We all live our lives within repeated patterns of thoughts, actions, and outcomes. The foundation of such a cyclic life is deeply rooted in our subconscious mind, we will get to that later.
Foremost, how many times have you tried to break a habit and found yourself looking for tons of tips to make changes to your life? Or perhaps you asked for advice from friends?
No matter which path you chose, you always found yourself a prisoner to your habits. You used humor as a defense mechanism for dealing with your pain of not being able to change your life or do things you would actually love to see yourself doing.
We all have been there, and the fear of living an unfulfilled life at the hands of our subconscious habits is too real. This emotion can also be identified as the feeling of “being stuck.”
Identifying your core belief system stored in your subconscious mind
Core beliefs are the ideas embodied by the mind during our childhood. The culture we are brought up in plays an immense role in shaping our core beliefs about ourselves and the world as we know it.
According to the Centre for Clinical Interventions, “Core beliefs are the very essence of how we see ourselves, the world, and the future.”
One of the common patterns we observe in our lives is that fear/insecurity lies at the heart of almost any change. For example, I want to go running every day because I don’t want to look unfit, or I want to make money because I don’t want to be abandoned by society and so on.
It gets incredibly difficult, then, to give your pure energy to your desires because the operational belief which is fear consumes a lot of your mental power. You can even understand that the anxiety and nervousness you feel in your day-to-day life is triggered by this foundational fear of your subconscious mind.
Fear is a trigger (I don’t want to look unfit), running is an action (running away from fear), and reward is the thought that because you ran you will be spared from getting fat (a lot of people complain no matter how much they exercise, they still can’t achieve their desired level of fitness)
In this case, fear is a limiting core belief that is creating a serious amount of conflict within our psychological and physiological system.
According to the research titled “The Biochemistry of Belief,” our beliefs actually carry the power to bring physiological changes to our body. No matter how much you work out or control your diet, your core belief which is fear doesn’t really allow your body to get fit.
There are multiple other core beliefs governing the lives of many individuals such as insecurity, unworthiness, powerlessness, hopelessness, shame, feeling unsafe, and feeling unloved. The identification of your core belief is essential in understanding the course of your life and the patterns you are stuck in. Once you identify your core beliefs, you will be surprised to see how it has been ruling almost every area of your life without you being consciously aware of it.
This being said, not all core beliefs are negative in nature, however, the society we live in makes it impossible to cultivate our positive core beliefs. Therefore, it becomes necessary to do the introspection and work on your core beliefs for the well-being of your mind, body, and soul.
“As you recover, you will find yourself letting go of many of your negative beliefs. You will discover that many of the so-called truths you were raised with and forced to believe are not truths at all. With this perspective, you will come to see, for example, that the names you were called as a child are simply not true. You are not ‘stupid,’ ‘lazy,’ ‘ugly,’ or a ‘liar’. You can discover just who you really are. You can let go of your pretenses and masks and discover who the real person is underneath.” ~ Beverly Engel, The Right to Innocence
Do not deny yourself the beauty of doing inner work
“A belief is not merely an idea that the mind possesses. It is an idea that possesses the mind.” ~ Robert Oxton Bolton
After years of enculturation process, it is indeed difficult to change your core beliefs, let alone identifying them.
It can take a lot of time, but don’t feel discouraged by such thoughts because our understanding of time is also a limiting belief presented to us by society. There is no rush, you don’t have a deadline for inner transformation. Luckily, it is not a linear process.
The process of diving deeper into your core beliefs requires us to do the inner work in the form of observation and introspection. You can relate the process of discovering your core beliefs with the process of unlayering an onion or multiple onions. If tears are involved in the process, you are on the right path.
Look at your life and everything that happens in it as if it was a mirror of your core beliefs, and truth will unfold before you in simultaneity. The process of self-awareness begins when you actively start identifying the limiting beliefs you hold about yourself.
One very common thing that can happen is that you might feel disheartened to see the damage done to your being thus far by your limiting core beliefs. You might feel a sense of rage towards your past and the society in general.
However, in the end, what matters is you were able to give yourself the truth you deserve to know about your beliefs. This takes a huge weight off your chest and gives you a sense of freedom that is very uplifting in nature.
Coming eye-to-eye with your core beliefs is an extremely special process, one that is integral to the process of awakening. Once this happens, one can enrich the mind with nurturing core beliefs such as love, compassion, kindness, abundance, peace, inspiration, optimism, and integrity.
On The Turn
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
But don’t move the way fear makes you move.Mawlana Jalal-Al-Din Rumi
For further understanding, we recommend you watching the wonderful talk by Bruce Lipton on Power of Belief and Responsibility.
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