beliefs

BELIEFS

What are these phrases?

• I am good at math
• I cannot talk like you
• I am not creative
• I have to do my prayers before leaving the house
• I cannot sing
• Auto drivers always cheat
• My mother-in-law hates me
• This is my lucky pen
• I can do anything
• I am a failure. Whatever I do, I mess everything up
• I am a horrible parent

They are nothing but beliefs about yourself and about people around you and the world in general.

Belief as defined by psychologists is a simple form of mental representation And therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. It is a solid idea arising from the sub-conscious mind.
They are not facts and hence can be changed.

12inches equals one foot is a fact but “Relationships are hard” is a Belief.

Different kinds of Beliefs

• Religious beliefs
• Political beliefs
• cultural beliefs
• Social beliefs

Beliefs can come from two sources: our own experience and reflections, or as a blind acceptance of what other people tell us.

• Self-generated belief(Self-generated beliefs are those we create ourselves.)

• Externally generated belief(the alternative to finding things out for yourself)

The latter is most popular as the beliefs are framed mostly in the childhood period, although we are framing beliefs throughout our life. We frame most of our core-beliefs in our childhood. The externally generated belief are generally hand me downs from the trusted source around us.

Lets take an example of how a child makes his/her belief

• Sita gets less marks in math
• Her mother is upset with her and says you always get poor marks in Math
• Sita gets lesser marks next time.
• She overhears her mother talking to her friend “ sita is not good in math”
• She feels sad again.
• She gets lesser Marks again.
• She adopts a belief on herself saying “I am Bad in math”

How is the belief formed? what factors are responsible for their formation ?

When an idea constantly bypasses your conscious filters straight to your subconscious mind it may turn it into a belief.
Now, how does the idea pass the conscious filter?

The following are some examples that will show you how can this happen:

When the idea comes from a trusted source: when you were a child, your main trusted source was your parents. If your parents told you that this animal is called a dog you will immediately believe them and since you will find that everyone around supports this idea it will turn into a strong belief. Now what if your parents kept telling you that you were fool or dumb? What will be the result? you will grow up thinking that its true, and you may end up feeling inferior without knowing that this was the root cause for your feelings of inferiority. You may be asking yourself now, what will be strengthening this belief? This time it will be you, your subconscious mind will just pick every clue that supports this belief ignoring everything else. For example, if someone rejected you the first thing that you will think of, is that he rejected you because you are dumb.

When the conscious mind gets distracted:

when something catches the full attention of your conscious mind you become highly receptive to suggestions. That’s the same idea advertisers use when they put their commercials in the middle of your favorite T.V series. In this case, your conscious mind will be thinking of what will happen to the hero of the series while at the same time your subconscious mind will be receiving suggestions by the commercial

A belief system is formed and encompasses four elements:
(1) A thought (2) A feeling (3) age, and (4) the consequence (reinforces the thought positively)
A belief becomes stronger if it is accompanied by a strong emotion.

Establishment of Core Beliefs :

Four factors in a child’s development that become part of the belief system of the adult
Self-image: how we perceive ourselves
Relationships: how we perceive our relationship with others
Needs: how we perceive our own needs
Sexuality: how we perceive our own sexual feelings and needs

Making our Beliefs:
Observation – >Select Data Based on my observation -> Make Assumptions based on the meanings I add -> I make conclusions -> I adopt a belief about the world.
Eg: Child is meddling with his pencil -> child is meddling while I am talking -> child is not able to concentrate -> child cannot concentrate -> child will not do well in the exams

Identify the Belief:

You are retiring in the afternoon very tired and the door bell rings and you see a sales person trying to sell something. You say no, and then bang the door, he rings the bell again and requests you to buy something, you again close the door.
What is your belief now on the sales man and the sales man’s belief about you
Ask the child to eat fast … your belief.

How Beliefs Limit Us

Beliefs are like walls we have erected around us.
The words on our walls are metaphors for our self talk, of course.
Many of them are hand-me-downs from our parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, religion, peers, books, TV and an endless list of other “authorities” in our lives.
We all have different words on our walls.
That’s why we appear to have different limits.
Your limits are different from mine because the “truths” written on your walls are different from the “truths” written on mine.
They are hand-me-down beliefs that were written on our walls by others and we have been dutifully obeying them ever since.
“We constantly consult the writing on our walls.”
That writing is our most prominent advisor and we consult it all day long. It represents every experience we have ever had.
It contains all of our “how to’s”.
It contains our cans & can’ts as well as our shoulds & should nots.
It contains our musts & must nots as well as our sense of fair play.
It contains our version of proper behavior as well as what is right or wrong in this world.
It contains our judgments, our successes and our failures. It’s all there—everything we hold to be true—written on our walls.
For example, we eat soup with a spoon instead of a fork because our knowledge base (the writing on our walls) advises us to do so. it’s as if we ask the question, “How do I eat this soup?” and the writing on our walls says, “Use a spoon.” This is why we wear jeans on some occasions and black tie or evening gowns on others. We constantly consult the writing on our walls for what to do. Those words represent the “truth” as we have learned it.

Break Your beliefs :

Reflections : Check your assumptions
Consciousness : Aware of my thinking and reasoning
Inquiry : Question into other’s thinking

Break others Beliefs
Ask Specific Questions “ kids don’t get to have fun”
Exaggerate “Nobody loves me”
Remind contradictory experience ”I can’t climb this”
Break related thoughts “My mother hates me”
Affirmations