It is often said that if you change your beliefs you change
your reality. I am not talking about a
belief in Santa Clause or whether Princess Diana was assassinated or not. I mean unconscious beliefs.
Lessons learned in life become beliefs about
our reality. Our reality is just a
representation of how we see the world. Our
world is then viewed through a set of filters, or beliefs, to create our
experience. Those beliefs are stored in
our unconscious mind and affect how we live our lives. When we make assumptions, judgements and decisions,
we are filtering information through these beliefs to reach a conclusion. That conclusion is the meaning we give to
something, it can be positive or negative, safe or unsafe, true or false. All the lessons we have ever learned create
our belief system and the belief system is always running in the background
like a software programme on a computer with safety as the number one priority.
The human eye can see a spectrum of colour but it doesn’t
see everything – our eyes cannot see clearly in the dark. When the eyes see shadows and shapes in the
darkness, the brain will call upon previous experience to interpret this
information as best it can to build up a more accurate picture. For example, shadows in the darkness can seem
threatening to some people, and unusual sounds might create anxiety. Imagine walking home alone on a dark night
hearing footsteps in the distance and seeing a shadowy figure behind you, it
would be easy to get carried away by fear and anxiety as the brain searches for
a meaning. All too soon your imagination
presents you with images of Jack the Ripper or a mugger who wants to attack and
rob you. In an instant your body is
flooded with fight or flight chemicals preparing you to run for your life or
fight off an attacker. Your belief
system kicked in and interpreted the available information as danger.
Consider the limiting effects in adulthood of the following
lessons learned in childhood:
·
You are wrong most of the time
·
You are ineffective a lot of the time
·
You should just do what you are told without
question
·
“I want” doesn’t get…
·
Disagreeing with others is bad
·
Spending too much money is foolish
·
Life is hard
·
Relationships don’t last
·
People you love are taken away from you
What if we believed all or some of these things to be true? We would live our lives in a very limited way
and self-sabotaging way. Life, as we see
it, would be filtered through those automatic subconscious beliefs. The
effects might include a lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness, fear of
commitment, workaholic attitudes, behaving like a victim, fear of confrontation
and fear of failure. Can you imagine the
effects of these beliefs on our moods, our health and our happiness? Many
people hold onto limiting beliefs because they are unaware of them.
What if you believed these instead?
·
You can achieve anything you set your mind to
·
You deserve the best car you can get
·
You are as good as anyone else in the world
·
Life is what you make it
·
Everyone has equal right to express their opinions
·
You can succeed
·
Your value is priceless
·
The older you get the wiser you get
Life would be completely different and the effects of these
beliefs might include feeling empowered, an ability to set and achieve
realistic goals, confidence, good self worth and a balanced life.
How do we find out what unhelpful beliefs underlie areas of
our life that are unsuccessful and find out what is stopping us from being
happy and fulfilled?
Case study. John is
approaching 40 and has had one failed relationship after another. He would like to settle down and have a
family but seems to attract the wrong people into his life who let him down
time after time. He starts to drink heavily and gets into bad company. Pretty soon his boss calls him in for a chat
and tells him his work is not up to scratch, he is sloppy, he makes mistakes
and his colleagues say he is bad tempered and snappy. He is given a verbal warning to sort himself
out or put his job at risk. John now
becomes anxious, stressed, suffers from insomnia and is heading for
depression. As time goes on he
eventually decides to seek help and have hypnotherapy for stress.
During assessment it becomes clear that John is down on
himself, he has low self-esteem and blames all his problems on circumstances. The boss is an idiot; he only drinks as much
as anyone else in the office; he makes mistakes because he is overworked; women
can’t be trusted; he gets invited to the pub after work most evenings and feels
obliged to go. In fact, he is lonely and
all he really wants is to meet someone, settle down and have a family. My question was – what is stopping you? He knew that it had something to do with his
mother leaving when he was 13 and he had issues with trust. We explored John’s
belief system and he identified 3 self-sabotaging beliefs: People you love are
taken away from you; Women can’t be trusted; Relationships don’t last.
Hypnotherapy helped John to identify the filters that had
been put in place when he was 13. He was
living his life since then finding ways of keeping safe but sabotaging his
happiness. Some of the things we
uncovered were: his thinking was distorted, he was seeing things in all or
nothing terms, he was afraid of failure, and he was holding back his affection.
Once he realised that he could remove the unhelpful filters (beliefs) and
change the meaning he gave to life he could create new beliefs based on facts. He put 3 new beliefs in place: Most people
are trustworthy; you get out of a relationship what you put into it; it doesn’t
hurt to open up and let people see your feelings. John’s problems at work had their roots
elsewhere. He learned to become
conscious of his thinking styles and spot the distortions, he learned how to
relax and sleep well, he learned how to be assertive and say no without feeling
guilty, he learned how to look at things from other perspectives, he learned
that there are many different shades of grey and things don’t have to be black
or white. I worked with John over a few
months and he found that he could finally accept his life with all it’s ups and
downs, he was able to release the trauma of his mother leaving, he began to love
himself for what he was and he started going out and having fun again. His sleep improved, his began to take pride
in his work again and he started dating.
I had a post card from John six months later thanking me for
my help and telling me that he had met someone and fallen in love. They were to be married abroad. I was over the moon for him and all it took
was for John to change his beliefs.
If you would like help with changing beliefs, or any other issues that stop you from feeling happy, get in touch for a free consultation.
