Hello everyone and welcome to therapy in a nutshell. I'm Emma McAdam, a licensed

marriage and family therapist, and this is the podcast where I condense mental health skills

into bite-sized nuggets of health.

In this video, you're going to learn about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when we have a gap between what we believe is right and what we're doing. That creates dissonance in our lives.

This means that we believe one thing, but we're acting on something else. Dissinence feels like having one foot on one boat and the other foot on another boat.

As the two boats, as our actions and our

beliefs drift further apart, the more uncomfortable we get. When we have unresolved gaps between

our thoughts and our actions, we feel intensely uncomfortable. You can do all the coping and the

meditation and the self-care that you can handle, but if you can't figure out cognitive

dissonance, you're just not going to feel good. There is no substitute for integrity when it comes

to peace of mind. So, for example, Jenny knows that she should exercise more. It's not that she's

obese or anything, but her body feels slow and sluggish, and she gets out of breath when she's walking up a flight of stairs.

She knows that she would feel better if she worked out.

And each day that she doesn't exercise, she feels a tinge of disappointment and guilt.

Now, dissonance makes us feel bad. Dissinence makes us feel unsettled or guilty or uncertain. Dissinence makes us feel fake, dissonance makes us feel unsettled or guilty or uncertain, dissonance makes

us feel fake or bad about ourselves. And this feeling isn't just in our minds, it creates measurable

physical tension. And this isn't a bad thing, right? Discomfort can help us be motivated to change.

This is strongest when it has to do with a belief about ourselves. So, for

example, the thought, you know, I value kindness, paired with the action, oh, I just punched someone

in the face, is going to bring on some pretty strong feelings of regret and guilt and disappointment.

When we resolve dissonance, we can feel more peace. We can like ourselves more,

and we can feel clarity. The opposite of dissonance is integrity. Integrity is not just about being

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