Our Beliefs Determine How We Show Up In The World And Affect Everything We Do…
- What We Believe Gives Rise To What We Think.
- What We Think Then Gives Rise To How We Feel.
- And How We Feel Determines How We Behave.
Which Then Feeds Back To Give Us The Proof That What We Were Right To Believe What We Believed!
Our beliefs help us to make sense of our world and once formed act as the ‘train tracks’ we run on for the rest of our lives.
Our Patterns of Behaviour Hang Off Our Beliefs, So How Are Our Beliefs Formed?
When we’re born, our little brains are still developing and act very much like sponges, literally soaking up everything around us as we try to make sense of the world and the people in it.
So up until the age of about 7, we’re really just downloading the information we take in from our environment.
It’s during this time that we’re forming our beliefs. Beliefs about ourselves, our identity, other people and the world in general.
Forming Our Positive Beliefs …
When our experience is positive we download edifying and life-affirming messages from others and the world around us.
The beliefs we form from these experiences are the ones that serve us and help move us forward.
Forming Our Limiting Beliefs …
When we experience what we perceive to be negative events, we form limiting beliefs because we download messages that diminish us and tell us we are less than we are.
These are the beliefs that hold us back, and prevent us from thinking, doing and saying the things that these beliefs inhibit.
If our behaviour received a negative reaction and this affected us adversly, we would have formed a limiting belief as a result.
This limiting belief would then act to prevent us from repeating the behaviour to keep us safe from experiencing that negative response again.
Limiting beliefs can be formed from something as simple as your brother or sister being offered a sweet and you not. It just depends on how we interpret the event and what we come to believe about ourselves as a result.
Some Of Our Adaptations May Need Adapting …
Because we form our limiting beliefs to make sense of our world and to keep us safe, they can be looked upon as an adaptation to our environment.
Some of these adaptations to the way we behaved may have served us very well while we were children.
However, as adults, that very same ‘programme’ may well hold us back.
For us to lead happy and fulfilling lives, it is important to identify what these programmes or patterns of behaviour are and which limiting beliefs hold them in place.
Limiting beliefs are also established after the age of 7 when we perceive something as being traumatic.
You can read more about this and what can be done about it here.