Cognitive Dissonance

[Donna]

Pamela,

You said it all, lady, in such a beautiful, succinct way.

By steering the course, may you realize every goal you've set out for.

[Aaron]

Light & Love

It can only be obvious that fear is the underlying destruction (illusion) and always has been; from the biblical fall of mankind to our present day situation. It is the cause of all suffering in whatever form it manifests. Defense (fear) is the first strike of war, whether in a home or between nations. With much love, Donna

Hi Donna,

Great post!

And with fear being of the darkness I feel it is important to remind myself often that there is no such thing as fear as there is no such thing as darkness, there is only an absence of Light or Love.

[slawek]

is cognitive dissonance absolutely anavoidable?

It seems to me with analogies liek warm and cold front that cognitive dissonance is unavoidable on the way to establishing new beliefs. I did hear of a comando type soldier who was trained (as were they all I think) to instantly adapt as you have to in a combat situation. Your life depends on your ability to (almost) instantly come up with a new behaviour pattern. Is it possible that these soldiers have short circuited the whole cognitive dissonance issue? Are they operating at a level above all this? I have experienced cognitive dissonance myself many times so I appreciate what people are saying here. However, I wonder if it is possible to just obsolete it once and for all. I generally prefer to fix things rather than manage them, but maybe not in this case?

Slawek

[future pather]

Hi Slawek,

I don't know what module(s) you are on but there are plenty that don't have the potential to create any cognitive dissonance.

For example the Self Esteem module would be a good one.

Also if you are on the Succesful Living series (which does have the potential for cog dis) you could try rotating the series changing from 1 to 2 to 3 each month and then repeating once or twice.

When I first started on successful living 1 it brought many great things into my life. But after being on it over a month I also got these times where I had a bit of an uneasy feeling, like something bad was going to happen.

Nothing bad ever did happen and life was much better than usual on the module, but I guess I was changing some thought patterns and the unknown territory was a little scary.

So I decided to rotate the Suc. Liv mods each month, and I am doing GREAT with that!

-Jessica

[slawek]

I am not on PATHS, yet

Hi Jessica,

I was just wondering if ther possibly was an easy way out I am currently waiting for the green light from my doctor to be able to use spirulina and then I can start with PATHS. This whole week has been rather liek being in the valley of despair described in this thread possibly to my listening to some subliminal programs while I wait for PATHS. And it was not a pelasant experience. It's like my mind was not my own and I had no idea what to do to coax it out of near sleep.

Oh and lately I am so very impatient, but experience is repeatedly tellign me that things take as long a they do and trying to speed things up will only mean having to start from the beggining again.

Slawek

[slawek]

when will I have arrived

I guess what I was trying to say is that these valleys of despair will keep recurring as there are more things to work on and improve in my life. It's liek I will not have arrived until all that is done and since there is little chance of perfection, at least in this life time, I may not arrive. So then how about making the journey a little more pleasant? Since we work on fear, procrastination, increasing prosperity then why not work on minimizing or eliminating the valley of despair and just launch right into the new pattern. It is a kind of meta improvement to make all future improvements easier and speed up the journey. Did I say I am impatient?

Slawek

[future pather]

Slawek,

Ok so you are waiting for word from your doctor before you start PATHS and getting a little frazzled in the mean time. . .

Please try to hang in there. I wouldn't spend time worrying about any possible congnative dissonance

You may never have any.

If you pick a module that gives you some you will easily be able to decide whether you want to stick with it or switch to another module. This is a free service with PATHS and there are no set up fees or fees of any kind for switching modules.

PATHS likes it if you can limit switch requests to once a month in general but they will probably work closer with you in the first month to make sure everything is ok.

There are also other alternatives to spirulina if it comes to that.

-Jessica

[Rin]

Several weeks after last posting

As you can see by perusing this thread, I had a pretty rough time with cognitive dissonance. But I hung in there, and according to this post, I even stated that I felt sure that I would "look back and smile" upon reaching the ninety-day mark.

Guess what: I've reached the ninety-day mark, and I'm looking back and smiling! And it's a good feeling!

[future pather]

Good to know Rin

I do plan to cycle back to the Succ. Liv 1 so it is nice to have this information.

I also wanted to post an update to what I said earlier in this thread about taking spirulina.

I no longer take it 3 times a day. I saw a post (was it by Roz?) about how spirulina can amp you up and realized I was a bit too wired at night.

I think at the time I posted about doing better taking it 3 times a day that I wasn't taking enough prior to that. So when I started taking it 3 times a day it was better simply because I was taking more spirulina in general.

Now I take the same amount (actually a little more now because I am on more modules than before) but take most of it in the morning, a little bit at lunch and none after that.

Once or twice I have tried Aaron's suggestion to pop some RIGHT before going to sleep, so you fall asleep before it kicks in.

That has worked for me when I've tried it. And Aaron mentioned that can be good to do because your body is doing so much while you sleep.

-Jessica

[Rin]

I take my lovely green spirulina (a whopping 20 grams!) in the morning just before breakfast. If I do it later in the day it fills my tummy too much, which makes it hard to sleep. Furthermore I'm very forgetful, and if I leave it 'til later in the day I'm likely to forget. So I can really recommend taking the whole amount in the morning. It works well for me!

I might just change it to evening time, because as the dreadful summer heat sets in, like many people here I have a great deal of trouble maintaining my appetite and tend to skip meals altogether, especially the evening meal.

To my mind, there is no one right way to take the green stuff! So much depends upon your own unique lifestyle, and even then your needs may vary with the seasons. So, please experiment with it and find out what works for you. That's the best way to do anything, in my books!

[Pamela Vicik-Smith]

I tried taking it three times a day like several people suggested. However, like Rin I was forgetting to take it half the time.

Now, I take my six grams in the morning before I leave the house.

[S.J]

Hi, Aaron I love what you said about there been no darkness, just the absence of light

Regards spirulina, I was not the best at taking it or regulating how much etc. Now I am on a much better footing with it and it's working much better. I take two as soon as I wake up (I keep the pot next to the bed with a glass of water, which I would have there anyway) Then after breakfast, I shake out my spirulina and also my other vit tablets (just some primrose oil and milk thistle for my lady problems lol! - working well!) I can then know exactly how many I have left to take for the day, and eek them out throughout the day. I always have two left at the end of the day which I take last thing before bed. I've found it is really helping than just taking them willy nilly, it's easy to get confused.

My cog diss didn't last long first time around, second time around (I went though a stage of not watching paths, then had it tweaked) I only had 1 day of tiredness which was ok! So please don't worry even if you get some it won't be anything much hopefully.

[belle99]

Slawek,

Try the Just Relax--Stress Reducing module. I experienced no cognitive dissonance with that one, and most of my nutritional neurotransmitter support comes from taking the particular amino acids I have isolated as the most beneficial to me (although I do still take some spirulina).

The one I experienced the most cognitive dissoance with was the Break Through to Enlightenment. That kicked me in the a**. But it was exactly what I needed to break through a bunch of mental garbage to pave the way for some of the modules that give one more of a "wheeeee!" feeling......best wishes!!!

[belle99]

I also have to tell you that I am experiencing huge cognitive dissonance with (I think) my Successful Living portion of my platinum. It is like there is a war going on inside me between the part that has always accepted these instructions and the part that is running scared from feeling joy and taking responsibility. I had the urge to cry for no reason last night and kind of thought I was losing my mind for about an hour. Then oddly, it was replaced with a weird warm sense of peace (which has kind of faded off by today, but it was there).

When I tried to figure out what was going on, searching my mind for what was making me so scared and depressed, I couldn't find anything specific, other than all the little issues of my life seemed more trivial at the same time I was generally feeling worse. It was weird. I also had a lot of old beliefs and thoughts that I thought I had long outgrown with PATHS and other efforts...revisit me and make me feel awful these last couple of days. It is like I am having waves of feeling the opposite of successful living and self esteem.

Another thing I experienced was an increased awareness of all my negative thoughts and feelings, and a realization of their power, and the fear that everything I was fear will come to pass in the worst way imaginable. Actually, I am afraid right now that my worst nightmares will come to pass in job, relationship, etc. But at the same time, I am aware of another part of me without those fears.

I know this discomfort is common, so I will just hang in there and keep pushing the neurotransmitter support.....

[kiran]

cog diss 3rd week

Hi

I just wanted to post that I experienced some major cogdis my third week with Paths. I felt all kinds of anger, guilt, despair.

I'm on week four now and I still get some feelings of regret about mistakes I have made in the past.

I'm currently on:
Suc living 1
Intuition n insight
Increased synchronicity
Self esteem

I want to switch to the Platinum module and see how the cog diss would appear there.

Kiran