My Belief About Beliefs

Welcome to Format Free Fridays, the one day a week when I break the format of answering your questions and I dispense that which we rarely welcome in life: Unsolicited advice.

Today we’re talking about beliefs, because beliefs create our life’s path.  What I mean by that is that everything you believe will come true. Everything.  Now because our brains have access to both conscious and unconscious thought, it’s very possible that your most destructive beliefs are unconscious, rendering you unaware of the very convictions that are causing you to have a life that’s less than ideal.  I’m not talking about unconscious beliefs ~ it’s too complicated to fix in 1 blog post. I’m keeping it simple and focusing on those beliefs that you are aware of.

We all have them, likely inherited by our parents, our culture and/or society.  Today, you’re going to learn how I’ve helped hundreds of clients change their negative beliefs.  But first, let me tell you why it’s imperative to change beliefs that do not serve us.

We human beings have a fundamental need for certainty, and one of the ways we create it is by forming convictions about the world we live in. These convictions help us to predict our environments, which makes us feel safe when we’re young.  Once we’ve aligned with our convictions, our mind spends the rest of our life hunting for evidence to confirm that our belief is right, which furthers our sense of safety in the world.  And with every additional bit of evidence that we accumulate, we strengthen our belief. The problem is this: Beliefs are just beliefs ~ they’re not right or wrong, they just are.  And too often, a belief that gives us a moment of certainty may result in us feeling bad about ourselves or about the world we live in, because it’s a belief that doesn’t serve us.  If we’d simply align with a new belief, one that would serve us, our mind would immediately begin searching for evidence that our new belief was right and we’d begin creating the life we want.

Beliefs are like little snowballs rolling down a mountain that grow stronger and stronger with time, and just as the snowballs pick up more snow and get bigger, so do our beliefs become stronger and more ingrained as we go through life because our minds will hunt for evidence confirming that our beliefs are right. So if, for example, you have a belief that men are dangerous, you’ll go through your day, your week or your month gathering proof and eventually your belief will appear to be correct. But if that belief is keeping you from being in a loving relationship, it would make sense to challenge it and to remind yourself several times a day of your new belief; a belief that would serve you such as: Men are as loving as I allow them to be.

So how do I know this is true?  If I gave you an assignment to identify 2 beliefs that do not serve you, and then I asked you to find examples of others whose lives fly in the face of your beliefs, ie, disprove them, you’d be able to do it, even if you had to look to examples of public figures/people who you do not personally know.  And this is how I know I’m right:  If your belief were true, it would be true for everyone in the world, and of course, it’s not.

So here’s your homework:  Identify 2 beliefs that don’t serve you.  Then come up with as many examples as you can of people who disprove this belief.  Email me your belief along with your list and I’ll give you the next step: Darcy@AskDrDarcy.com

Remember, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates