Beliefs
“Our beliefs are the foundation of our lives!”
Our beliefs are extremely personal and very powerful. What you believe can change your life and the way that you live it. What's weird about our beliefs is that so many of the beliefs that we hold are not ours. They are ideas and thoughts and rules that we have collected from others. I think of our heads like mail boxes that people post their ideas into as we grow up.
Our parents/whanau are usually the first to get in there - as we watch and witness our parents navigating life, we absorb many messages that we believe must be true. They are planted firmly into our minds often without us even realising. The things we believe about money, religion, marriage, work ethic, friendship are all in there. We learn more from what we see than what we hear - the things that we witness help us to make up stories that fit our narrative.
We then go about our business assuming that these are ‘our thoughts’ when in fact they are not.
When I was a little girl, my Mother told me that I was not allowed to get my ears pierced until I was eleven years old. I could not wait to reach the magical age of eleven so that I could finally have holes in my ears. Finally, my birthday came around and I was decorated accordingly. When my own daughter was nine years old, she asked me if she could have her ears pierced - my response surprised me. “You cannot get your ears pierced until you are eleven,” I said. “Why eleven?” she asked me. Suddenly I did not know. I thought about where this response had come from and realised that my mother had come out of my mouth!
It was a preprogrammed automatic response. Once my belief was out in the open, I had a look at it and decided that in fact I did not think that it was true for me. I could not think of any reason why my nine-year-old should not have her ears pierced and so off we went. Thirty minutes later, there were holes in my daughters ears and I was at my mother's house. As soon as my daughter showed my Mum her new earrings, my mother's response was "She’s not even eleven yet!"
I asked my Mum where that rule had come from and she said she had no idea! But that idea had been posted into the back of my head and I believed it. Until I didn’t. That's the best bit about beliefs - you can change them.
In my first book "Look Gorgeous Be Happy", I wrote: “Sometimes the only thing we can change is our mind.” As someone who is passionate about people living magnificent lives, I think that the greatest gift we can give ourselves is a thought audit.
A thought audit is some space to decide who and what ‘I am’ and then to spend some time examining our thoughts, where they came from, whether we agree with them and if they are useful in our current life.
Our heads are full of thoughts and beliefs around many topics.
"I am not good with money.”
"No one supports me.”
“I can’t trust anyone”.
“I never have enough time.”
“My health isn’t good.”
“I never have enough energy.”
Whenever I have a question, I run Byron Katie's Four Questions:
Is it true? (Yes or no. If no, move to question 3.)
Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (Yes or no.)
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who or what would you be without the thought?
Often, when we liberate ourselves from an old thought, we are lighter. We are better off. Our lives change!
When was the last time you changed your mind about a belief?
What is a belief that you could do without?
