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Unexamined Beliefs

We all have certain core beliefs about life, about ourselves and about the world. These beliefs shape how we see the world and what happens to us. They are pretty much the building blocks on which we create our reality. Nearly all of these beliefs were formed in childhood, some often in the first five years, and we formed them because they were useful at the time, or because we didn’t know any better. For example, if you were smacked or told to be quiet then you might grow up with the belief that it is not safe to speak up for yourself. Now, however much this may have served you at the time it most certainly is not serving you today. Or you may simply have adopted the beliefs of your parents, peers, those you looked up to, or the people you thought were cool. So long as our beliefs remain unexamined then the probability of change is low. Now the problem is most people don’t know what their deepest beliefs are, well they do know, but they keep this hidden from themselves. See unconscious mind

From pop idols . . .

Adults still adopt the beliefs and customs of their peers and screen idols. Notice how the fashion world ‘decides’ what it is right for young people to wear. For example if Kyle is seen sporting an old torn pair of jeans these become the latest must-have. Young people are subliminally informed that’s what they should be spending their money on, and they do. It’s how beliefs and norms are passed down from generation to generation, and it’s been happening since Cleopatra first stepped out in Moroccan lace.

We often use others to hold on to our limiting beliefs. And we do this in how we position ourselves in relation to them. We do this by looking up to certain people. The world around you is full of role models, idols of screen and stage, people who inform you on what your opinion should be. It also happens in the world of business and politics. People are photographed in a certain way to make them look more masculine, and by implication more powerful. Symbols of success and power have become the coded language of the advertising world. They are presented to us in the media as something to be looked up to, and the subtext is that you’re not as good. Take some time out to watch tv adds consciously, deliberately see what they’re doing. Most of the time we take this in unconsciously, subliminally, and that’s how it works. As soon as you become awake to what they’re doing then their influence is muted.

. . . to the Dalai Lama

And it can also work when we think we’re having positive thoughts. For example, a way of hiding your light is to think ‘the Dalai Lama is a holier person than me’. This is using your image of the Dalai Lama to keep you in a certain place where you think you belong, in a mind-space where you’ve decided someone else is better (in this case holier) than you. By the way, I’ve never met the Dalai Lama but I’m willing to guess he doesn’t have this thought about himself (or you!) It’s just one way we use our minds to block our own progress.

We continuously want to place authority outside ourselves, ‘they say the tumour will get bigger’, the patient laments with chagrin. Who are they? The papers say the recession is going to get worse and a lot more people will lose their jobs. And you believed them, because they must know what they’re talking about. And yes, it got worse. Or, ‘the doctor told me I will be on these tablets for the rest of my life’.

Perhaps that won’t be long.

The illusion of how we see people

In the presence of certain people something gets triggered in us that makes us want to look on the illusion they are great, powerful, know something we don’t, and superior to us. The thought behind that might be ‘I’m not good enough but I’ve decided that you are’, this could be a very early thought, the feeling that accompanies it is usually one of sickly weakness or happy servility. Conversely, in the presence of others something else gets triggered that makes us want to look on the illusion that they are inferior. These we look down on, avoid, censor. Again there is a thought behind this and the feeling is either smug superiority or effete pity. Actually whatever the trigger in both cases we are looking at the same illusion, and it is the illusion that we are defective. Most people have this thought or some variety of it although it’s often well concealed. It is completely false of course, indeed the truth is you are whole, you are perfect. For the need to abase our self, or to abase another really comes from the same root. A superior complex is really a disguised inferior one and vice versa. We put some people above us and others beneath us, and we lose ourselves in the process.

It’s like in Transactional psychology where they talk about the child-adult interaction (our first example), or the adult-child, where you adopt the adult role and see the other as the child (second example). We need instead to get to the adult-adult mode. We do this by looking more closely at those unexamined beliefs, as well as who exactly is informing us. That’s crucial. And then getting rid of all the nonsense and realising that at your core you are love.

I’ll leave you with a beautiful quote from Aine Belton

"You don't need to DO anything to be loved; you are loved totally and unconditionally by the source of creation. There is nothing you need do to win that love and nothing you can do to lose it, for you are loved completely".

The Intuition Zone

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Reality is merely an illusion - albeit a persistent one

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