I N S I G H T S

Each one of us is a product of our own particular belief system. It is one we inherit from our parents and care-givers, our family and community, our wider culture and through our own personal experiences, whether repetitive, painful or powerful. Our belief system drives the direction of our life. It defines our rules of conduct and sets the boundaries of our experience. No matter who we are, or what we believe about ourselves, we generally find that our world, as we experience it, continuously provides us with the evidence to support our own particular beliefs.

Every now and then however, we change course and find ourselves with a completely different belief. Perhaps a scientific discovery gives us a new "truth" - the world isn't flat after all. Or maybe over the years, small adjustments in our societal mindset, provides us with a completely different belief from one previously held; for example, how society views marriage or divorce. Sometimes it's simply a personal belief, something we believe to be true about ourselves, that gets turned on its head.

So, while we live within the bounds and structure of our beliefs about the world and our society, it is the personal beliefs we hold about ourselves, our own personal "truths", that determine how we participate in that world and society. Our beliefs about who we are, what we can achieve, and all those other ideas that give rise to our personal identity, generally have their roots in our childhood experiences. We may have been subjected to a repetitive message, or sometimes a belief is installed in a single critical moment of high emotional impact.

No matter how we inherited it, due to the nature of our unconscious mind, once a belief is installed, it becomes self-perpetuating. It doesn't matter whether we believe life is difficult or easy, whether we believe we are clumsy or deft, smart or unintelligent, loveable or unlovable, fearless or shy, creative or unimaginative; whatever we believe, we will experience. We are proven correct in our belief, time and time again, because for every concept we have of ourselves, we have an attached emotion. The emotion dictates our thoughts, our thoughts influence our behaviour and our behaviour creates our experience. Whether our experience is positive or negative, when traced back to our core belief, it is the result of our unconscious mind operating in a positive way. Our unconscious mind simply serves to satisfy, and continues to create, the reality of the belief we hold.

Many of our beliefs are helpful and serve us well, but some are simply unhelpful. They can create within us, the feeling of powerlessness or inadequacy. These are the beliefs that cause us to limit our experience in some way. We feel fearful, procrastinate, sabotage our own success or happiness, and fail to take advantage of opportunities that come our way. In other words, the boundaries we have created in our minds, define how we experience our lives, and this is not always in our best interests.

Happily, we have the power to remove or change those beliefs that don't serve us well. Once we have identified an obstructive belief, it can be challenged. We can look at where it came from and ask our self, is it true? Often all that is needed to remove a limiting belief from our powerful unconscious mind, is the simple awareness that it has no validity in our current life. Additionally, we have the power to overwrite it with a new, more positive belief. When we are consistent with our inner communication, our unconscious mind hears the message, and will work in a way that supports our new reality.

For quick and effective change, NLP techniques and hypnotherapy can be very helpful. These tools can quickly unpack our limiting beliefs, challenge them and, because they work on the unconscious level, allow us to more easily replace them with beliefs that are useful and empowering for us.

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