HOW TO UNWIND YOUR BELIEFS
One day I embarked on an exercise where I decided to examine all of my beliefs. I did this in a corner of my bedroom with a pad of Post-It notes. During this exercise I was able to take a deep look at all of the beliefs I had about my SELF and many of the beliefs I had about the world. If you are willing to do this exercise and do it honestly you may have some extremely powerful realizations which can result in very deep healing. First, a little background.
Around the time that I did this exercise I was asking some questions about my SELF and the WORLD and was really questioning why I thought what I thought. I would often like to ask certain questions to other people to see what they thought. One day at a party I asked a guy the following question - How do you know a chair is a chair? He thought I was joking, and then I said no really, what if it was something entirely different, but we were taught that it was called “chair" and that it was a place we sit. I could tell this was a little too abstract and he thought I was a little crazy and moved on to the next conversation. So, I asked another adult a different question. I said, how do you know you are on a planet called “earth”. He said, well obviously we are on a planet called earth because that is what school and science have told us. Then I said, but how do you really know? Is there any way to verify that? And he got it. Well sure, we don’t really know and there is no way to verify it. We just have to take the word of science. Next I tried the chair question one more time, but this time it was with a younger guy, maybe high school or early college age. This kid has been classified as being ”on the spectrum," which may or may not contribute to his ability to see the world from varying lenses. Anyway, I said to him, How do you know a chair is a chair? And he instantly got it.
If you are still with me I would say one more thing before telling you the exercise and this relates to your children and beliefs. As my daughter was growing up and learning about the world, particularly in the stage before she could speak, I would often hesitate to tell her what things were called. She would look at a bird, a flower, a car and I knew that she was experiencing it in its purest form, with no label, no filter, no distortion. I knew she was in touch with the “essence” of whatever she was encountering. And I would often see adults rush to teach their children the name of everything and I would get a bit sad. Of course there is a balance, and you need to teach your children how to function in this world. But I would say that, as adults you can function at a much higher level in this world if you are less quick to label things and people. And so, as adults, and as part of the healing process, you need to undo what you were taught, so that you can see things with no filter. The filters are the beliefs you have, the things you learned from your life experiences, in school, books, movies, television. Here is my way of beginning to dismantle your beliefs and seeing the world with less distortion.
Get a few pads of Post-its. Small pieces of scrap paper and tape will work if you want. You will need an empty wall or somewhere to stick the post-its. You will want to choose a space where you can leave them up for a while as you will have the mosaic of YOU when you are done and you will want to reflect on it. So, on each piece of paper you are going to write down a belief that you have. An easy way to look at your beliefs about your SELF is to start with the words I AM. Anything after I AM is a belief. Stick that post-it on the wall. Repeat until you are done. You will probably have new things pop into your mind in the hours and days following so add things as they come up. Obviously some things don’t fit into the I AM example. Like that a chair is a chair, so focus mainly on your beliefs about your SELF and pay particular attention to where you add a judgment to a label, with words like “good” or “bad”.
A few important realizations that may arise and may be helpful to contemplate:
You have quite a few beliefs about your SELF.
Where the heck did these beliefs come from?
When were these beliefs “installed”?
Why do I get so triggered when people have different beliefs than me?
What if you had no beliefs? How would the world look?
If this is my SELF, then WHO is asking the questions about this SELF?
The purpose of this exercise is to get you to loosen up a little bit (or a lot) when it comes to your beliefs. You need to find out which ones are helping you function in this world and which ones are holding you back. The ones that are holding your back were likely installed when you were a child and are rooted in unresolved emotional trauma. These are the beliefs that need to be looked at and to look at them you need to remember when they were installed. This process can help you begin to identify which beliefs are problematic and some of the healing techniques I have developed can help you process the emotions tied to these memories. If you think you don’t have any beliefs that need healing here is a quick test for you.
If someone can trigger you when they comment on sex, politics, religion, health decisions, nutrition, a comment about your body or anything else for that matter, then you need work. We love our beliefs though and don’t want to let them go. Many people will defend their beliefs with their lives and/or they will alienate family and friends for a simple belief. When you start to go through this process you may start to see that from an absolute perspective, all beliefs are an illusion, all of them, period, however, there are many beliefs that are relatively true and we need to acknowledge them to function effectively in this world. I hope this exercise helps you begin to identify the beliefs which are preventing you from achieving the life you want.
Below you will find some sample beliefs that you may write in the post-it exercise.
I AM
Jack
A Human
Living on Planet Earth
Male
30 years old
Caucasian
Cool
Athletic
Tall
Skinny
Conservative
A Dad
A Husband
A son
Friend
Good Friend
A cousin
A good dad
A bad husband
A good son
Spiritual
Not religious
healthy
Successful
A Carnivore
Going to Die
Wealthy
A poor communicator
A loner
Irish
Not worthy of Love
A person
A good person
Ugly
Fat
Stupid
Social