Taking some time to consider your beliefs, and how yours play out in your life is fundamental to self-awareness to cultivate Real Wellness. If you want to understand and know why you tend to perceive yourself and life in certain ways and habitually respond to contexts as you do, then you need to do the inner work enquiring into your beliefs. They affect our actions, reactions, mood and colour our perception of life. Your core beliefs impact the relationship you hold with yourself and thus play an integral role in wellbeing. Knowing your beliefs builds self-awareness for real wellness.
I see beliefs as thought predictions, like opinions people adopt consciously or not (more often unconsciously) that affect their processing and interpretation of things. Others define beliefs as repeated thoughts we take on board as true. When reflecting on a belief, the mind may create visions or retrieve memories, and we may notice some associated thoughts, feelings, emotions, and urges. Like all the elements of your inner world, beliefs are inherently invisible, intangible, and intrinsic to you, but are also influenced by your external world. Beliefs are formed by our experiences and stem from stored data throughout the networks of the brain. We may be aware of them and their influence or not. They are simply cognitive fathoms that our brain creates to find meaning in things, protect you from harm, so you can survive and function.
Neuroscience suggests our brains are spontaneously active and efficiently designed to make predictions of reality based off our past experiences. It seems that all we perceive as real is simply a best guess based off our past experiences. The sensory inputs from within or external of us that we receive error correct or reinforce our predictions. Beliefs alter your perception of data.
Beliefs are based on the facts available to you in your life so far, including the influence of others and the society around you. If the facts change, to an extent, you can upgrade to new beliefs that reflect your broader lived experience, freeing yourself to live with more opportunity and a little more in line with reality.
Beliefs are a part of your inner world. As is true of all the elements of your inner world, your beliefs don’t necessarily define you. You’re more than your beliefs. They’re not necessarily accurate or reflective of reality. Although beliefs can be adaptive like ‘I can do hard things’ (helpful, flexible, and useful to function and exciting growth), they may also be maladaptive and unhelpful long-term – like ‘this will be a disaster’ (may cause problems and prevent optimal function and personal growth).
If you can chip away at the task of identifying your influencing beliefs, it will really facilitate freedom from any self-limiting or toxic beliefs and propel your personal growth. Having the ability to notice and disregard maladaptive beliefs and choose alternatives is liberating.
With awareness you’ll start to notice the relationship between your beliefs and your choices. Further, you’ll gain opportunity to lessen the grip of those beliefs that have been proven untrue or just plain unhelpful. Beliefs can be well hidden, secret, and tricky beasts, making conscious awareness of them challenging. But once revealed and conscious, unhelpful beliefs can be challenged and even debunked. We may not be able to eliminate certain beliefs entirely, but we can certainly learn to lessen their impact on our perception, behaviour and wellbeing. We can have strong beliefs along with weaker ones that are more easily swayed.
A core belief is a thought seen to be true about yourself. It influences your identity and the relationship you hold with yourself. For example, if your needs are consistently left unmet as vulnerable child, then you may inadvertently form the core belief about yourself growing up that you are not worthy or loveable. Many people suffer the core belief that they’re not good enough, which is toxic to wellbeing. I would say 99.9% of the population have this core belief whether they realise or not. There is a variation in intensity of how such inner core beliefs affect people. Some will believe this more strongly causing suffering and others less so.
Some psychotherapists theorise that it’s our experience of life during our first four years that’s most crucial to the formation of core beliefs, and that the nurturing you receive during this time will determine how you perceive yourself. I’m sure early childhood experiences play a role in the formation of core beliefs, but I know that life experiences at all ages influence us and our identity. In yoga there’s a word for life impressions that impact our perceptions: samskaras. These samskaras create mental imprints that impact how we react and view our human experience. But yoga teaches it is possible to free ourselves of our samskaras using certain yogic strategies.
In the world of mainstream psychology, core beliefs are called schemas, and we all have them. Schema therapy aims to identify a patient’s core beliefs to help them understand their inner worlds and perceptions. Because core beliefs are formed when we’re so young, we may not have any memory of the experiences that imprinted our core belief because our capacity for memory develops later in life. We are often not consciously aware of them or where they came from and may need professional support to unmask them and dissect their influence on our wellbeing.
Although we may not be able to erase our core beliefs entirely (you may notice them rear their ugly head at times), with insight & self-mastery skills, we can manage their influence on us as we flick to more adaptive mindsets that we choose.
We can develop the ability to challenge our core beliefs and thus change our relationship with ourselves. Self-limiting beliefs can really hold us back. They serve as an obstacle to self-determination and asserting your personal power over your human experience and life. Self-limiting beliefs can stop people from initiating steps towards embodying their values and living aligned with their priorities. They can prevent us from creating our dream life and way of living.
Because beliefs are internal, they’re ours, and we have the power to modify them. We can use our conscious awareness to choose the beliefs we engage with and then, over time, override those we don’t. I’m not going to lie: you’re looking at the work of a lifetime of continuous effort. But don’t let that put your off making a start. We have every right and every ability to choose our beliefs. Every day and in every moment, you can choose to override any nonsense you’ve somehow taken on or you can live as a slave to the toxic belief that deep down you’re a miserable failure. With mindful awareness, we can exercise positive choices. I choose functional beliefs that aim to serve my own real wellness and the health of others. With mindfulness and self-reflection, all of us can chip away at our beliefs wisely so that we live contentedly with more peace and ease. We may not be able to fully undo the conditioning of our minds or eradicate negative core beliefs completely from the networks of our brain, but thanks to neuronal plasticity (discussed later in the book) we can modify our brain activity.
Your beliefs are powerful. They shape all your choices and reactions. Beliefs affect the way you process and interpret your reality. They can bring people together or divide them entirely. Could you imagine a version of you with the skill to adapt your beliefs to suit you or at least a version that notices more the beliefs behind their perceptions? When you develop the insight and self-awareness to notice your beliefs you can see those that work for you and those that are likely barricading your growth. With self-awareness, attachment to belief is ultimately a choice. So, get noticing, practise that mindfulness, and aim to wisely choose your mindset to live freely and fully.
We have discussed why knowing your beliefs is masterful. But what do you do if you struggle to identify them? One clue is your behavior and reactions. Our responses to situations can shed light on our underlying beliefs and biases. For example if you have a strong attachment to a core belief that you’re unlovable, you may become quite hurt and upset if say, one day your friend cancels coffee on you. Your reaction is likely to be more intense compared to another person who did not hold this belief. You may take the cancellation personally believing it has something to do with your worth and the value your mates places on your friendship. It could be that the friend had a hangover and was too embarrassed to say this, however. You may assume the worst, that it’s about you, feel hurt and rejected and consequently become defensive. Perhaps you distance yourself from the friend in order to prevent further hurt. If this was a pattern of behavior that you noticed, you may start to see the underlying belief.
Do you ever get triggered by your partner or another person in your life? Chances are there’s a core belief driving that trigger.
If this work is tricky and your beliefs remain unclear, and you have the resources, I encourage you to consider health professional assistance to unmask your blind spots and core beliefs.
Getting to know your core beliefs is a powerful part of the process of building your self-awareness for self-mastery, and to live a life of real wellness, as they filter our perception of life. Don’t be disheartened if this skill seems unreachable. This is a high-level skill for self-awareness and one that many never fully form. The truth is, you’ve done amazingly well even to read this chapter. Read it over and over until the words sink in and come to life. With repetition, understanding and actualisation is created. Having self-awareness of your beliefs and building mastery around them takes time to develop. It is an ability that often requires professional assistance to build. But it is worth the effort for the liberation and growth it enables.
Understanding your core beliefs and how they affect your interpretation of life, and being able to identify when they are filtering your perception is human mastery at its best. Once formed, it’s a skill to be used lifelong as we are constantly forming beliefs and constantly vulnerable to bias. We may not be able to grow out of our core beliefs or eliminate unhelpful filtering entirely. But we can always aim to be mindful of our beliefs and intentional around choosing alternatives that better suit us.
