I’ve found that working with your beliefs is one of the most powerfully rewarding things I’ve done in my personal and spiritual growth work. Read the information on beliefs and then try the the thought excercises and enjoy bending ‘reality’ consciously.

What I’ve come to understand in my work, my beliefs about beliefs.

1) Beliefs exist as part of the core of what makes your ego structure, both conscious and unconscious.

2) Beliefs filter or frame your perceptions such that all perception becomes “interpretation” through your beliefs, values, roles, etc. Your beliefs determine your experience of the world, your thoughts, feelings and actions and reactions. You don’t see the world as it is, you see the world as you are.

3) Seeing is believing, but more importantly, believing IS seeing. For example, this is why those who’re heavily invested in believing there’s no such thing as “paranormal events” don’t “see” them. They’re belief system and ego structure serves to organize their experience of the world, and thus deletes, distorts and generalizes experience so that it conforms to their beliefs. It’s not what’s in front of your eyes that determines what you see, it’s what’s behind your eyes that determines what you see.

4) Change your beliefs and you change your experience of the world.

5) Most beliefs - if you “go all the way down” - are less “facts” than mere “feelings of certainty”.

6) Beliefs are just that and nothing more, beliefs, no matter what beliefs they are. They are not “True” as existing out there, but mental constructs generated and maintained by us.

7) Most of our core beliefs - especially about our “self” - were “imprinted” before age 12, well before the brain has finished developing or the frontal lobes come fully “online”. This is one reason why children have such a hard time managing emotions. Many of our earliest core beliefs are given to us, are conflicting, yet simply taken “as gospel” from authority figures (parents, family, peers, teachers, clergy, etc.). Other core beliefs are formed literally “by the mind of a child”, and thus are not a very accurate map of “reality”. Many of those early beliefs that remain unexamined unconsciously drive us with that level of consciousness

Most of us become “slaves” to our beliefs rather than masters of them by remaining unconscious of our core beliefs and how they manifest in our experience as thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Our beliefs make us work for them rather than us consciously choosing and installing those beliefs?.

9) Much of what is perceived is actually projection of one’s ego.?10) Ultimately, you are responsible for your beliefs, and your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. No one can “make” you think or feel any way. You are the final word in your response to another (consciously or unconsciously).

Here’s an exercise I share with participants in my workshops. I find it very helpful for getting leverage on beliefs and managing one’s thoughts and feelings. To experience the benefit you have to do it not just read it.  Have fun!

I AM vs. I FEEL:

1) Choose a “favorite negative emotion”, (an emotion you regularly feel when upset, like: rage, depression, anxiety, frustration, etc.) We all have several, but pick one you’d really like to work with. For example, one of mine was self-righteous indignation. Now, really feel that emotion. If you have trouble conjuring that emotion just think of a time when you reallly felt that emotion.

2) Next, write down on a piece of paper the sentence, “I AM _______.” (write the emotion in the blank, don’t type it on a computer, as writing it down works better for our purposes).

3) Now, read the sentence to yourself, and observe how you feel inside. Observe how the feeling feels.

4) Next, below the first sentence write the sentence, “I FEEL _______.”

5) Read it to yourself, and notice how you feel. Compare your feeling from the first sentence with your feeling from the second sentence.

6) Lastly, write, “I’m having an experience of the feeling _______.” Read that and observe your feeling. Compare the three feeling experiences.?? Most people experience an empowering distancing or dissociation from the negative emotion with reading the second and third sentence. ?A majority of our thoughts are internally verbal. Words direct our mind as to what to experience.?The verb “AM” is a statement of our “being”, or who we “are”. “Being” from the “to be” verb form is fixed and absolute, unchangeable. Saying I AM _______” verbally programs or hypnotises you in such a way that “you” become fused with the emotion, and because your “are” that emotion there isn’t much one can do about it. By simply changing the verb from “AM” to “FEEL” we distance ourselves mentally, and as a result, feel differently because all we are is no longer just the emotion. Now the emotion is only a portion of our ongoing, everchanging experience.

This exercise is also a great little technique for shifting, altering, and managing one’ emotions.

REALITY IS WHAT YOU ATTEND TO

1) Sit somewhere - outdoors or indoors - with a friend. Mentally choose a prevalent color in the surrounding environment (for example, if you’re outdoors maybe select green. If you’re indoors, choose maybe brown).

2) Next, mentally select another color in the environment. I recommend choosing a color that is less prevalent to enhance the effect.

3) Say to your friend, “Look around you and remember everything that is _______ (the first color). Look closely, and make sure you remember everything that is _______. (the first color) Now, close your eyes. Now, without opening your eyes…tell me everything that is_______ (the 2nd color).”?Typically, people are shocked at their difficulty in remembering anything that is the second color. What we attend to is what becomes our “reality”. It’s how we’re wired. As Alan watts said, “Ignorance is ‘Ignore-ance’. ” Think about exactly what your beliefs cause you to attend to and to ignore to create your experience of “reality”. Think about what changing your beliefs would cause you to attend to and ignore, and how your experience of “reality” would change.

THE BOUNDARYMAKER

1) On a piece of paper, draw a 3 inch diameter circle. Write the word “inside” on the inside of the circle and the word “outside” on the outside of the circle.

2) Next, below the first drawing, write the words “inside” and “outside” in the same relative positions as the first drawing but without drawing the circle.

3) Now, ask yourself, “What is the difference between these two drawings? Does the second drawing have any “meaning” (make sense) without the circle? What then is the circle? A boundary that gives meaning? Who made the boundary? Who is the boundarymaker?” You. Do you make meaning in all your experience all the time by drawing boundaries, making distinctions, choosing beliefs, values, etc. by deciding “this is this or this is not this”? Are you not then ultimately responsible for all your thoughts, feeling, and behaviors? Do you choose to be conscious or unconscious of this process?

Choose a day to walk around and observe yourself drawing boundaries, making distinctions, and consequently making meaning. Observe how you then react almost instantaneously to your own meaning making, and mistakenly attribute your feelings to being almost entirely influenced by your external environment.

SHAPING REALITY WITH BELIEFS

1) Select one belief that you don’t currently hold but would like to. For example: “I believe everyone is always doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them at any given moment.”

2) Walk around all day holding that belief in mind. If your watch has a timer set it to go off every 30 minutes or hour to remind you of the belief, then take one minute to “load up” that belief.

3) Finally, observe how your expereince of “reality” changes accordingly, how the universe seems to mold itself to your belief.

As quantum physicist David Bohm said, “Thought doesn’t know it is doing something and then struggles against what it is doing.”

CONVEX? VS. CONCAVE?

Part I

1) On a piece of paper draw a 3 inch long curved line like this ” ) “.

2) Q: Is the curve convex or concave? What’s your answer?

3) Now, show another person the curve and ask them, “Is this curve convex or concave?” After they answer you, ask them, “Why is it ______?” (convex or concave)

4) Ask several more people the same thing and note their different answers and reasons and compare them to your answer and reasons.

5) Fun bonus points: challenge their answer. Say, “No it isn’t. It’s (the opposite of their answer)!” Sit back and watch the “fireworks”. Watch how emotional some people get.

Part II

1) Draw three more curves ” ) ” below the first. Take your time thinking about the following:

2) To the left of the first curve ” ) ” draw a stick figure man the same height as the curve. Q: Is the curve convex or concave?

3) To the right of the second curve draw another stick figure man. Q: Is the curve convex or concave?

4) With the third curve draw a stick figure man on both sides. Q: Is the curve convex or concave?

5) Now, try and “see” the last curve ” ) ” with the two stick figures from the following 3 points of view or perspectives:

a) Mr. Concave, and “prove” his “truth”, why he’s right, “It’s concave!”

b) Mr Convex, and “prove” his “truth”, why he’s right, “It’s convex!”

c) Now, rise up above the page and look down to see the whole thing from an all-inclusive higher perspective and understanding that both views are right from their limited perspective, wrong from the other’s perspective, AND simultaneously right/wrong or both/neither from the highest perspective of all. They just ARE, and how you wish to view things at any time is entirely up to you and totally dependent on your perspective.

6) Share this with other people and observe their reactions. Watch those who struggle with it and those who “get it”.

7) Now, imagine that this is what people do all the time every day in life with each other. They pair off and polarize, mistakenly believing their limited perspective is actually the big picture: good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, conservative vs. liberal, democrat vs republican, pro-life vs pro-choice (or pro-death vs. anti-choice?), us vs. them, me vs. you, etc. Imagine how things would be different in the world if people really got this, meaning, they lived this understanding.

Consider this is what you do in your every thought. Imagine yourself living this understanding. How would things be different?

9) Consider this is what Albert Einstein was hinting at when he said, “No problem can be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it.

Lastly, this is also how ALL paradoxes (seemingly insoluble difficulties) are resolved at another level. Consider how this relates to the most recent discoveries of hyperdimensional physics where so many of the remaining “problems” of physics are resolved by simply allowing for additional dimensions (higher perspectives).