What are beliefs

They are assumptions, theories, explanations, conclusions and states of mind which we choose, at some level, as frameworks to help us make sense out of our experiences. Beliefs often become so ingrained, due to repeated situations which seem to "prove" their legitimacy, that we may confuse them with facts. Beliefs tend to influence our perception. And because of this will also go onto influence our assessment of ourself.

"A belief is also the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth of a proposition."

"A mental acceptance of something as being true or real".

What is the difference between a fact and a belief?
I'm sure there is a hard and fast definition to both of these words. For the purpose of this discussion... let's just say that facts are usually accepted as the bottom line... not based on opinion, yet provable by some objective measure. For example, it is a fact that 12 inches equals 1 foot. We can measure it with a ruler. A belief would be something like this, "Relationships are hard work".

The thing about beliefs is that they are the foundation upon which we build our expectation and reality. Most of us need expectations to help us feel secure. We feel safer when we can guess what is coming next. We feel like we can prepare for the worst if we need to.

However, we are learning that these expectations are actually manifesting what we do NOT want to happen. Remember how the unconscious mind ignores those negative terms... not... can't... won't... don't, etc. That's right, so when we are thinking... "I hope I don't run out of money again this month." Our unconscious mind hears an intention of "I hope I run out of money again this month."

How are beliefs formed?
Many of our beliefs are simply conclusions we have drawn based on our experiences as children. If we grow up in a warm, nurturing and supportive family we will have very different beliefs than if we grow up in a painful, shaming and abusive family.

One thing that is constant is that at the time we chose any belief, no matter what that belief may be, it made sense at the time. Therefore, no belief is stupid, or bad, or even wrong. Beliefs serve a purpose and sometimes our lives change so much that old beliefs become a mismatch for our lives as they change. Beliefs we hold as children don't always serve us well as adults. As children we may truly believe that credit cards are magic money. It makes sense at the time to believe such a thing. As adults this belief is out dated and detrimental to creating the kind of life we really want. Most of us have probably worked through beliefs like this one. Other beliefs are much more subtle than this and lay beneath more obvious ones.

Another way we are influenced to believe something is through what is known as imprinting. When our sub-conscious mind is very open (usually when we are young but it can be later stages of life as well) we can be very recepetive to strong stimuli and nay significant emotional event can 'imprint' itself on our sub-conscious mind and then we go on to repeat the beleif or behaviour later on. Konrad Lorentz, originally a biologist, made a study of goslings soon after they were hatched and they would latch onto the first thing that moved near them, like a golf ball for example, later on when they were mature enough to start mating they would try to mount a golf ball because they thought it was female. His conclusions then were that imprinting is fairly easy to do and affects all lving organisms at some times.

Our beliefs are guidng principles in our lives but unfortunately if they are big and negative enough they will not allow us to reach our full potential. Let me give you an example. Suppose someone has a beleif like this:

"I'm not a good learner"

imagine how that might affect their behaviour and thus their life in general.

Well for start how much of thier potential will they meet with this disempowering beleif. Will they go back to college to earn a qualification to better themselves, no, i don't think so. Will they see the world as an opportunity to learn lots of new things and skills, no i don't think so. Contrast that with someone who beleives the below:

"I believe that i can become better at learning by improving my study skills, paying attention to feedback from instructors, reinforcing what i've learnt and using mistakes to correct myself and get it right the next time"

What a difference this persons life would be.

You might be thinking "how could anyone have a belief like that?". Well before we judge lets think of our own belief systems. Are they all perfect. Are we syaing that none of us ever had a disempowering thought or belief. When you really sit down and have a good think i bet some will come up. the point is to name the bleif and then address it - see if its true - see of there is really any evidence for or against it.

How then can we examine our own belief structures and change the ones we don't want anymore or have simply become outdated and past thier usefulness.

Lets have a look then at The Belief Destroyers