The Curious and Paradoxical Nature of Beliefs

“You limit yourself by reducing the number of viewpoints you see.” – Meir Ezra 

A prison of our own mind

Do you have this feeling that you are trapped in your life?   Do you ruminate about past events? Worry about the future? Or engage in self-criticism?     

We all do it.  But have you thought about why?  

Negative or distressing thinking patterns are like a plague on psychological growth and evolution. It is natural.  We are hardwired to be self-protective and to put safety first. But these patterns often involve feeling overwhelmed or controlled by persistent and often negative thoughts, emotions, or beliefs.   Past experiences, conditioning, or a fear of failure can also contribute to this way of thinking. 

We can easily get stuck in our thoughts which becomes a prison and limits our options and wonders of life.  

We need to look at our beliefs. 

What do you believe?  

Beliefs are curious things.  We make them up and then they form the bedrock of how we live our lives. There are positive beliefs that support us and contribute to feelings of happiness and health. There are limiting/negative beliefs that don’t support us and contribute to feelings of unhappiness and dis-ease.  Paradoxically they aren’t necessarily the Truth!  

For example, at one point, we believed that the world was flat and that ships venturing past the horizon would eventually fall off into an abyss. It was a cosmology that Christopher Columbus had to overcome before he set sail to discover the Americas. We know that this is not true. 

Another example comes from Buddhism. There is a famous story of a group of blind men who touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part.  They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. They fight about what the elephant is like, each determined that they are right about his description.  They are all right and all are wrong because they only have a limited perspective.  

Our beliefs hold only one perspective and don’t necessarily hold the full truth of reality. 

Where do they come from? 

What we believe shows up as a mirror in our life and mostly unconsciously. Is how you experience and interpret life fueled by your beliefs and values? Do you believe that you live in a random cosmos where nothing makes sense, or do you believe that you live in an ordered universe where everything makes sense?  Each of these perspectives will decide the spin that you put on life’s events. 

According to Wikipedia, a “belief” is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty.  

Paradoxically, our core beliefs are hard to find. They exist in the background of our psyche hidden from our conscious mind. Yet they are so powerful.  Studies have shown that 95% of all our behaviours and actions are unconscious and are influenced by these beliefs. The personal unconscious is the storage house of all our complexes, that is, those emotional and painful split-off parts of our personality that we had as children.

Our beliefs come from what we have heard from our culture, parents, friends, television, music, books, and politics, as well as assumptions and misunderstandings.  Misunderstandings are key to understanding this.  How often do painful experiences lead us to create an interpretation that then becomes a negative belief?  As children, we respond to life from the right side of the brain; that is the limbic system that governs our relationships and survival mechanisms.  We often make a conclusion about ourselves like I am not loveable, I am not safe, God is a cruel god, I can’t trust anyone.  

Once we have a belief, any information from the outside world is filtered through the belief so that we strengthen our original belief and reject any information that may contradict it. This is how they become our internal programming.  We carry them with us throughout our lives. Most of the time we do not question them.  

What are limiting beliefs? 

The Buddha taught that the root of our suffering can be found in our thoughts about our reality.  This is not about suffering that comes from real loss or grief.  This kind of pain is inevitable.  Buddha spoke about the suffering that arises from our beliefs about what is happening or what is not happening in the moment.  Limiting beliefs are rooted in the past and in fear. They are the places in ourselves where we are stuck. They constrict our experience of life and separate us from living fully in the moment of what is NOW.  

Real but not necessarily true 

Thoughts and beliefs are navigational maps that are not inherently true. Some serve us by supporting feelings of connection and meaning. Others cause feelings of separation, self-aversion and/or blame of others. We can free ourselves from harmful beliefs by investigating them with a dedicated, mindful and courageous presence.   

We need to understand how our beliefs lead to an interpretation of life events.  When we do, we can look at life’s events with some objectivity of what is so without overlaying an interpretation. It is then that we are empowered to change our beliefs based on what life asks of us NOW and that which will give us meaning. 

We must be willing to challenge our current perspectives, ask new questions, and be open to trying new directions.

Christina Becker
May 2023

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