_Step # 4 - What do you Believe?
Let's say you are behaving a certain way or your life is showing up in a way that is not what you want or like. No matter how hard you wish things were different they remain the same. For example, you may get out of a relationship and when you get into a new relationship you find it has many if not all the same characteristics of the past relationship. The older you are the more you will notice that things stay the same no matter how hard you try to change them. What you believe at a subconscious level has almost everything to do with the reality of your life situations.
What does it mean to believe something or in something? Well, that should be easy. I believe that I can ride a bike, or I believe we should all be kind to others. There are actually two categories of beliefs; there are internal beliefs and external beliefs. Here are a few examples of each to make my point.
Internal beliefs are beliefs about you, beliefs you have about yourself.
• I am kind
• I am fat
• I am a talented singer
• I am no good at sports
• I am a terrible speller
• I am a great driver
• I can’t control my spending
External beliefs are beliefs that you have about others
• Boys drive too fast
• Girls like to clean houses and do dishes
• All football coaches are a little strange
• My friend Sam is ruining his life
• My parents are super heroes
• Rich people must be very happy
• Poor people are not as smart as rich people
Do you see any of these beliefs as being absolutely true? I don’t see any absolute truth to any of these beliefs.
I think you get the idea. You don’t need to spend much time to identify the beliefs you hold both internally and externally at the surface level of the mind. That is the easy part and when you write them down it can even be a little funny. Our beliefs say a lot about our personality. When we can uncover the beliefs that are below the surface of our conscious minds, we get a look into the real reason we behave the way we do.
This is what happens. First a belief is established through an event or a series of events you experience in your life up to this point. I call these experiences "critical moments.” Your critical moments get recorded and interpreted in the brain as a belief. The brain holds onto this belief to support and aid you in your survival. Your belief generates a thought, the thought generates a feeling, that feeling coupled with your thinking will create an action and that action is what shows up as your reality. The belief creates neurological brain activity we call thoughts to keep us safe from pain and suffering.
Without using a systemic process and without a facilitator to assist you, it is near impossible to identify these life-controlling beliefs. They reside in the blind spot of your cognitive ability or reality. On your own it is nearly impossible to dissolve your deep-seated beliefs in order to make a change that opens you up to a world of freedom and new possibilities which I call a transformed life.
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