Belief, noun /bɪˈliːf/ - the feeling of being certain that something exists or is true (especially one without proof). This is the definition presented by the Cambridge Dictionary however, from my perspective a belief is not a feeling per se but rather a thought that in his turn generates a feeling.

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Much was written in the world about beliefs and the way we work with them and for good reason since we create our entire life experience through our beliefs about ourselves, about nature, about religion, about other people, pretty much about everything. We take our beliefs as truths, as certainties, most of the times without even questioning them and we do not recognise them as beliefs about reality, but rather features or aspects of reality itself.

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Just as there are many geometric shapes and almost all of them can be broken down or split into a few basic shapes (circle, square, rectangle, rhomb and triangle) so there are many beliefs and almost all of them can be reduced to few core or basic ones like love, value, power, limit and deservability (around which beliefs structures are usually formed), even if each person experiences his or hers own unique reality different from any other individual's.

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From the moment the child is born, is handed down information from his parents, relatives and the people around him through examples, telepathic reinforcement and constant verbal communications. Part of this information is utterly important to his physical survival, according to the specific conditions where one lives and must be taught. The acquiescence of beliefs protects the child from what the parents considers to be dangerous and also serves as a framework within which the child can grow until the conscious mind is able to reason for itself and provide its own value conclusions and decisions. However, through this learning process the child may also receive deformed information and concepts about the world, about nature, about his capabilities and most important about his so called “limits”.

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Once the child is transformed into an adolescent or further into a grown adult one may start examining his own beliefs finding out that some of them are still “true” and applicable, perhaps some that make him laugh that he ever believed in them and furthermore some that he may want to change.

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In my quest to better understand what beliefs are and how one can change a belief, I have many times heard that one must get rid of an old belief, or eliminate, or purge it, or to integrate it. Also, I have read that one cannot really escape a belief since it will always be there, uncontrollable bouncing back from time to time, perhaps when one least expects. All these actions seemed rather difficult to accomplish, apparently, they required a constant great deal of effort. I must admit that at some point I hoped there was a button to push to shut down the system and restart it or reload it. Perhaps some of us may find such a button but usually it does not exist.

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I harbour no intention to talk here about core beliefs, false beliefs, limiting beliefs, structured beliefs, joyful beliefs, or any possible classification. However, all beliefs regardless of their attached attributes, as being just thoughts, have something in common: they can be changed. And as one changes his beliefs there will be a change in one’s comportment, and points of stress, and creativity, and understanding and eventually experience.

 

In this “reality” we live in, we have created the idea of polar opposites and paradoxes, we have allowed this idea for us to create darkness and light, up and down, positive and negative, black and white. We are constantly creating a physical reality to be a polarised reality experience where the two polarised opposites are always intertwined in one reality. Hence, every manifestation of consciousness will always have the idea of a reverse aspect because physical reality figuratively functions as a mirror, and therefore, any information, any communication will always have a reverse aspect or contrast. In short, we contain the whole of the dichotomy of the polarity of the apparent contrasts and opposites, We Contain All.

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As long as we contain all, we also contain all beliefs, every belief that we can possibly remark or think of, but what is very important, we also contain the opposite belief. We always contain the belief and its opposite, we contain the thought but also the opposite thought (otherwise we would not be able to make the distinction). And we always, but always trust; we trust in something, we trust in one thought or his opposite.

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The moment we understand that we already contain all, then there is nothing to get rid of, or process through, and there is nothing to gain, or achieve, nothing to integrate since All is already in us, there is, simply the decision, the choice we are making. What determines the response, the reaction, the creation, in our life, is which belief we choose to act on in every single moment. If we were to analyse the one we act on in that given moment it would tell us that out of all the beliefs that we contained, we are expressing this particular one; our action being a direct reflection of our strongest belief, in the moment we are performing that particular action.

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Once we decide that a certain belief is no longer representative of who we choose to be, we can decide to change it. There are various methods of altering or changing a belief by substituting its opposite for a perfect opposite will always be available. We can generate the emotion opposite the one that arises from the belief we want to change, and we turn our imagination in the opposite direction from the one dictated by the old belief. We allow ourselves to feel that new preferred belief, we allow ourselves to see how we would think with the new belief, we allow ourselves to see how we would act with the new belief and eventually we act as a person with the new belief would act. At the same time, we consciously assure ourselves that the old unsatisfactory belief is just an idea about reality and not an irrefutable aspect of reality itself.

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In addition, utterly intentionally we use our conscious mind playfully, creating games as children do, in which for a time we entirely ignore what seems to be in physical terms and "pretend" that what we really want is real. Now this may sound a bit unfeasible, nonetheless in our daily life we use our imagination and our emotions and our feelings often at the service of lesser worthy beliefs. There are no new skills to learn, there is nothing to unlearn, we are simply transforming our reality through the very same mechanism that we already, for our entire life, have created it.

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We are all artists, we are all creators, we have been given the gift of creating our experiences, hence we are all creating our lives. As a painter puts part of himself into each canvas, we are putting parts of ourselves in each encounter, in each scene, we project in our mind and eventually, we live and experience it. The painter chooses from his palette the colours he wants to use in his artwork just as we choose from the multitude of beliefs available on our mind’s palette those we want to use, those we consciously chose to trust in, with which we choose to paint the physical picture of our thoughts, with which we choose to create our life.