HOW TO BYPASS THE DEFENSIVENESS SURROUNDING A SELF-SEALING BELIEF SYSTEM
When a person's reality is the product of cognitive distortions reinforced by confirmation bias, it's often the result of early trauma that teaches the mind to protect itself from criticism or embarrassment by simply ignoring or erasing any information that might shine an unflattering light on the person. If there are text messages that make the person feel guilt or overwhelm, they might go unread altogether, or they'll quickly fade and become hazy memories that aren't called up by the brain when it decides how it will interpret an event or action. It's called a self-sealing belief system, and once a person is locked into one of those, it's damned near impossible for them to break free from it.
This style of belief system is the one cults are built upon. Those with this kind of system take in only that information which confirms their already firmly held beliefs about a person, place, thing, or situation. If they think a person is evil, and that person offers them a stack of evidence proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are actually good, decent, and loving, they won't believe a word of it. But if some random guy who doesn't even know the alleged evil person rolls up and starts throwing out suggestions that maybe the person did this or maybe they did that, and this and that are bad, awful, hateful things, then the believer is going to accept those uneducated guesses or opinions as fact, and they will serve to prop up the skewed version of reality the believer holds as truth.
It's not easy to logic someone out of a self-sealing belief system. They have to come to the truth on their own and be willing to set aside their reality willingly so that they can try and look at things from another person's perspective. It isn't something that they do very easily. They are typically too concerned with being right, with avoiding feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment for getting things wrong or for treating others badly. They want to be the good guy. No, they MUST be the good guy. There simply is no other role their mind will allow them to play. And if that means completely discounting another person's lived truth, then that's what the believer will do. They will be victims and resist accountability. They will sidestep responsibility and twist words to fit their narratives. They are basically immune to empathy.
That's why I developed this game for Cody. It is intended to take him on a thought experiment that will allow him to safely explore the possibility that his perspective is perhaps flawed. By offering a calm, judgment-free journey through a number of scenarios Cody will be familiar with, I hope to help him stumble upon a truth or two that differ from his own. And maybe when he finds them, he will be willing to accept that he isn't perfect, that he makes mistakes, and that by denying those two facts he might have caused others to suffer so that he wouldn't have to.
Now, since I know that Cody's minions, his team, and possibly even Cody himself love to monitor my social media posts and this blog for any signs I might be getting a little uppity and feeling my oats about something they know Cody isn't gonna like, I'm confident this post will find its way to that boy's angry, untrusting eyeballs. So, please pardon me, dear reader. The rest of this post is for Cody alone.
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| Now that it's just us, here's the tea. |
If you aren't afraid to take a chance, Cody, and if you think you are capable of opening your mind just a bit, I challenge you to follow the link below and take the journey I've created for you. What's the worst that could happen? Will being shown a tough truth really make your world fall apart? Come on. You're the tough guy. Surely nothing I can say or do is going to make you scared to play a simple game. After all, you told me once how ridiculous I was for thinking you or anyone else could ever be afraid of me. Now's your chance to prove it, buddy. There's even a reward waiting for you on the other side of the game's 10 levels if you can finish them. We'll see. Good luck!
