Choose Your Beliefs To Change Your Life
Exploring how changing your beliefs can provide a path to healing
It is human nature to believe. And, I must admit, this fact bothers me! I grapple with the idea because so much violence has derived from systems of belief and also because, personally, I like evidence. Provide me with data and I feel much more assured than with the silky, elusive, and impermanent feeling of believing. My thinking recently shifted when I listened to a podcast interview with a business professor and author, Dr. Srikumar Rao, who spoke about the benefits of believing that the universe is benevolent. One of the main things that captured my attention was the idea that when there isn’t scientific proof or data for something, we can be quite reluctant to develop a belief about it. This is actually quite sensible! We don’t want to be duped into believing something that is not accurate. We want to understand the world based on something tangible, like life experience or scientific information.
A problem exists, however, with that level of rigid evaluation… the truth is that we are always believing something! If you aren’t believing that the universe is benevolent, you are likely operating from some other unconscious belief. You might believe that the universe is neutral or that the universe is a destructive force. And then, you live your life in accordance, often limiting yourself or making yourself feel afraid or disconnected. As such, Dr. Rao might say that you miss out on the benefits that exist from believing in a benevolent universe such as feeling deep trust in yourself and others and living from a state of gratitude.
Beliefs exist in every area of our lives.
Beliefs lie beneath the surface quietly and yet affect so much of our experience! Therefore, the understanding that we can choose beliefs that work better for us carries a lot of promise. We so often hold beliefs about ourselves that cause us pain and limit our potential. In my counseling practice, my clients uncover beliefs of unworthiness, unlovability, and beliefs that they will be rejected, abandoned, or betrayed quite commonly. We spend time examining these underlying beliefs and where they might have come from which can be deeply healing. Having a safe and trusted person in your life witness your pain can heal a deep wound. Oftentimes, however, we continue to hold the story or belief inside and it is ready to pounce when we least expect it.
What if in addition to insight-oriented healing work, we strive to find new replacement beliefs? Much like Dr. Rao’s assertion that we should all believe in a benevolent universe, what if we all strive to believe in our worthiness and our unconditional connection to others? Imagine the riches that lie in wait if these beliefs were established! You would certainly be able to more courageously strive for things that seemed beyond reach. You would certainly be able to ask for what you need in your relationships more directly.
New beliefs don’t magically appear, however.
We adopt new beliefs in various ways such as instituting new behaviors and looking for evidence of said beliefs all around. For example, if the belief that you are instilling is a belief in your own worthiness, you might invite small daily challenges or keep a journal of moments of feeling valuable throughout your day. The work to bring about these new beliefs can not be vapid. It may be very valuable to steepen your understanding of yourself and others to help foster these beliefs. Deep exploration of one’s identity, culture, and lineage can be healing by offering a stronger base for understanding your beliefs. In doing so, we can look to our ancestors and understand the ways in which we have survived and thrived. We can then find our worth and our connection to others to be an inherited reality and any thoughts or beliefs that stand contradictory would begin to feel inaccurate.
We are so often stuck in outdated thought patterns that hold us back. To avoid getting stuck in these patterns, dispelling unhelpful beliefs may not be enough. Affirming new and helpful beliefs about ourselves and the world around us can have astounding effects. In practice take the following steps: 1. Identify a new belief and 2. develop a single practice that will help it to take hold such as journaling ways in which the belief already shows up in your life or behaving in a way that assumes the new belief to be true. Hold faith that the practices toward making the shift are valuable! As believing creatures, we all have the power to shape our beliefs to bring about the life that we want to live.