Examining Beliefs

When I was a child, I thought the word “belief” meant something different than it does. In church there were teachings I was supposed to accept as truth. I remember reciting verses where I said over and over “I believe…” but the words following this phrase didn’t always ring true to me. So I assigned a new meaning to the word. I thought belief meant something you are supposed to accept and agree to, but that doesn’t feel quite right somewhere in your soul.

As an adult, I have become very interested in the concept of beliefs. What I think now is that a belief is just a thought you think over and over and that you have accepted as truth. It can be really interesting and insightful to examine your beliefs. When you begin to do this, you start to see how beliefs may be running your life, and you may be surprised how often you’ll find your beliefs don’t stand up to close scrutiny!

As an example, when my son was younger, his teachers scolded me for sending him to school without a coat on chilly days because he would get sick. (By the way, I tried to get him to wear a coat!) He rarely wore a coat his teachers approved of, but he actually never did get sick. Many of us have heard you need to dress warm or you’ll “catch a cold.” But is this always true? Does everyone who doesn’t wear a jacket when it’s cold get sick? We know that isn’t true. So why do people even say this? Do I need to believe it?

There are so many examples of things like this: “Words of wisdom” that some parent or teacher told us and that we accepted as truth and then never thought to question. Do any of these sound familiar to you: “Marriage is hard work.” “Money is hard to come by.” “You have to work hard to make a good living.” There are certainly people who have experiences different from these, so why do people say things like this? Do I need to choose to believe any of these “altruisms?”

It can be super enlightening to examine your beliefs. When you do this, you may realize many of your unconscious beliefs aren’t actually true, and you can begin to release some of these. You can then begin to free yourself from living in self-imposed limitation and start to consciously choose more positive beliefs in your life. Try a simple activity to examine some of your beliefs below.