Belief Change
ByBeliefs are prime examples of generalisations about ourselves AND the world, which act as a spring board to all our decisions. Beliefs are JUST IDEAS, there is nothing intrinsically TRUE about them.
One of the most powerful character of beliefs is that they often become self-fulfilling prophecies.
A common example of this is when a person firmly believes they’ve lost something, and sure enough, they can’t find it until someone points out that the lost object is right in front of them!
The unconscious mind deletes the visual information (“the object is right here”) to prove the belief right.
Where do we learn them from?
- From direct experiences filtered through the senses (what we see, hear, feel etc…)
- From our parents,
- From other people and what we hear in our direct environment (example: religious figures, teachers, media, peers, etc…)
Most of the time, our beliefs have an enormous positive power in how we see the world around us. For example, the most confident and successful people have a strong deeply anchored supportive belief about themselves and what they can achieve.
Sometimes however, some beliefs, which used to serve us have stopped doing so, and have become a source of limitation in our life.
One little known fact about beliefs is that they are embedded in our senses, and in the language we use to communicate with the world AND with ourselves (the conversation that we run in our own heads, that you are probably familiar with.)
Therefore, of the many techniques that are used nowadays to assist people change their beliefs about themselves to create results in their life (be it business, relationships, or health), none is as astonishingly effective and swift as the sensory and language-based belief change.
HOW TO IDENTIFY A DISEMPOWERING BELIEF?
Look for clues in words such as: “I must”, “It should”, “I ought to” etc… Technically, these are called modal operators of necessity. What they do is limit the possibilities which are open to us.
Also, possibility words used in the negative such as “I can’t”, “I couldn’t”, “I’ll never be able to” etc.. have the same effect.
When someone uses these words repeatedly, it shows that their model of the world is extremely restricted.
EXAMPLE OF QUESTIONS TO SCRAMBLE A NEGATIVE BELIEF
“How is that a problem?”
This will get people to the source of their problem, which ISthe limiting belief. Most people are only aware of the manifest issues in their life (example: “I smoke”, “I am overweight”, “I can’t sleep”, “My back aches”, “nobody takes me seriously”, “I can’t get promoted/loved”, “I should exercise more” etc…) but very few are aware of the source of their problem (if they were, their problem would disappear by magic!)
“How do you know it is a problem, as you sit right here right now?“
This will put light on the internal process they go through to make the problem a problem. Each belief exists because it follows a certain thought sequence (called “strategy”). The only thing often needed to get rid of the entire belief, is a mere scrambling of ONE step in the sequence.
“What is the higher purpose of this behaviour?”
All behaviours have a positive intent. Even those behaviours which appear silly, impossible to understand, or even downright obnoxious, have some kind of positive intention behind them.
A classical example is the unruly/“badly behaved” child (NB: “badly behaved according to whom?” is the question, but that’s the subject of another article!) who just uses offensive behaviour as a way to attract attention and confirm that the adults around him love him.
Don’t underestimate the power of the positive intent behind negative behaviours. Some people can make themselves sick if they believe it is the only way to attract attention from loved ones who seem too aloof.
Once the higher positive intent has been discovered, it is easy to
– find the belief behind the behaviour
– change the negative behaviour to satisfy the positive intent.
“How would you know if it wasn’t true?”
This question challenges the belief, the idea, that we hold true. It opens the possibility that, maybe, after all… there is another way to think about this. This question acts as the grain of sand in a perfectly polished mechanism.
Hum… Maybe, just maybe…
And finally, I want to share a secret with you.
This is something I ONLY teach in the advanced levels of language training certifications we run.
It’s a HIGHLY advanced language pattern that is used to totally scramble someone’s thinking sequence, and in the process, help them to dissolve deeply anchored disempowering beliefs.
And you’ll probably feel very uncomfortable using it the first few times, but I promise! It REALLY works!
The patterns uses a DOUBLE NEGATIVE question that the brain cannot process.
It goes something like this:
“What would not happen if you did not do it?”
Have fun!
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I know about beliefs becoming self-fulfilling.…
Thanks for the reframing tip.…although in my case, I realize that I have to be constantly at work on my issues