Your beliefs feel like ‘fact’.
It can be challenging to change your beliefs. Your beliefs help you to make sense of your world. They are conclusions that you have reached based on your experiences, your culture and the authority of others. Although your beliefs feel ‘right’, they are frozen energy patterns that can keep you stuck in a limited view of the world. This is a normal pattern of being human. It allows us to survive. When new views are introduced, your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations can quickly bring you back to your reality. If you can’t integrate the view into your reality, you will dismiss or deny its truth.
For example, if you have been raised with the belief ‘You need to work hard to be successful.’, you may ‘feel guilty’ when you take a break or you may find yourself clenching your jaws and making a sharp comment when you see a coworker goofing off when you are struggling to meet a deadline. In most circumstances, you won’t stop to question whether your belief is true. You will feel justified in your reactions. You are right and anyone who sees things differently is wrong. This can be viewed a part of your survival instinct.
How often do you pause to think what would be different if this belief were not true?
Your beliefs can get in the way of what is important.
Beliefs can certainly help you to be efficient in your everyday life. In most cases, you don’t need to stop and think about every decision. Also, you don’t spend time or energy questioning your actions. You know what to do and you do it. In a family, workplace or community where you share similar experiences, you create similar belief structures. You find agreement on key issues. Not only do you avoid dissenting opinions, but you feel validated. You must be right because otherwise people would not agree with you.
And yet, when everyone sees the world through the same lens, you miss out on opportunities. You are blind to important information. Your conclusions about the way things are do not create space for curiosity to explore. However, this is a changing world. If your beliefs are rigid, they do not allow you to be resilient and adapt to change. They get in the way of what is important. At some point, things will break and you will experience loss.
How often do you notice how your belief gets in the way of what is important in your life?
Indeed, your beliefs can feel intense! Current events activate your beliefs. You will react. The intensity of your reaction will be influenced by your response when you first reached this conclusion. This happens at an energetic level. It is not a cognitive, rational response. In some cases, the conclusion may have been reached based on a traumatic experience. In this case, there can be a lot of energy bound in the belief. The response can feel extremely intense. It can also feel isolating because those around you do not feel the same way.
When your beliefs are challenged, you may not understand the intensity of your thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. A pounding headache. A deep sense of worry or anger. Thoughts of being let down or not heard. This is information that can be used to identify and eliminate the trigger.
How to change your beliefs.
If you accept your beliefs as fact, there is no room to think of alternatives. Logosynthesis, developed by Dr. Willem Lammers, offers a powerful method to change your beliefs. You can watch the video in the link below to give it a try. Take your time and notice what shifts. This is a new approach so it will take practice to discover what is possible. In general, people feel calmer, more at ease and the physical sensations are eliminated.
The first step in changing your beliefs is to notice your reactions – your thoughts, emotions and body sensations. Pause to be aware of these reactions. Rather than ignoring or discounting these automatic responses, be curious about what is happening.
When you connect with your reactions, the method guides you identify any sensory perceptions that arise in your personal space. These are the frozen representations that form your belief. You may notice a voice or an image. You don’t need to think about what it means because the work occurs at an energetic level. This is the ‘trigger’.
Three structured sentences are applied to the trigger, with a pause between each sentence to allow energy to shift. You are then guided to notice what is happening and if there is distress remaining, you can repeat the cycle. You have many beliefs that have been created over your lifetime. When you notice how they get in your way, you can begin to routinely apply the method to create space for new ideas and to embrace change. You will feel more ease to enjoy life and thrive in this changing world.