This is your reality

I was raised in a strict religion. I was taught to believe many things, among which was the thought that if I questioned my beliefs, I was being sinful, that the devil was creeping in, tempting me to go astray.

I left that religion at the age of 20. Something just wasn’t aligning with the core of who I was. It didn’t make sense to me that only one religion was the path to god. So I parted with the beliefs of my youth, and created a new set of beliefs.

I think most adults go through stages like this. It might not be as big of a belief shift of leaving a belief system like a religion, but typically somewhere along the way for adults, something they believe is challenged. This can happen for kids too. They eventually have their beliefs about holiday figureheads, imaginary friends, and even their parents challenged.

The purpose of belief

Belief creates a framework for thought. Imagine if you had thoughts all day long (it’s estimated we have on average 60,000 thoughts per day), but no defined structure to operate in. You’d probably be wandering around, confused and spaced out and uncertain of what you’re even supposed to do in life.

As Dr. Joe Dispenza teaches in his book “Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself“, neurons fire and wire together. We develop nests of neural networks that work in concert to create a belief system that defines our reality. Without that, we’d have no personality, or personal reality.

Harnessing this power

If our neurons and neural networks create our beliefs, and our brain is plastic and able to be changed, this means we can actually change our belief system. 

Now why would you want to do that, you ask?

Because beliefs that were created in our youth can work against the adult we want to be. 

For example, if as a young person you were shamed for being overweight, you may have developed a belief that being overweight is shameful, and overweight people should hide from the world. Still operating under a belief system like this will result in an unhealthy relationship with your body, and if you’re overweight, will make you want to hide.

Using brain health as an example, perhaps as a kid one of your grandparents developed dementia, and you watched your parent become devastated by this. You may have picked up the belief that dementia is a devastating thing, and still operating under this belief system you live in fear of neurological disease. 

But here’s the kicker: if you change your beliefs about these things, you can change how you feel about these things, and completely change the way you interact with them in your life.

Changing belief

It’s not necessarily easy to change belief, but it is completely possible. The physical components of belief are well traveled neural networks that have seen years of use. And just water wants to follow the path of least resistance, so does energy.

When thought is triggered by a circumstance in our life, the energy generated in the brain is always going to try and travel down the most well worn paths. The trick is to become aware of this happening, and intentionally prompt that energy in a new direction.

It’s simply miraculous that we can do this, and I think we should take advantage of this ability as often as we can.

As a causal life coach, this is exactly what I help people do. Sign up for a free mini session to see this coaching in action for yourself!