- Beliefs are normally established before the age of 7. Caregivers and others may unwittingly project their negative beliefs onto their children. These beliefs are not cast in stone and you can shift negative beliefs that no longer serve you. Take time to understand yourself and question why certain experiences keep showing up in your life. Chances are that the patterns keep repeating themselves. These patterns represent the lessons you have come here to learn. A good way to increase your self-awareness of these negative beliefs is to journal these negative thoughts and patterns. Once your awareness is raised, you can question your own higher wisdom by taking time to be silent and to ask “What is this thought/belief/experience teaching me? The answer you get is where your focus needs to go in order to shift it.
- Appreciate that out of hardship there are real gains of self-development. Often your hardest experiences were doors that opened to your greatest opportunities. Appreciate these learnings as they are signs of an evolved consciousness.
- Your beliefs shape your life in significant ways. Thought leaders in psycho-neuro immunology believe that with the exception of certain genetic diseases, most ill health is self-imposed. Consider the beliefs you hold about your health? Are they supporting you or aggravating your health? Read Dr. Bruce Lipton’s book “The Biology of Beliefs” to understand how your beliefs shape your life and your health.
- Dr. Daniel Goleman, writing in Social Intelligence has confirmed in microanalysis, that an unborn child synchronises with a mother’s rhythm of speech – called proto-conversations. These proto-conversations form the bedrock of our social interaction in adulthood. We are now more aware than ever before that our environments and the mindset of the mother is instrumental in shaping our beliefs. Understanding that environment could be crucial in understanding yourself and your beliefs.
- Physicists at the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics reiterated that the way in which we perceive the world is not reality, but merely our cognitive construction of it. Physicists are not the only people who view the world this way, most Hindus and Buddhists also hold similar views. If we are in this “self-constructed” view of the world, it stands to reason that we can change our views, and beliefs that shape us.
- New research in emotional intelligence is showing that when a person is empathetic it lights up the ventral-striatum – the part of the brain that is associated with pleasure, resulting in the empathetic person feeling good about themselves. Hence shifting your negative beliefs, improving your self-regard transforms not only your life, but the lives of others. But you cannot give what you do not have. If you have negative beliefs that are poisoning your reality, know that you can shift them and move your life to peace and joy.
