How to handle those sour notes in life

I’m a member of the Hot Springs Concert Band. We practice once a week and play several concerts throughout the year. Admittedly during practice (hopefully not during a concert) I’ll hit a sour note now and again. Most of us do. Although these notes are not always noticeable, occasionally they stick out like a sore thumb. When my sour note combines with the pleasant notes the rest of the band is playing, it’s truly an unpleasant combination. We call that “dissonance.”

Dissonance isn’t confined to music, though. Sometimes our thinking becomes dissonant when two thoughts, just like two notes, just don’t go well together. Here’s an example of two dissonant thoughts: “I should get out and visit friends and family,” but “when I think of going out to visit people, I get anxious and just want to go to bed.”

We don’t like dissonance in our thinking any more than we like it in our music, so we rationalize in order to stifle one or the other thought. In this case, you might stifle the first thought by telling yourself “nobody really wants to visit with me anyway” or the second thought by telling yourself “I’m just too tired right now, maybe later.” Trying to rationalize the dissonance away might give you calm for a while, but eventually it returns in the form of defeat, worthlessness and hopelessness.

When you’re confronted with this kind of dissonance, sometimes it helps to alter your thoughts in a believable way to harmonize a little better. Rather than those two dissonant thoughts, for instance, you can tell yourself this: “Although I’d rather stay in bed and not feel anxious, I know I’ll feel better after I go out and visit friends and family.” Such a thought may decrease your frustration just enough to give you the mental and emotional energy to get out and visit.

If you have difficulty with how you’re thinking, and it’s making you anxious and depressed or keeping you from living life to the fullest, give us a call at 622-3580. Perhaps we can help.