Beliefs and False Beliefs – how do our Beliefs affect us?

Belief is defined as “1. an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof or 2. trust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something)”.

This feels a bit woo woo to me, because I regard the first principle thinking of physicists and mathematicians as belief in universal empirical certainty not just wishful belief. So - what is belief for the person in the incarnated physical body? I am far from certain, but here is what it is for me.

“Belief” is the cognitive fiber upon which I build my existence. There is nothing, for me, which exists outside my “belief” in its reality, certainty, or deductive possibility. I have worked diligently to ingest Kant’s Critique of Reason, and from it got the jist that truth exists not only empirically, but in an “a priori” fashion outside empirical reason. What does truth have to do with belief you might ask? As near as I can tell, not a thing. So, what is the big deal then?

Belief is what each of us uses to create our lives and without belief in whatever you are creating, there is no creation. Disbelief is as powerful as belief, if you do not believe a matter is possible or achievable, then it is not going to happen.

Culture indoctrinates humans with the possibilities and impossibilities from our biological beginning. It is this ingrained, day in day out “belief” system we each become completely unaware of and out of this unconscious living arises a host of “belief systems” we are completely blind to. Many are false beliefs.

So, spend some time making a list of your beliefs. I undertook the exercise years ago and was staggered to find a yellow legal pad with eight pages of single-spaced beliefs. Next, beside each write: true, false, or don’t know. The truth of the matter comes from recognizing that those eight pages were just the beginning of “belief” in stuff (for which I gave up attempting to catalogue). What was equally appalling was half of the eight pages I designated as “false”.

I often find myself thinking “I don’t know what I don’t know”. This belief quest is such a concept. I habitually find that immediately after I surrender resistance to some matter which is new or outside my “belief system”, that a whole new arena of possibility unfolds. And once again a belief lies in plain sight which evokes the question, “Why do I believe this?” and the answer is a maddening “I don’t know”. Most of these uncovered beliefs are grounded in fear. Maybe that is the place to begin the search for what you believe. It certainly would be rewarding to eliminate a fear landscape with a simple review of the “belief” supporting each fear.

As you explore your beliefs, it’s amazing and sometimes overwhelming to discover how many beliefs are false and where that belief originated. Once you’ve accomplished that process, turn to whether it is currently serving you in a positive way or not. If not, then you may want to explore why you are holding on to it.

The outdated saying of you can’t teach an old dog – isn’t true (another false belief or statement). Our beliefs usually change as we grow through experience as well as gain knowledge and wisdom. If we don’t alter our beliefs and update them to coincide with our knowledge and wisdom – have we really grown at all?