True Believers

True Believers

So here’s a Truth for you, something that is true for everyone. No one can change my beliefs but me. That’s important because our beliefs create our reality, the world we respond to. Our beliefs are pretty soft, pretty fluid, for the most part, once we start poking around in ‘em, and that means that we’ve got some powerful control over what we choose to believe, over the kind of world we live in.

Now, I believed for a very long time that what I believed was true for everyone, that my beliefs were a fact, like air, or breathing. I didn’t think about them, I just reacted to them, and wondered what was the matter with you that you believed something else.

Oh, poor little former self.

I believe that we are meant to live our natural lives; relaxed, peaceful, passionate, satisfying, contented, blissful, joyful. I believe all of us are an expression of the divine.

I know I am right, because that’s how we feel about our beliefs, just the way you know you are right about what you believe.

The question is, do my beliefs support me in living my best life, my natural life?

Why do I choose? How do I know I am right? How am I wise?

Because I am wise, I know to look at my beliefs. When I first wanted to find out how to know what I believed, I felt kind of stymied. I had a lot of help. One of the most useful things for me was to pick a big topic, like “people” or “money” and write down everything I think about that topic. Then I can look at those thoughts, and see the shape of my belief, the places where I believe supportive stuff, and the rest of it.

As we practice looking at our beliefs, we can start to poke at ‘em. We can pull out the parts that say, “I can’t, I don’t get to have.” We can start to notice what we say to ourselves, and tease out our beliefs that way.

“Life is hard, things never go my way, people are all this way, I can’t get ahead, nothing ever changes,” and on and on, we rehearse our bad beliefs, and know we are right.

These are answers to bad creative questions, and the way to shift ourselves out of these beliefs is with good creative questions.

How do my beliefs support me? Why do I decide? How am I positive?

Because I am the boss of my mind, I get to choose what I think is right. Because I am wise, I get to look into what might be a bad belief. Because I am compassionate, I know that you may have beliefs that don’t support you, and that you know you are right, just like I know I am right about the ideas I have that don’t support me.

That knowledge means that I can relax a lot about you. Since I know that you believe you are right, I don’t have to convince you of anything, and, on the other hand, I can look to be a role model for the joy of living my natural life.

How have I changed from being wedded to my beliefs to choosing to believe what supports me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06192014