Previously you read about our beliefs and their impact on our ability to think, on our way of being in the body and on our attitude. In this article you get to know more about the reasons we hold them inside us.

A belief can have different contents.

I want to focus on the kind of beliefs that make our life more difficult and less joyful: “I’m not enough”, “nobody can be trusted”, “men are like that”, “women are like this”, etc…

Why do we keep such beliefs? Because they give us a false sense of safety. The kind of safety that gives us a certain perception of the world and our position in it.
Our beliefs build a key for reading what is happening around us. It is very reassuring to be able to give a meaning to experiences. We are “safe”.
The twisted thing is that this mechanism is based on self confirmation.

It puts us in a victim position, because:

• We focus only on certain aspects of the situation in order to confirm the belief, but we ignore those that could contradict the belief.
• Even if we have a sense of safety, the fact that we relive the same negative experience again and again is extremely stressful for our body.
• The beliefs, like an automatic pilot, make sure we don’t change our attitude: we consider it a safe state, hence we do not enter into a self change process.

Let’s take an example: “I’m not enough”. This belief helps me to justify that I don’t succeed in life as I would like to. This leads to being sure that every one else is doing better than me. And I don’t want to know how other people are actually dealing with the same topic. So I don’t have any chance to really know how it is for them. I isolate myself and try to manage alone. I repeat the same kind of mistakes. And because I’m ashamed of not being enough, I hide my difficulties. No one can help me or support me, because in my experience that would be the confirmation of … “I’m not enough”.

A bit twisted, won’t you say?

There are a couple of steps to get rid of a belief. The first step is to identify a belief.
In what kind of situations in your life do you have the sensation of being often in the same position?
Do you feel the same? Do you think the same: e.g. “why always me?”.
Do you feel trapped and you don’t know how to move out of it?
Describe those moments with as much details as possible and start noticing how your body reacts to that: maybe with tension, unpleasant sensations, specific way of breathing.
Use this documents to train in identifying a belief ex step 1.

This is the first step to get rid of your beliefs! More in my next article.

Do feel free to contact me if you have questions!

Picture of Massimo Martino