Wholeness and welcome.
This is Josh DeBolt from Integrating Presence,
And today's event is called Towards Cognitive Dissonance Resolution.
The description I have here is,
One way to address cognitive dissonance is to simultaneously hold unpleasant,
Confusing,
Chaotic oppositions equanimously in awareness,
With kind intent to transmute into calmness and clarity for the liberation of all.
Well,
That sounds like a big mouthful,
Doesn't it?
And like a really challenging thing to do with really high intentions,
But we're not gonna start there.
And if there's time left towards the end,
We'll get into the more difficult things.
I don't know if I'm getting the terms right exactly with cognitive dissonance.
Also,
We might be working with paradox here too,
Regardless of the exact definition.
What we'll be doing is we'll be in a semi-meditative state and we'll hold multiple notions in awareness.
And these notions will be,
They'll be similar yet significantly different.
For instance,
One with really low emotional charge would be planes,
Trains,
And automobiles,
Unless of course there's some trauma involved there.
Or you watch that in,
I guess,
80s or 90s movie,
Maybe,
I don't know.
Can you simultaneously hold traveling in a plane,
A car,
And a train at the same time in awareness?
So let's just try that for a moment.
Or just pick two.
Can also pick just two of these.
Get distracted,
You can just recall it again.
Okay.
So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read a few of these concepts that are similar,
Yet there's a significant difference.
And we'll start with some of the well-known spiritual concepts that are similar to the spiritual concepts that we've been talking about.
So let's start with the spiritual concepts.
Some of the well-known spiritual concepts that sometimes,
You know,
People go from one end to the other.
And I'll just read a few of these and we can do these,
Holding them simultaneously in awareness.
And then I'll drop in some other considerations here too.
So let's start with this notion of flow and stillness.
Flow being in a flow state and stillness,
Being like a tree and still.
So recall a flow state,
Recall a still state,
Hold them both in awareness.
Now,
Idealism and realism.
So these are kind of abstract concepts,
So we won't spend long on this.
Idealism,
Remember a time when you've been idealistic or how you would like to be idealistic.
And then a time when stark realism has hit.
Okay,
The next one is humility and empowerment.
So being humble and being very powerful at the same time in awareness.
Now notice where there's more identification with one of these over the other.
If there tends to be a tendency towards,
Oh,
I'm more a flow person,
Or I'm more an idealistic person,
Or I'm more humble than empowered.
And then also know,
See if there's any clinging around these.
Like I want it to be one way more than another,
Or it's gotta be more this way,
Or I don't see how these things relate,
Or this is confusing.
So any amount of kind of clinging and identification to either of these.
This next concept,
Purity and chastity with passion and procreation.
So again,
Abstinence versus sexuality.
Now boundaries and boundlessness.
So having to establish where there's firm boundaries in our lives and on the other,
Boundlessness like heart qualities of kindness,
Compassion,
There's no limits,
No limitations,
Boundaries and boundlessness.
No limitations,
Boundaries and boundlessness.
Okay,
So I'll just take a little pause here to kind of talk a little bit more about this technique.
At one point I was encountering different things in life,
Not necessarily as high minded as these,
Or as beautiful as these qualities here,
But they were contradictory states.
The commonality is to resolve them at all costs.
Well,
Sometimes that would just lead to more frustration.
The frustrations are already there.
It occurred to me to just hold these in awareness and just be with the unpleasantness and the pain and the uncomfortable notions of these.
What I noticed that started to kind of happen is the emotional intensity around them just started to dissipate and dissolve.
There was this okayness with things being confused and opposing each other.
They could be there and could just speak.
They didn't have to go away.
This kind of confidence and trust came up that,
You know,
I was doing the best I could.
If I could do better,
I would.
Also,
These are one,
They're not one and the same.
This is another teaching I heard recently,
But they're on the same spectrum.
They might be at other ends of the spectrum,
But they're connected.
So let's jump back into it here.
Safety and being free.
One end being secure and safe.
The other being free.
Judging and discernment.
We often hear about judging or don't judge.
It's a hot topic.
And then discernment to know the difference between things.
And then the other is the other.
Judging and discernment to know the difference between things.
Judging,
Discernment.
So conventional reality,
Just day to day living,
Base programming level here,
And non dualism or more ultimate reality.
Conventional and ultimate reality.
And of course,
None of us really can truly hold ultimate reality in awareness.
Maybe there might be somebody here,
But we can just kind of get as close we can to pointing to it.
Now onto minimalism and abundance.
Living a minimalistic lifestyle,
Minimalism and how we operate,
Matched with abundance,
Where there is ample resources,
The notion everything we need,
Will get exactly when we need it.
Now onto vulnerability and resilience.
Being vulnerable is the way our heart opens.
It's the way we connect to others,
Especially very deeply.
And resilience,
It's the ability to bounce back,
To heal quickly,
To be able to go in situations with courage.
Vulnerability and resilience.
Now onto helping others and helping ourselves,
Their self-care,
Helping others in self-care.
Now agency,
Will and action and doing.
So this action,
Will and action and doing.
So this action is helping others in self-care.
Helping others in self-care.
Now agency,
Will and action and doing.
So this active side,
Maybe more the masculine side,
With the surrender,
Letting go and being,
Feminine side.
So again,
Doing and being,
Or action and surrender.
And then the second part of this is,
The self-care,
The self-care,
The self-care,
Action and surrender,
Letting go and agency.
Okay,
And now here's some singular concepts to kind of help gel this practice before we jump into more challenging ones.
So we can just drop these in.
Unity,
Unity,
Unification,
Honor,
And respect,
Dignity,
Worthiness,
Being worthy,
Wholeness.
Okay,
So now jump right in here to the challenge.
Vaccination,
No vaccination.
Now we're going to talk about the challenges that we face in our lives.
Vaccination,
No vaccination.
Holding these opposing viewpoints,
Notions and awareness.
And the political left and the political right.
Okay,
Thanks for joining.
The last two didn't seem as challenging after some of the more high road material we took.
