Sometimes, I am astonished by how much mental gymnastics folks do to deal with their cognitive dissonance instead of accepting truths and changing their beliefs.
Do you do too?
Yesterday, I was watching a short YouTube with a guy interviewing on the streets in the UK after that idiotic court rule.
His first question was, “Is ‘the statement black lives matter’ racist”?
And all said no, as it should be, but with the second question, the mental gymnastics started…
“Is the statement ‘white lives matter’ racist?”
Suddenly, some folks say that is racist; even expanding it that ‘all lives matter’ is racist too.
Huh?
They all tried to justify it with some gibberish that lacked meaning and sense to everyone outside their head.
Of course, it does for them because it helps to alleviate the excruciating pain of going through cognitive dissonance.
Doing mental gymnastics is easier than reflecting and accepting that your beliefs are conflicting and changing one or all.
But mental gymnastics makes it worse. It hardens those beliefs.
And if you start to integrate them into your self-identity, it becomes even worse.
Now, the dissonance is threatening your identity.
And when threatened, we fight instead of thinking clearly and acting wisely.
So, next time the dissonance says hello, step back for a moment and decide if you want to go through the short pain of change or the long-lasting pain of mental gymnastics.