Go Within * Connection to Your Inner Self

Blocking the Connection: Beliefs

Beliefs

The Development and Influence of Our Behaviors that Drive Our Belief

You are bombarded by messages from others throughout your entire life. Messages that are generally repeated and validated over and over so they become beliefs. These beliefs were based on others' experiences and feelings. Your parents, teachers, bosses, friends, siblings, other family members, media, government, religious organizations and so forth. They may have had your best interests at heart, but they didn't truly know what was or is best for your path.

As mentioned in the beginning of the book, many make changes, but end up in the same situations over and over, experiencing groundhog day. This experience may be driven by your beliefs that were developed throughout your life and have guided your behaviors. Beliefs are part of the reason why when you do make changes, you end up in the same place as you were before. If you just engage in the action, but don't make any changes to your beliefs surrounding the situation or about yourself or what is possible, there would be no other option than for the scenario to play out the same way.

Beliefs are dictating what you do and who you allow in your life. Beliefs are strong because they are deep within you. If you are hoping to leave a job for one that you would be treated better, yet you keep believing that all bosses will treat you badly or that you don't deserve to be treated well, these beliefs will keep you from obtaining a better job. Changing your job, while still holding the same belief, will create the same scenario to affirm your belief. In psychology this is called confirmation bias.

A confirmation bias occurs when you recall and interpret information that will support your existing beliefs. Say two people enter the same room. There are the same amount of people in the room who are friendly and who are not friendly. One person believes that everyone they meet is kind and welcoming, while the other person believes most people are just rude and mean. When they walk into this room, the person who has a positive outlook on how people respond to them will have a great time meeting all of the people in the room and will notice those who are smiling at them and saying hello. They won't notice the people who are not being friendly. The person who sees others in a negative way will not notice the friendly individuals, but will remember the unpleasant people in the room. When they leave, they both would have confirmed that they were right, that all people are friendly or all people are rude and unfriendly. Even though there were just as many opportunities to see both types of individuals. Their core belief was driving what they recognized and then later recalled. 

It's important to know your beliefs and if they are helping or hindering your potential. Once you make fundamental changes to your beliefs about yourself, others and experiences you will begin to see external changes that represent how you feel and think on the inside.

It is important to understand that our brains are not static and are constantly changing based on our thoughts and behaviors. Many beliefs operate at the subconscious level, they have been thought and experienced over and over creating strong neural connections in your brain that help to keep them alive. Fortunately, you are able to change these automatic responses you have based on your beliefs. By bringing them to the conscious surface, becoming aware of them, releasing them and then replacing them with new potential-oriented beliefs. You are not stuck living the same life over and over again. Even though you have been taught to behave a certain way, the brain is powerful and is able to change. 

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Action

Discover Your Current Beliefs

Answer the following question by writing the beliefs you have about each of the areas asked.

What comes to mind when you think about...?