Each of us has a different internal belief structure. I don’t mean religious beliefs, though that may play into your individual belief system. I am talking about what we believe about how the world is, or should be. Or how people are, or should be. Or how you are, or should be. What is true for you may not be true for me. Our beliefs are crafted through our experiences, and reinforced over and over again in our lives. That is how two people can experience the same event in a different way. Our most core beliefs, the strongest and deepest of them, can often be difficult to connect to, because it requires humility, self awareness, personal accountability, and vulnerability. Our beliefs are often irrational. We may be able to recognize, even in the moment of an intense emotional experience, that our beliefs may not be entirely true or real. But our emotional experience stems from our connection to our beliefs, so the better we understand them the more likely we are to begin to be able to shift them.
So where do beliefs come from? Our core belief systems are formed as we age and develop. They can also come from experiences later in life. Maybe someone told us we were ugly once, and it hurt. Then someone else said the same thing. And even though this happened a long time ago, a part of us internalized it and started to believe it. And over time we found validation of this belief in our external circumstances. A belief I often butt up against is “I’m not good enough” or “I’m unworthy.” I see this come up in relationships, in friendships, in jobs, or anything really that I want to do. Even in writing this blog that belief comes up for me. I’ve cultivated awareness around it over many years of introspection, so I can recognize it most of the time, but for a long time I was reacting to things that stimulated that belief without fully understanding why I was feeling so hurt or powerless.
The more aware of our beliefs we are the less power they have over us. Our beliefs are just thoughts. They aren't necessarily true or false. They are the lense through which we see the world. They are our rose colored glasses. Or maybe they are darker than that. But just because we think it doesn’t mean it is real. Just because we believe it doesn’t mean it is real. And even though our belief systems, particularly our strongest core beliefs, make up the foundation of who we are, it doesn’t mean they can’t be changed. Our thoughts, beliefs, and actions are the only things we can ever truly control. We give our power away if we believe otherwise. True power comes not in controlling our external worlds, but our internal ones.
Here is an example. Recently at work I was given a project of scanning about a million files (obviously a million is an exaggeration, but it was a lot). Working for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week only on scanning and it still would take several weeks. Initially I wanted to work fast, and multi-task, and impress everyone with how hard of a worker I am and how efficient I can be. So I was moving moving moving trying to get these files done as quickly as possible and after a day I was exhausted. My cortisol levels were elevated, my adrenaline was elevated, my distress tolerance decreased, I was irritable and flustered. Every time the scanner jammed (which was a lot), and began to beep an alarming and incessant message, I nearly flew into a rage. Repeatedly it would jam, I would sit down to start removing staples from another file, and it would jam again. I would get up, fix it, sit down, and before I removed a single staple it would jam again. Infuriating! It was so impactful on my internal experience that even now as I describe it I am recognizing an elevation in my heart rate. I took that as a message from something greater than me to pay attention to what was happening for me. And I decided that I didn’t want that kind of energy in my body. Those things can do measurable damage to our internal systems, and for what, some files? Most of which will probably never be looked at again? No thanks, not worth it.
So I slowed down. I shifted my beliefs about the process. When the scanner jammed, I let it beep for a second as I organized myself rather than rushing right over. I stopped multitasking, and took on each section of the project in smaller chunks. I lowered my daily goals of the number of files scanned. And it worked. The rage, the frustration, the irritability all went away. In fact I found myself actually enjoying it a bit. There can be something soothing and peaceful in monotony.
This is an example of something small that was relatively easy to recognize and adjust. Our core beliefs are much harder to shift, because they have had years of reinforcement. Being able to identify what our beliefs are in any situation, about anything, can have a direct impact on how we experience the world. Subtle shifts in our thoughts and beliefs can have enormous shifts in our experience of life. It begins with humility, courage and self-awareness.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”