Personal Development Face-off Series – Round No.13 (Theme Beliefs)

QUESTION NO.1 – How do you think we get beliefs installed in our brains?

We arrive into the world free of beliefs.  Just watch an infant for a short time, and you will see the possibility of receiving the experiences of the world without the filter of beliefs.  For infants, everything is seen with wonder and delight—no labels, no judgments, no categorizing into right or wrong, good or bad.

As we grow up in our families, we have experiences that prompt us to develop our beliefs.  We learn what is acceptable and unacceptable.  We learn how to get approval and avoid disapproval.  We feel fear when our needs are not completely met, and we develop mental strategies that help us cope.

The purpose of beliefs is to organize the world that seems uncontrollable, challenging, and chaotic.

Beliefs get installed in our minds both consciously and unconsciously. They can come from the way we perceive our experiences, past environments, past education or they can come from our desire to create new beliefs.

Oftentimes, beliefs get installed in our minds from repetition and reinforcement, other times a single intense experience can create a belief.

QUESTION NO.2 – Do you think that most of our beliefs, on average, are usually negative rather than positive and if yes, why?

Although we tend to notice the negative ones, the beliefs we hold are negative, positive, and neutral.

If we want to be available to our highest potential for fulfillment, any belief that limits us in any way is worth investigating.

I would say that on average our beliefs are more positive than negative, because we as a human race would not be able to survive otherwise.

As I look at the world, I see signs of our positive empowering beliefs:

• There is a huge amount of wonderful non-profit organizations and charities doing their best to make a positive difference in the world.

• When there is a crisis, people naturally tend to want to help. The rescue efforts for the Chilean Miners were a great example.

• There is an increase in entrepreneurial spirit as well, and that shows personal empowerment—they believe they can create their own employment opportunities for themselves and others.

QUESTION NO.3 – How do our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us shape our lives?

Our beliefs operate as a filter through which we perceive our experiences of the world.

If we have expectations about how things should be, we evaluate everything that happens according to them, and we react when they are not met.

If we hold negative views about ourselves, our potential is stunted and our relationships are compromised.  If we judge others or see the world as unjust or frightening, we act accordingly in ways that bring unhappiness to ourselves and others.

Seeing things through the lens of our beliefs is like peering through veils that distort our view of reality.  And lifting the veils of our beliefs offers the possibility of clarity, fulfillment, creative expression, and heart-opening.  We get out of our own way so we can truly live.

First, I must say that we can change our beliefs about ourselves and the world!

The beliefs you may have carried for years or even all of your life can change if you want them to, and you put in the effort to change them. The shape of your life will change when you change your beliefs.

In our early years of childhood, adolescence, early adulthood we may carry the beliefs that were drilled in to our minds from our parents, our home, and school environment etc. There is a path that we are on, based on those early years. We will stay on that path unless we change our thoughts.

Our beliefs shape our perspective, our level of happiness and our self-fulfilling prophecies. They shape our vision for what we can be and do. Our empowered and positive beliefs will allow us to live an incredibly amazing life experience. Limiting or negative beliefs hinder our life experience.

QUESTION NO.4 – What, from your own personal experience, is the best way/technique to change our negative beliefs into positive ones?

This may sound revolutionary, but I’m not interested in changing negative beliefs into positive ones.

My interest is in true freedom, in seeing reality directly, as it is, with no filters and no beliefs.

Positive beliefs aren’t necessary because our essence, free of all beliefs, is already clear, open, luminous, creative, and full.

Any belief can be seen through by investigating it. Start with a belief. Ask if it is true. See if it is serving you. Discover what emotion might be fueling the belief—usually you will find fear. Feel the fear and let it be, without creating a story around it. Experiment with the possibility of living a life free of beliefs.

Listen to the natural wisdom that resides within you, and you will see that beliefs are unnecessary to live a happy, loving, and fulfilling life.

Thoughts can become beliefs. It is said that the predominant thought that you carry about something becomes a belief. With this in mind, here is my recipe for changing your beliefs:

1. Affirmations and Power Thoughts – When you catch your negative belief, or thought, change it with an empowered version. If it’s “What if I fail” Change it to “I am so ready to succeed.” Or, “I can see it happening.”
2. Visualization – Visualize yourself living with your new beliefs
3. Have a positive friend – Surround yourself with supportive positive people
4. Daily Journaling – Write down the belief you want to have and write about your experiences about this belief each day. If you want to believe that you’re abundant, you might write something like, “I decided not to spend the extra few dollars on a cup of coffee today and I feel liberated. I know, I have the abundance to purchase the coffee, but I chose to enjoy feeling good about saving those dollars and growing my abundance instead.”

QUESTION NO.5 – Which in your opinion, is the most powerful belief one must consciously install in one’s mind for living a happy life, and how?

True happiness is unconditional.

It doesn’t depend on any belief.  It is our true nature, the essence of who we are when all beliefs fall away.

Rather than installing new beliefs, investigate the ones that are already there.  You will see that they are not completely true and ultimately don’t serve you.

Discover the possibility of letting go of the need to control life through your beliefs and let your life speak through you. This is the pathway to your natural, shining self.

May I say two?

Two of the most powerful beliefs one must consciously install in ones mind for living happy now are:

“I CAN” – Believe that you can, more than you can’t.

And…

“I AM GRATEFUL”– Gratitude is the key to happiness, when we feel truly grateful, we feel good, and, when we feel good, happiness flows. From there we can operate from a place of empowerment. We can be grateful, and still desire to expand our lives.

QUESTION NO.6 – What do you think is the most common self-limiting belief that we carry with us?

The most common self-limiting belief is that we lack something, that we would be better off, if only something were different. This is a thought that breeds unhappiness and deficiency.

If we let this thought float across our awareness like a cloud, if we let it lose its grip on us, we realize that without any beliefs, we are whole and full, clear and loving.

Beliefs and thoughts are not the problem.  Our attachment to them is what makes us suffer. And we suffer needlessly.

Consider not believing your beliefs and watch happiness appear effortlessly.

The most common limiting belief is, “I can’t because….”

The reason or “the because” varies, but the “I can’t” is all too common and it is the very thing that stops us from achieving.

Here are some examples:

• I can’t because I’m too old
• I can’t because I’m too fat
• I can’t because I never have before
• I can’t because I always fail
• I can’t because I never win
• I can’t because I don’t have the money
• I can’t because I don’t know how
• I can’t because I don’t know the right people
• I can’t because I don’t have a mentor
• I can’t because I’m bad with technology
• I can’t because I am not smart enough

If the belief was changed to” I CAN, and I’m excited to find a way” Or “I can and together with the divine, I will find a way” then we can tackle several limiting beliefs at once.

If we just work on our limiting belief about money and lack of abundance, we may then still fail to live an empowered life because we still believe “we’re too old” or “we don’t have the right connections.”

If we change the limiting belief from “I can’t” to “I can, and I’m excited to find the way” the result is, we know we CAN.

QUESTION NO.7 – Which is the one negative belief that you consciously changed into a positive one, in your own life, and how it changed your life?

For me, it has become who I am to investigate all beliefs. I don’t want any thought, no matter how subtle, to hold me back from the fullness of life.

When any emotional reaction appears, whenever I feel stuck, I trace back to the underlying belief.

I find, over and over again, that my beliefs don’t hold up under scrutiny. None of them are true!

When I see them as thoughts that appear and disappear, just like a cloud passing through the vast sky, I return to happiness every time.

My life has changed immeasurably by my willingness to let go of my attachment to all thoughts.

I don’t spend my time trying to figure things out. My mind is at peace. I am calm and non-reactive. I accept things as they are. I surrender into the flow of life and realize that life lives itself just fine, when I don’t get in the way.

As the walls of beliefs tumble down, I no longer feel separate from life. Love and happiness bubble out everywhere.

And this change is possible for everyone, if you are willing to put all your beliefs up for grabs.

I have changed many, many limiting beliefs but the one I must write about is changing “I can’t” to “I can.”

For years, I said “I can’t because….”

I’ve trained my mind to stop this thought to come up, and replace it with, “I know I can and I know I will.”

I went from barely graduating high school to obtaining a 4.0 in college, because I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t dumb.

I didn’t know I was dyslexic until I was 23, but somewhere inside, I went from believing I was stupid, to believing I could be intelligent.

I knew I had a hard time learning, but I was determined to find a way and eventually I learned how to learn.

That simple adjustment has expanded my life in countless ways. Every time I feel like I can’t, or I don’t know how—I stop, and remind myself of my previous successes. I remind myself that I CAN, and I will find a way. From there—life begins to unfold.

Rather than be unhappy with what life gives us, we can learn to be empowered and make things happen.

Life is far more fun when we truly believe that we are empowered, active participants and not just observers.