SUNDAY NIGHT SLIDES
The mental battle you endure when your intentions don't quite align with your actions comes from a theory in social psychology called Cognitive Dissonance and it's a pretty prevalent phenomenon.
Cognitive being related to conscious brain activity.
Dissonance meaning a lack of harmony or agreement.
It's a familiar feeling of discomfort that your conscious Self is aware of conflicting beliefs and behaviour.
A more common interpretation of this is a perpetual feeling of guilt that, when unaddressed, becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of obstructive habits which will be perceived by others as hypocritical – should you have been vocal before.
Guilt that will be felt if you value Personal Health highly, for example, but are unable to make the right decisions that will contribute towards habit-harmony like exercising regularly and eating healthy foods.
Now, this could be because of a stubborn hormonal imbalance zapping your energy, a strongly gripped sugar addiction, or prioritising financial gain that's leading to high levels of stress.
But either which way, it's a mental battle that only you are able to resolve. And resolve you shall, by realigning your values and their associated beliefs, e.g.
"I value {Personal Health} because it'll make me more resilient to overcome life challenges, give me bountiful energy stores and lower my chances of illness or injury."
"I believe that to have {Personal Health} harmony, I must get at least 30 minutes of exercise and two healthy meals a day with a generally low sugar and alcohol intake."
Feel free to use the above as a template for your own values and beliefs and print versions to stick on the wall as constant reminders. That'll make sure to be front of conscious mind when reasoning that either contributes to mental harmony or discomfort.
Cognitive Distancing
"Silence Chuckles! Now isn't the time." – my Self to my Mind.
Who's Chuckles? I hear you ask.
Chuckles is my Mind.
And I am my Self.
That was my Self talking aloud to Chuckles, as I often do, but don't often admit, for obvious reasons lol. Until now!
We are two separate entities for whom one (Chuckles) is the noisy background chatter, hungry for attention, narrating my life story to feed my ego in the conscious mind – the tip of the iceberg – also responsible for analysing logic and rational thought.
Uncontrolled, Chuckles distracts me from being fully present and gaining the most fulfilment from my life experience each day. And according to Trivers' theory of self-deception, in a vain attempt to save face, the conscious mind is capable of hiding the truth from itself so it can then better hide it from others.
Chuckles is, however, dutifully silenced during flow states when working in-the-zone, during meditation, prayer or breathwork, during intensive exercise, when performing or racing, when wondering with awe through a forest, swimming in the ocean, playing games with children or in-depth conversation with friends, when captivated by fiction or watching an immersive film, when writing, cooking, listening or dancing to music, singing songs, when surfing or sailing, cycling or running.
But nowadays, because we spend so much of our day questioning, judging, reasoning and comparing (overstimulated by social media and instant messaging) that we end up mistakenly identifying with the Mind as if it were our true Self.
"I can't think straight"
"I need that new jacket"
"I'm too busy to call them"
"I can't be bothered to cook"
"One or two glasses won't harm"
"I can always workout tomorrow"
Disconnecting the two is the first step to reducing daily cognitive overload and overriding your conscious mind. According to revered clinical psychologist, Steven Hayes, giving your Mind a name and conversing aloud, questioning it as a third-party, is most effective.
Silencing your own 'Chuckles' naturally encourages a deeper connection with your truer Self too, that's driven by the subconscious mind – the bulk of the iceberg – that's incapable of reasoning as it's where your core values and beliefs, emotions and feelings, habits and addictions, imagination and intuition live.
For those of you who've seen this year's Disney~Pixar animated film, Luca, you'll notice some similarities in the above when Luca's friend Alberto orders him to repetitively "Silenzio Bruno!" to dampen his inner obstructive voice – shutting down his doubts by giving them an identity, in humour.
And don't worry, you shan't develop a 'split personality' or anything of the sort by practising this. It forms part of the evidence-based mindfulness strategies used in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy developed by Steven Hayes and served globally since 1982.
So that just leaves my question this week...
What are you naming your Mind? 😅
Hit reply and let me know – funnier the better!
Charlie
FEATURED SLIDE
FINAL THOUGHTS 💭
In memory of Josh Taylor ❤️