Hexagram 43 > Hexagram 12
Or: Reframe or Suffer
Cognitive dissonance is like multi-tasking suffering.
It's something we're all familiar with.
It's two sides of your brain arm wrestling, tug-of-war-ing, devil and angel over your shoulder-ing, telling you simultaneously to not give into a craving, a laziness, an action, and to do so, at the same time.
It leaves you feeling uneasy, and often leaves those conflicting emotions unresolved.
But there is some keyhole-sized stream of hopeful light out there if we're willing to follow it:
The Socratic Method, which can be a therapist that has an office furnished with a brown leather couch, in the portal that is your head.
The issue is, this way or arguing with yourself requires a willingness to be adaptable, to persist in bludgeoning the unhelpful doors of your brain keeping you from peace, and an understanding that nothing will work in the same way, all of the time.
If we had all of the answers, we might be required to have none of the life.
Trying to crack the code of how to feel how I want to feel, do what I want to do, and get out of my own way, has been my own personal "Ima fix wolves." And I'm still not done.
But what does follow are ways to approach our cognitive dissonance that may gets us to where we want to be, 80 percent of the time.
80 percent effective is sometimes all we can ask for. Time often fills in that other 20 percent.
So, let's do what *we* can do about it.
Why You Don't Want Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance taxes us.
Our working memory looks like a multi-level parking lot after the Super Bowl gets out.
It demoralizes you. It shrinks your ability to see possibilities of problems being resolved. You feel stuck in a status quo that's like Sideshow Bob, repeatedly being headbutted by a rake.
It tricks you. You're stuck judging an ugly book by its cover, and it never occurs to you to turn over to the other side to see the 'quotes' from those outside of yourself and whether they confirm your suspicions.
But is there a truth? Just because certain facts exist, like a number in an account, are you supposed to behave like a leaf in the wind. Is that role one you should accept, as if its a law of gravity in your cinematic universe?
Resolving cognitive dissonance can be done through the dissection of propositions:
"This is bad," "I can't overcome this," "this is the truth," can all be turned on their head, to see if it's actually a head there to begin with.
Whether you think you're brainwashing yourself to believe you're staring at roses instead of razor blades, or if you're seeing reality with that supposed accurate depressiveness is a choice as well.
And pessimism can be its own form of brainwashing, so do you want to be the author of your psychological manipulation, or the sum of inputs from people, media, and past experience that can never be anything other than a past experience?
Below are some ways I've countered cognitive dissonance in my own life, starting with something a little Stoic.
A) The Practical Pathetic Syllogism
What I call the 'Practical Pathetic Syllogism' is for the pathetic among us (no, it's the Greek meaning, so it's OK) that want to use a Stoic device to dissect and decapitate the dissonance and dissatisfaction we deal with on a day to day, hour to hour, and sometimes, moment to moment basis.
It's a process I use to get out of my own way. The antidote to a wind-up toy walking into the wall, repeatedly.
There's a lot to my explanation of it, but in practice, it becomes intuitive. You build up a mental muscle and figure out how to best utilize it to tackle what you're dealing with in the sliver of time that feels like a sliver. You figure out which approaches work best for you. But it's a toolkit.
So ...
A1) Identifying The Initial Proposition (Premise 1)
Sometimes we don't even recognize the source of what's beginning to bubble up to the surface of our mind in the form of dissatisfaction or dissonance.
Prompting yourself is one way to figure out what the problem is. Which can include:
Front-Facing (Hexagram 20.5)
- I am ...
- I feel ...
- I think ...
- I expect ...
- I assume ...
- I want ...
- My biggest fear/desire ...
- I can't ...
Outward-Facing (Hexagram 20.6)
- People are ...
- The world is ...
- They are ...
- The problem is ...
Examples:
- I am afraid this day will be a disaster
- They are trying to undermine me right now
etc.
A2) When You Can't Think of A Proposition
A sort of universal way to identify what's going on right now is to simply turn the mirror on yourself and ask yourself to answer the question:
- What are you *doing* right now
Examples:
- I'm aimless because I'm confused about what to do
- I'm scrolling my phone instead of working because I don't want to think about that approaching deadline
These examples include one tool, of a few, that I find the most helpful in countering a proposition that we don't want to hold in our heads:
A3) The Consistently Effective Counters To Propositions
3.1) Because
In those last examples, you'll notice the word "because."
When a proposition pops into your head, always force yourself to attach a because on the end, and force yourself to answer that prompt.
Sometimes we just accept the thought we have, and answering the because make you look at your reasoning and see how strong or faulty it is.
Sometimes we see through the because to the bullshit, faulty thinking that is powering the whole negative episode.
Sometimes, you may be on to something, and sometimes you see your bias, but the because is necessary. It makes you put your cards out in front of the audience of your multiple selves.
And there's another important tool to add in here:
3.2) True and False, Good and Bad
So, to take some of our prior examples, and expand upon them:
- I'm aimless because I'm confused about what to do, and that's true, because I haven't listed out everything on my mind
or
- I'm aimless because I'm confused about what to do, and that's bad because time is running out in the day for me to get anything done
3.3) Exceptions
Taking a prior example again: I haven't listed out everything that's on my mind yet because I don't believe that it'll help me.
That's true because I've done that before and yet, didn't make a tremendous amount of progress.
Is that always true? Well, no, there's times putting everything down on paper in front of me helps me see where my focus should be.
--
So, in this example you find out why you think your proposition is true, and then look for exceptions. In this case the exception is in the form of the extreme: always.
Sometimes to get control of your mind you need to essentially escalate the issue to the supervisor of your rational faculty. Regular exception seeking doesn't work, so you go to the manager and ask if it's always true or false.
3.4) Rating 1-10
A good thing to do when you state your proposition is get a gauge on how much you believe it in that moment, on a scale of 1-10.
Then, once you start using some of these tools, like finding exceptions or assessing the truth, you prompt yourself to provide a new rating and see how much it's changed.
Just the act of seeing it go from an 8/10 to a 4/10 can change your mind. You start to see that if you were wrong about that, you could be wrong about future propositions.
It chips away at the certainty your mind tries to trick you with to keep you in the pool of dissatisfaction.
3.5) More Options
Other tools to use with the first premise that's obstructing you include:
- When is the opposite good or bad?
- This is another way to find exceptions
- How is this the same as things in the past?
- Reminding yourself of times you've experienced things like this, and have overcome them, can get you away from spinning your wheels
A4) Using It To Stop Inaction/Procrastination
I've used the Practical Pathetic Syllogism to get myself to actually do things. And I have an approach for that, too.
An example:
It's bad for me to exercise right now, because I'm in the middle of watching this game. It'd be good to exercise at 7:30 pm, because it gives me time to see the finish, while also gearing up and gathering the energy to actually be successful.
So, simple, but what you're essentially creating an if, then contract with yourself. *These* are the conditions that need to be present for me to do x at y time, and I agree to the terms of that in-the-moment contract.
And then if you start dragging your feet on beginning that task at that time, you can start using some of the tools previously discussed and forcing yourself to give 'because' answers, and explain why it's good or bad for you to do or not do something.
Sometimes you have to treat yourself like the alien treated Natalie Portman in 'Annihilation': getting in your face and countering every move.
A5) The Last Resort (Premise 2)
Sometimes you can't convince yourself that something doesn't suck.
Sometimes it's hard to convince yourself a bullet hole through your palm is beneficial.
When you hit that wall, then you go to premise 2, which is assessing the proposition that it's helpful or appropriate to react with dejection, or to surrender.
An example:
It's seemingly impossible to believe that losing my last income stream today is a good thing, so it's good for me to give up/be despondent/isolate myself, etc.
That last part is the proposition we're working with. And when you come to that point, there's some things you can do to counter it:
- Ask:
- Is this helpful?
- Does this feeling, behavior, or reaction solve anything, or give me power?
--
- If you say:
- It's good to react that way because x
- Ask is that always good, or true?
This might help you see that nothing good is going to come of it.
At that point, some things you can do are:
- Ask what's one action that could help
- What would give you the most power here
- What would need to be true to be OK with this
- List out all of the areas that are positively and negatively affected by this
- (This helps you spot previously unseen benefits to even some of the worst circumstances)
- Do an automatic thought dump on to a piece of paper, getting everything in front of you and out of your working memory
- Work on a new strategy to overcome it (preferably using Roger Martin's Playing To Win framework)
- Ask yourself 'how is this the same as things in the past'?
- Remind yourself that time will change this soon, in ways you can't foresee
- Ask yourself 'what would you tell your best friend'
- Ask if this reaction makes you a slave or a pawn
A6) Example of The Practical Pathetic Syllogism In Use
Let me show you an example of the kind of nesting doll internal conversation this can evolve into (or "devolve" depending on how simple you think your mind *should* be):
I'm scrolling my phone instead of working because I don't want to think about that approaching deadline.
That deadline is bad because I don't know where to start. I'd say that's 7/10 true.
That's true because ... well, I guess it's not true because I haven't asked myself what would need to be true to fail at this. I guess I'd rate that belief as a 4/10 for being true.
It's good to delay doing that 'what would need to be true' listing out because I don't have the energy. That's true because I haven't moved off my bed since I got home. That's probably a flimsy 3/10 believability, because I know there's past exceptions where physical movement generates more energy, so it's not always true that I need an abundance of energy to create energy.
I'd say it's bad to do it right now because I still need to eat, but after I put my bowl in the dishwasher, I'll start the task.
--
Some people might scream cognitive behavioral therapy! But I must say, despite owning a textbook on the subject, it never got me to change my behavior until I came upon the Pathetic Syllogism in 'Stoicism and Emotion' by Margaret Graver.
Instead of labelling my every thought as depression, or anxiety, and putting pen to paper in some printed out worksheet, I find my way of doing things as an internal conversation, on-the-fly, as much more sustainable and effective.
You're effectively trying to be Socrates interrogating the scoundrel that is you at your worst.
Everything I listed above is a tool. It doesn't need to follow a set process. You stay as water as possible, leaking into the weak spots of your reasoning and flushing out the bullshit.
Sometimes you don't need to prove something isn't true, sometimes you don't need to rate the believability of the proposition, and sometimes you don't need to break the in case of emergency glass and use the Premise 2 process.
You're sparring with yourself, looking for an opening. A vulnerable position you can take advantage of to make yourself do or think something that's in your best interest.
Don't be rigid. Changing your mind is an art, not a science.
2) The Modified 'Immunity To Change' Process
Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey's book, 'Immunity To Change', has its own process for overcoming dissonance that prevents us from changing. And when I use it in my own life, I mix in a little of the aforementioned Practical Pathetic Syllogism. Here are the parts:
2A) Identify Your Goal
This is what you want to do, or stop doing.
Ex: Eating low carb, consistently
2B) Your Undermining Behaviors
What are you literally doing, and how are you literally behaving, that is contrary to what you say you want, or don't want.
Ex: Buying high carb foods, turning to carbs when you get a 'low carb flu', telling yourself that you'll get back on track next week, etc.
2C) What Is The Fear of Doing The Opposite
If you imagine yourself doing the opposite of the behavior that undermines your goals, what's the fear, or what do you worry will happen?
Ex: I'll feel deprived eating only low carb foods, I'll regret not letting myself unwind by eating high carb foods, I won't see enough progress to justify the deprivation, etc.
2D) Turning The Fear Into A Commitment Statement
Ex: I am committed not feeling like I'm missing out on foods I enjoy, etc.
2E) Uncovering The Belief/Proposition Behind The Fear
This is what you must believe, 100 percent, to feel that the previously listed commitment is necessary for you to avoid your fear.
Ex: That I can't find enjoyable low carb foods to replace the high carb ones, that I have to adhere to low carb 24/7, etc.
2F) Using The Practical Pathetic Syllogism To Change Beliefs
This is where we utilize some of the previously mentioned tools to test whether we're seeing things straight. It's where we don't accept those propositions as automatically true, just because they feel that way.
Ex: "I have to adhere to low carb 24/7." I believe this statement at an 8/10 level
- Is it always true? No, you can see progress from committing to short periods of time, and cycle on and off.
- You can also take extra electrolytes to counter the cycling
- You can allow yourself to eat a very tiny sampling of a favorite high carb food, as long as it's not enough to surpass your carb limit, etc.
2G) Conclusion
While I like using the Practical Pathetic Syllogism as my in-the-moment counter to the unfortunate machinations of my mind, it is helpful for me to sometimes engage in the 'Immunity To Change' framework. Especially when there's many intertwined propositions that are keeping you stuck in a place you don't want to be.
Paired with the 'PPS' process, you can sometimes cut through those weeds and make it to the other side. But, the process isn't guaranteed to be easy. Nothing worthwhile is *always* easy.
3) The 'Choose' Tool
I've written a bit about this in the past, but making your dissonance an explicit choice can sometimes be enough to snap out of stuckness.
To overcome dissonance with it, you pair it with the spelled out consequences of the alternative. Here are some examples:
- "I don't want to do my daily I Ching readings"
- Do you want to do your readings, or do you want to go a whole day without having a better idea of what to expect and how to handle the inevitable resistance you'll face?
- "I don't want to exercise today"
- Do you want to exercise, or do you want to have less strength and bone mass?
- "I don't want to go to work today"
- Do you want to go to work, or do you want to have a hundred, or hundreds, less dollars in your paycheck?
--
There's another way to use the 'Choose' tool, and it's influenced by Stoicism.
In Stoicism, you're advised to focus on the internals, rather than the externals, that you don't have much say in.
And you're also advised to not race towards preferred indifferents (such as others' opinion of you, money, career success, etc.) with cartoon hearts in your extended eyeballs.
With that established, I sometimes like to frame a choice in Stoic terms:
- Would you trade your mind (your wisdom, judgement, learned lessons, etc.) for this preferred indifferent?
- Would you trade your mind to be seen positively by x (strangers, your enemies, etc.)?
- Would you trade your mind now, for your mind 5-10 years ago, if that meant you had (a good reputation with x people/x amount of money, etc.)?
It may not be applicable to every cognitive dissonance problem, but I do find it helpful to throw this tool in when I need to.
4) Using The Five Indemonstrables
Another component of Stoicism I find helpful when adapted into an emotional tool, are the Five Indemonstrables.
Instead of spilling into the history, I'll give you an example of each, and hopefully you'll be able to see how they might apply to your own life.
I find them helpful for making beliefs and propositions clear, because when those get clear there's less room for you to color them in some way that's actually detrimental for your life.
4A) The First Indemonstrable
Ex: If I want to get a new job, I must convince a potential employer that I'm the right candidate for it. I have decided I want this job, so I have to prove to the employer that I'm the right candidate for it.
4B) The Second Indemonstrable
Ex: If my application was persuasive, I would have received an invitation to interview for the position. I did not receive an invitation to interview, so my application was not persuasive.
4C) The Third Indemonstrable
Ex: I cannot be someone valued for my strategic simplicity and someone that stretches myself thin across every whim. I want to be valued for strategic simplicity, so I'll abstain from stretching myself across every whim.
4D) The Fourth Indemonstrable
Ex: Either I spend the rest of my day preparing for worst case scenarios, or I spend it maximizing my leisure time. I'm spending my day preparing for worst case scenarios, so I'm not going to be maximizing my leisure time.
4E) The Fifth Indemonstrable
Ex: Either I have a reframing method that works for me, or it's deficient in some way. I keep pursuing a better reframing method, so it's deficient in some way.
--
I admit, I mostly use the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And I admit that sometimes putting logic into these formats can make you feel like you're stating the absolute most obvious things for someone that's had a lobotomy, but sometimes that's what we need to get out of our own way. If it helps, use it, if it doesn't, make fun of Stoics for being lobotomized lawyers.
5) Removing Cognitive Dissonance With Immovable Objects
Sometimes you know, rationally, that something shouldn't affect you, and yet, it becomes a brick wall that the Kool-Aid man couldn't collapse.
There's no universal cure for the dissatisfaction this brings, but there are different tools I use, to varying degrees of success, which I'll get into next.
5A) Using Distinctions
Something that's helped me a lot in life is stripping things into distinctions. Or, said another way: stripping them into their parts, or internal categories.
By seeing all of these parts that make something up, it can take you back to the present. You're reminded that there's nothing new under the Sun, and how similar this thing is with this other thing you know.
Let's use an example. This may be different from you, but if I try to think of all of the things that make me angry, as broad categories, it can resemble something like the following:
- Being controlled
- Losing control
- Helplessness
- Someone assuming intention where there isn't any
- Being manipulated or taken advantage of
- Unfairness
- Being attacked
- Boundaries violated
- Memory of being wronged
- Perceived deception in others
- Being made fun of
- Being doubted
Just by listing them out like that, you 1) learn something about yourself, and 2) you realize if you come face-to-face with anger in the future, you can likely put that instance in one of those buckets, and get back into the present when you can't do something about it in that moment.
If there's a worst case scenario you can't overcome, like, say, having a pet go missing, you can also use distinctions to see all of the parts of that too:
- They're on their own
- They're afraid
- They're hurt
- They're helpless, etc.
Whether it helps you the way it does me is another story, but by listing out every bad thing that could have happened, or could be taking place, I find that it takes some of the sting out of things.
Of course, we're not going to see every possibility, but emptying our minds can be good enough.
5B) Overcoming The Dissonance Caused By Art
Sometimes we can watch a movie or hear a song and know that it's a movie or a song, and yet, we're pummeled as if the events were happening to us in that moment.
I'm of the belief that Father John Misty is an emotional terrorist. And "Goodbye Mr. Blue" is his 9/11.
Listing out the distinctions, or all of the parts that make up what fucks me up about that song is one way to strip away the layers a la Stoicism.
Or, if it's a movie, I've found it helpful to snap out of the illusion film creates by imagining I'm watching the scene with the crew filming it.
I see the director, I see the stage hands, the lighting being held above their heads, the catering spread, the intimacy coordinator and whatever the hell else might be sitting behind the camera.
Just doing that in a movie, especially during an emotionally charged scene, can be enough to snap me out of it.
Some people like feeling a movie or a song intensely, but for those of us that would rather consume with cold detachment, those are some of the things that might help.
5C) Seeing The Suchness
Similar to the approach with art, I've found that I can cut down on the emotional reactions I might have if I see others as performing a sort of part in a scene.
In Buddhism, there's the concept of 'suchness'. It's how they account for what appears to be personality in a person that is inherently impermanent.
I've found it helpful to see people's suchness and reactions as being prompted by a VHS-like tape being put in their back, or the back of their head.
If someone is being aggressive with you, seeing that tape in them manipulating their suchness to come off in such a hostile way, gets you closer to empathy, and further away from matching that energy.
Another way, is seeing the scene you're in from an aerial view, and seeing the control room and director of that scene, inputting tapes, or sending emotions, or transmitting lines to the other person.
All of this is to dampen that feeling of dissonance, knowing that you should be reacting in a more helpful way than you might naturally do.
5D) What To Do When You Can't Use The Practical Pathetic Syllogism: Presence
If I had my choice, I'd chop away the immovable with the PPS process. Or, I'd try working on a strategy to overcome whatever's happening.
When all else fails, I suggest staying in the present.
Time can often work on the Rubik's cube restraining us, whether by resolving it naturally, gathering us allies or assistance, teaching us something, or changing what is in some fundamental way.
Some ways to get back in the present can include using the PRPS process I've written about in the past, in particular a mantra that gets you focused on what's in front of you.
Another way is emptying all of your thoughts on a piece of paper. You want to clear the working memory, and reassure yourself that it's all down on that piece of paper, waiting for you to have a more productive moment in the future to approach it.
The last way I'll recommend is changing your state of being by altering your breath. I've found that doing some left nostril breathing (similar to Nadi Shodhana, just with the left nostril only, though Nadi Shodhana can help, too) for a minute or two can be enough to change what's going on in my body.
Breathing is one way to 'open a door' to another room in your mind, that may not be the same room as the troubles weighing you down.
Ultimately, there's times you wouldn't be able to stop what you're doing and do longhand math problems. See reframing as the same as that.
For the times you can't do that math, focusing on the moment in front of you is a good compromise.
Final Thoughts
Cognitive dissonance is often being in two bad places at once. Resolving it gets you back to the present, where you can actually clear a new path to move forward.
When you find what works for you, it's not a 100 percent sure thing. But 80 percent of the way there can make your daily life a lot more livable.
And in an impermanent world, something like 80 percent might be about as good as we're going to do.
I hope that one of the tools discussed here work for you, and if not, maybe you'll eventually teach me something that works a little better.