I struggle a lot with having inner very negative self beliefs and using external experiences as facts to justify those. I learned that our brains strive to avoid cognitive dissonance, and a part of that is fighting to justify our inner beliefs. So if you believe you don’t deserve friends, a breakup with a friend can justify a voice inside saying “see? You don’t deserve friends, you’ll never have any real ones that last” and the like. Meaning that insecurity and distress would be taken forward, potentially sabotaging the next friendships. For me, I have to manage through a lot of neurodiversity, physical and mental disabilities to resist. But I’m doing it, I’m committed. Every time I try something and it doesn’t produce immediate results I hear that voice but I decided to recognize it, be smarter than it. The truth is that I can do it anyways. I don’t have to believe in myself or what I do to do it, I just need to decide to commit to it, knowing the underlying motivation is one that can take months to years of work. My dreams are big and many of them have already been fulfilled. So I struggle, and I fight, and I do it anyways. I lower the resistance when I can, I problem solve where possible, and if it isn’t, I do it anyways. I think most of us know, internally if we really listen we know the smartest, or best choice at every second. It’s just really hard to get it done sometimes if we wait for the cognitive harmony, if we seek for our actions to perfectly suit our internal values or beliefs. I’m done waiting for my messy psychic to find harmony, and I’ve begun creating it in reality, knowing I’ll be happier for it, and change in response to the new reality I created every day.
Our brains are made to make life easy if we were still living in the jungle, but our lives are far more nuanced and complex today and awareness with implementation is all it takes to do your best to progress every day despite the individual challenges you may face. That’s for today’s motivational thoughts.
Love,
Emmanuelle