Nov 3, 2022
Cognitive Dissonance — How Your Mind Tricks You to Stick to Your Abusive Relationships
Cognitive dissonance occurs when someone holds two related but contradictory beliefs at once. This feeling creates discomfort and to ease the discomfort, it forces someone to engage in actions that ease the discomfort. It’s more of an internal conflict between two opposing beliefs and an individual chooses to look for reasons or justifications that one belief is truer than the other belief. It’s those times when your mind plays tricks on you, when it’s opposing how you really feel about something. It plays a huge role in keeping someone trapped in a narcissistic relationship. I’m going to explore how it does and how to permanently resolve it.
A narcissist will manipulate, gaslight, verbally abuse, intimidate or even physically abuse someone as they seek to supply their needs. They subject you to various psychological tortures beyond human understanding but someone still chooses to stay and continue supplying them with their needs and even justify why they’re doing so. How can someone ‘voluntarily’ stay and even justify sacrificing themselves when they’re aching? That’s what cognitive dissonance does, it forces you to lie to yourself and stick to it while deep inside you’re aching.
So, your emotional inner being is screaming and crying for help that you’re being abused and your health is deteriorating if you keep staying with your abusive partner. But, the mind goes contrary to that and quiets those screams by finding “excuses” and justifications on why you need to stay in that relationship. The reasons can be something like: -
“They’re acting that way because of their traumatic childhood, it’s not their fault.”
“I’m sure they didn’t mean that. The world has been a chaotic place lately, so it’s triggering their depression.
“The connection we have is just so strong, no one will even understand it.”
“If I leave, I don’t know how I will survive on my own.”
“I’ve been seeing some improvements, I think they’re changing. Let me just give them more time.”
“There aren’t any good options out there.”
“I’m too old to go out there and find someone else.”
Those are just some of many “justifications” which the mind feeds us with to reinforce our unconscious beliefs which legitimizes your stay in that toxic relationship. We justify in our head while ignoring the inner emotional truth. So, your actions and behaviors are aligned with these reasons while your inner being is telling you otherwise.
Why do you listen to the ‘truth’ in your head while ignoring your emotions which are really a depiction of how you feel deep inside? It’s because of your deeply-held subconscious beliefs or your subconscious programming.
It doesn’t matter how much logic you apply to cognitive dissonance and trying to explain the false nature of the justifications as the mind chooses the path which reinforces your deeply held beliefs. That’s why you will ‘lie’ to yourself and even make excuses for their behavior. These beliefs are in the deep level of your subconscious mind, most of which you’re not even aware of. So, being in a narcissistic relationship and staying is in alignment with your deeply held beliefs. Our subconscious beliefs are the driving force of our life and they hook us up with people, situations and events that exactly reinforce those beliefs. Our traumatic pasts feed us with beliefs like: — “I am unworthy of love”, “There must be something wrong with me”, “The people who I love always hurt me.”
Those subconscious beliefs are what are running the show behind the scenes and they steer your current reality (actions and behaviors) to be in alignment with those deeply-held beliefs. That’s why no logical explanation can really deal with cognitive dissonance because the cognitive brain will just switch to default and agree with what the subconscious programming is feeding it with. It’s like your mind comes up with various excuses and justifications to reinforce the identity of your traumatic programming. That’s where the minimization, rationalization and justification come from.
So How Do You Resolve Cognitive Dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance cannot be resolved by just intellectually or logically understanding as the problem doesn’t exist in the cognitive part of the brain, it exists in the subconscious. Simply put, resolving cognitive dissonance is more of being deeply rooted in the reality of what’s happening to you in the presence moment regardless of what your thoughts are feeding you with. So, your thoughts are feeding you with something else but you become mindful of its deception and just focus on what you see (reality) and not what you think. It’s easier said than done, of course, because the subconscious is very powerful that it even overpowers your attempts of mindfulness. Your thoughts, justifications, and actions you’re exhibiting presently are just a symptom of something which is lying deep within you. Talking about it and understanding may offer a temporary solution and you may even have a change in your thoughts and actions but those thoughts will still come back after some time.
That’s why, it has to be resolved by dissolving those inner beliefs that you have in relation to what love and relationships mean to you. It’s more of going inwards and making peace with your past hurts once and for all. There has to be a deep shift within your inner identity and then your thoughts, actions and behaviors will follow. It’s very important to really go deeper so that we can be free from the binds of narcissistic abuse. Hope you now understand the reason why you may be engaging in some behaviors and actions yet deep inside you’re aching, it’s just the powerful subconscious programming running the show.
If you’re tired of the pain and you’re ready to dissolve that stuck identity and those unconscious patterns for good then book a FREE CALL with me here, and I’ll help you out using some little-known but effective techniques I use with my clients called Mind Shifting in close to a month.
Without the past having a grip in your present life, you’ll be able to see someone for who they’re and not from the eyes of your past painful experiences. You will have the deep connection with your authentic self where you’re totally aware of your present actions and behaviors.
Note from the Author
Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts and research😊.
