR STRUGGLE WITH YOURSELF: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

What happens when what you think does not agree with what you also think?

Whether you are aware of it or not, it happens all the time! That’s the phenomenon sophisticatedly known in psychology as cognitive dissonance. Let’s take an example we knew in our childhood. Haven’t we all heard of the story of the fox and the sour grapes? In the story the fox has two conflicting thoughts: -“the grapes are sweet’. “I cannot have them.”

The fox’s resolution of the conflict is inducing the belief “the grapes are sour”. What the fox technically does is resolves its state of cognitive dissonance because it is too difficult to accept the two conflicting thoughts.

Much as we laugh and scorn at this silly fox, we do similar things all the time.

focus on the positive

MAKE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE: FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE

Whatever we focus on expands.

As human beings with limited resources of attention, we can only focus on a few things at a time. Naturally, whatever we invest energy and attention in, becomes more important and significant to us. In other words, it gets amplified. The other aspects of the situation are ignored.

Amplification is the process of making something larger and more important than it is, be it thoughts, emotions or experiences. Unfortunately, usually without even consciously realizing, most people focus on the negative aspects of situations. We’re always thinking of what all can go wrong, rather than what can go right. With this mode of thinking, people soon find themselves spiraling downwards into an abyss of anxiety, fear and depression.

Rescue

RESCUING YOU RESCUES ME

A lot of people that I have met recently seem to be caught in the classic rescuer complex. They live for others, their happiness, their needs, their wishes – the self is nowhere in the picture. You live for your parents, your spouse, your children, the community, even pets – absolutely anything that is external could be a worthy candidate. What about yourself, aren’t you worthy of your own love?

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