Believe it or Don't ( LONG but well worth it )

[Guest guest]

Believe it or Don't: How Your Beliefs Shape Your Results and Experience of

Life, and What You Can Do About It by Bill , Director

http://www.centerpointe.com

I've written about this topic before, but since what you believe is such a

powerful part of what determines your results and experience of life, I've

decided to revisit the topic in more detail.

Let's start with a definition of beliefs: Beliefs are those things we trust

to be true, and which are instrumental in creating our actions and our

experience of life.

As you may know by now, I am of the opinion that living with suffering and

emotional pain is not necessary, regardless of your past or present

circumstances. In addition, there are definite ways to change your life to

one in which you can choose to be happy and peaceful all the time.

Whether you can see it or not, you are the creator of your life, your

reality, and all your responses to whatever happens around you. You may be

creating all of this unconsciously and automatically, but, nonetheless, what

happens, and how you respond to it, comes...

....from you.

While outside events may trigger a response or an action in you, all your

responses and actions originate from something inside of you, even if the

process is hidden from your awareness.

There are two keys to ending suffering and living a happy, peaceful, and

conscious life:

* First, you must end your resistance to people and situations being as they

are. Instead, you must develop the ability, emotionally, to let whatever

happens be okay-even while you may be taking action to change it.

* Second, you must develop the ability to choose, and then create, the

moment-by-moment results and responses that best serve you. Ironically, if

you're letting whatever happens be okay, it ultimately doesn't matter what

results you create, at least in terms of your level of emotional suffering,

since when you are not attached to your results, your level of inner peace

and happiness remains the same regardless of what happens.

On the other hand, the more you emotionally allow people and situations to

be the way they are, the more the resulting inner peace gives you the

ability to be effective in creating the results you want. One of the little

mysteries of life.

How, then, are you creating the outer results and inner responses that

create your experience of life? And how do you make this process conscious

and volitional, rather unconscious and automatic, as it is with most people?

The results and responses of your life flow from a whole variety of internal

mental filters, processes, and strategies--what I call your Internal Map of

Reality. You could call it the software that creates your life. Your beliefs

are very important part of this internal map, and how beliefs contribute to

the results you get in life, and how you can take control of this process,

is thesubject of this article.

Important principle #1:

Based on early life interactions and experiences, especially with our

primarycare-givers, we all develop beliefs about who we are and what our

relationship is to the rest of the world.

We don't choose these beliefs. We soak them up from our life experiences

when we're too small to have any way of evaluating them. Beliefs become core

components of how we see ourselves, other people, and the world.

Important principle #2:

Your beliefs, in combination with other aspects of your internal map of

reality, create the results, circumstances, and experiences of your life.

Regardless of what you believe, you will find a way to create consistency

between your life and your beliefs. For this reason, beliefs, for the

believer, are always true.

This principle is critically important to your happiness. The brain is a

goal seeking mechanism, and a very powerful one. Your brain will either make

whatever you believe is true actually come true in your life, or will at

least make it seem to be true (which amounts to the same thing, as far as

your actual experience of life is concerned).

This happens because human beings have a powerful need for consistency

between the world and what they believe. The impulse to create this

consistency is so strong that people will do almost anything be right about

their beliefs, even when doing so creates failure, suffering or unhappiness.

You will arrange to be right about your beliefs by creating the

circumstances that confirm to you that they are true.

We create this consistency in three ways:

*Method #1: We attract, and are attracted to, people and situations that

confirm the truth of what we believe. If, for instance, you believe that no

one will ever love you, you will somehow feel a magical attraction to men or

women who do not have the capacity to love you, even though you have no way

of consciously knowing this about them in advance. This is why some people

keep attracting essentially the same person, but in a different body. As

long as you entertain the belief that no one will ever love you, you will,

as if by a hidden radar, continue to attract and be attracted to people who

are unable or unwilling to love you. Doing so creates consistency between

what you believe and the actual events of your life.

*Method #2: We find ways to distort what we perceive so as to make a belief

seem true, even if it is not. Believing that no one will ever love you, you

interpret other people's behavior as evidence that they don't love you, even

if that isn't what it really means. Of all the possible interpretations, you

will pick those that confirm that your belief is true and filter out any

interpretations thatcontradict your belief.

*Method #3: We act in such a way that people finally comply with what we

believe and act in the way we feared. You believe you won't be loved, and

that fear causes you to act in such a way that eventually someone who may

actually love you finally really does stop caring.

With all three methods, you get to be right about what you believe, and

create consistency between your beliefs and your life. If you would rather

be right than happy, this is a great strategy, but if you would like to be

happy and peaceful, it's a losing proposition.

Important principle #3:

Significant negative emotional experiences create beliefs that are not

resourceful and cause us to focus on what we do not want. Since the mind

takes whatever you focus on as an instruction to create something, this is

not resourceful. To get what you want, you must focus on what you want and

have beliefs that tell the mind to create that result.

People who have had significant, negative emotional experiences often focus

on what they don't want (i.e., a repetition of the significant emotional

experience, or anything that reminds them of it). Consciously or

unconsciously, they have a belief: " I must avoid " x " at all costs! "

When you notice yourself focusing on what you do not want, immediately

change your focus to what you do want. Your mind doesn't know when you focus

on something that you do not want it. It always takes whatever you focus on

as an instruction to go get something and bring it to you. For this reason,

it is crucial that you immediately replace thoughts of what you do not want

(for instance, beliefs that create negative outcomes) with thoughts of what

you do want.

Important principle #4:

Since everything is true to the person who believes it, evaluating beliefs

based on whether they are " true " or " false " is not helpful. Doing so is

indulging in circular, fallacious logic. Conscious, happy people evaluate

beliefs based on whether of not they are resourceful--in other words, on

whether or not they create the desired results and experience of life.

Beliefs have consequences, and the best way to evaluate a belief is by what

consequences it creates. Since all beliefs seem to be true to the believer,

believing something " because it's true " is useless, at best, and often

dangerous.

Important principle #5:

The most effective way to replace beliefs that do not serve you with those

that do is to adopt the witness posture--to watch the process of how a

belief creates the results of your life. This watching process causes

whatever is not resourceful to fall away and whatever is resourceful to

remain. A very effective and easy method of developing the necessary

conscious awareness and the ability to do this is to meditate with Holosync.

The easiest and most effective way to replace beliefs that do not serve you

with those that do is to learn how to watch as these beliefs create the

results of your life. When you do this, you don't have to figure out what is

resourceful and what isn't. You just watch with awareness, and whatever is

not resourceful falls away, automatically. This is based on the principle

that you can only continue something that is not resourceful if you do it

unconsciously.

The best way to develop this ability to watch with curiosity is to meditate,

and meditating with Holosync is much faster and more effective than

traditional meditation. It is also helpful to practice this type of

consciously aware watching every chance you get. Doing both together is, of

course, most powerful of all.

When you watch it with awareness, the process of creating your results and

experience of life no longer happens unconsciously and automatically.

Instead, you begin to consciously observe how this happens. As you do this,

it becomes impossible to create results that do not serve you. Such

undesirable results can only be created unconsciously--outside your

awareness.

Being the witness does not mean merely knowing that you do something, it

does not mean mentally analyzing what is happening, nor does it mean being

dissociated from what is happening--or any other kind of mental gymnastics.

It simply means watching whatever is happening, with intense curiosity, as

if you were a scientist, without any agenda for what should or should not be

happening. It means observing your thoughts, your feelings, your actions,

and the results of your actions.

Any number of things can keep you from successfully watching with awareness.

One popular way of lapsing into the unconscious, automatic mode is to place

the cause for what is happening outside of yourself. If you think something

outside of you is creating your experience or outcome (rather than

acknowledging that, regardless of appearances, whatever is happening is

coming from something inside of you), you will be unable to witness what is

happening. Instead, your awareness will be busy looking for something to

blame (this phenomenon is called projection by psychologists).

Humans have an almost infinite number of methods for lapsing into

unconscious and automatic thinking, feeling, and behaving. In using any of

them, you become unable to notice how you create the results of your

beliefs. Analyzing and dissociation are two other popular ways of going

unconscious, but there are many others, including overeating, drugs,

alcohol, television, sex, anger, depression, anxiety, fear-and thousands of

others.

At first, it takes practice to learn to witness what is going on without

slipping into some kind of distraction or other way of going unconscious.

One of the most amazing benefits of daily use of Holosync is that it

automatically creates and enhances the ability to be consciously aware and

watch what is happening, both inside and outside of yourself. This ability

to be more conscious allows all kinds of internal processes that create our

suffering to fall away.

Important principle #6:

Once you have watched the creative process with awareness, and, as a result,

have caused an non-resourceful belief to fall away, you can then consciously

choose a more resourceful belief that creates the mental, emotional,

spiritual, and physical results and outcomes you want.

You can choose what you want to believe, and therefore experience the

results of that belief in your life. You don't have to believe whatever

seems to be true based on past experience. Once you actually see, from start

to finish, and with awareness, exactly how you create " no one loves me, " or

" I'll always be poor, " or any other belief that does not serve you, the

non-resourceful belief will fall away and you will be able to consciously

choose a new belief that gives you the results you want.

Beliefs are nothing more than instructions to your mind to make something

happen in your life. Instead of accepting results you do not want created by

beliefs you did not choose, you can consciously choose more resourceful

beliefs. In doing so, you can create whatever results you want in life.

Important principle #7:

The first step in the process of replacing automatic, unconscious,

non-resourceful beliefs with conscious, resourceful beliefs is to discover

what your core beliefs are. One way to begin is to make a list of ways you

would complete the following sentences:

I am _______.

People are _______.

The world is _________.

You could probably make a long list for each of these categories. In doing

this, you're looking for what you say to yourself when things have gone

wrong and look bleakest. You are not looking for what you learned in self

help books--those things you think you should believe about yourself, such

as " I am one with everything. " " The world is filled with abundance. " " People

are basically good. "

" Everything happens for the best, " and so on. If you really believed these

things, you would be creating them in your life, and you probably wouldn't

need to be reading this article.

Instead, we're looking for those things you believe about yourself that keep

you from being happy and peaceful all the time--statements such as " I'm

never going to be a success. " " No one will ever love me. " " There's something

wrong with me. " " I can't seem to do anything right. " " People always take

advantage of me. " " Men always leave me in the end. " " No one cares about me. "

" The world is dangerous and chaotic. " " Making money is not spiritual. " And

so on. These statements are big clues to what negative and non-resourceful

core beliefs you have.

Important principle #8:

The most effective way to determine your core beliefs is to examine the

results you are getting. A second, and actually much more effective, way to

determine your core beliefs is to look at what is actually happening in your

life, your actual results. You could fake your way through the sentence

completion exercise, but you can't deny the actual results of your life.

Since what you believe manifests in reality, you can tell what a person's

core beliefs are just by looking at the results they get.

If, for instance, you are having trouble sustaining a close relationship

with the opposite sex, you must have a core belief about relationships that

is manifesting as this result in your life. If you are having trouble with

prosperity, or health, or any other issue, you must have a corresponding

belief about that subject that is manifesting in what is actually happening.

Of course, if you have resourceful beliefs in these areas, you will have

positive results. In some cases, people have conflicting beliefs, causing

them to go back and forth between results they want and results they don't

want.

When you look at other people who are getting better results, you can be

sure that they have different, and more empowering, core beliefs on that

subject.

Important principle #9:

As long as you continue to hold the same beliefs, you will continue to get

the same results. There is no way to continue to hold the same beliefs and

get different results. To get different results, you must be willing to

adopt different beliefs-the beliefs of others who are getting the results

you want.

A common stumbling block is wanting to keep the old beliefs (even though

they result in outcomes you do not want) and yet somehow get different

results. Please be very clear that this is not possible. One tongue-in-cheek

(but very accurate) definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and

over while expecting different results. There is no way to change your

results other than to change the contents of your internal map of reality,

and a key component of that map are your beliefs.

Once you know what your core beliefs are (and, again, we're concerned here

with the negative beliefs-the positive ones, those that are giving you the

results you want, don't need attention), and have made the decision that you

want new and different results, the next step is to decide what beliefs

would be more empowering and resourceful, and would create the results you

do want.

Important principle #10:

To install a new belief, focus on it as often as possible and in every way

you can think of. Once you have chosen what you want to believe, based on

the results you want, you can begin to adopt this new way of thinking about

yourself. This will automatically begin to create new results. To install a

new belief, you have to start feeding it into your mind, over and over,

while wiping the old belief out of your mind whenever it pops up. The only

reason the old belief seems true is that you have focused on it for so long

and assumed that it was true, which makes it play out in reality, which of

course makes you focus on it more, which makes it play out...on and on, in a

self-reinforcing cycle.

Focus on this new belief. Think about it while meditating, while driving,

while showering, as often as possible. Doing so may bring up old and

uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, so be prepared for that--the old belief

will literally fight for its life. Don't let that bother you. Just keep

focusing on what you want.

Create a technicolor movie of yourself getting the result of the new belief,

and feeling happy and satisfied by it--the more vivid the movie, the better.

In addition to playing the movie during meditation, play it right before you

go to sleep and right after waking up. Then, whenever you find yourself

thinking about the old, non-resourceful belief, immediately switch your

focus to the movie of the new belief. At first this will take effort and

will seem awkward, but over time it will become more and more natural and

effortless. Eventually, the new belief will be part of you.

You can also read books by people who share your new belief, socialize with

people who share it, or find a mentor who will help you adopt the new

belief. Flood your mind with the new belief in every way you can. Let it be

okay that there is a learning curve...

This process of changing core beliefs can happen in the blink of an eye.

Realistically, however, for most people, it takes several years to complete.

This is because, on an unconscious level, people associate the old way of

being with safety, and tend to unconsciously fight against change, even when

they consciously desire it. Take it one step and one day at a time, and let

the pace of your progress be okay, whatever it is.

Meditation with Holosync greatly speeds up this process, because it helps

you become more conscious and aware of what you are creating, and it takes

the emotional charge off things in your life and allows you to look at

things from a more dispassionate perspective (i.e., be the witness).

However long this process takes, it is worth undertaking. There is a big

difference between being an unconscious automatic response mechanism. Living

out beliefs that create suffering, and being a conscious being who chooses

what to believe based on what kind of world they want to live in.

You are already an expert at creating what you believe and focus on. It's

just that you did not choose what you currently believe and focus on, and it

continues to automatically create the results you are getting in your life.

It is in this manner that most people are nothing more than automatic

response mechanisms. To begin getting what you want in life, both internally

and externally, you must consciously change your internal map of reality,

and what you believe and focus on is a very important aspect of that map.