Transforming Beliefs

By Nathalie Khalaf
Holistic Counsellor

Our belief system is the most powerful energy driving us, driving our emotions, our reactions and our lives. What we believe, we become.

Many philosophers, such as Aristotle, understood the importance and power of our early years as we develop our belief systems.

A child is a blank canvas taking in everything heard or seen from the world around.

The belief system

During the early years, a child is like a sponge absorbing everything from its surroundings. 

The images we see and sounds we hear turn into what is known as a “belief system” and that stays with us throughout our lives.

Another term for a belief system may be “our inner programming.”

Let us say a child grows up in a household where there is a lot of stress; both parents work long hours and the child is one of several siblings.

At the end of the day the parents come home with time to perhaps prepare a meal, do some homework with the children and everyone gets ready for bed.

Transforming beliefs

Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man Aristotle A journey from struggle to change Perhaps the mother is cooking and cannot handle all children so puts the younger ones in a playpen until dinner is ready.

The young child wants to be held and cries, but the mother has to get on with cooking and any other chore.

Programming

A normal scene in a normal household. But the story being developed inside the child’s mind may be a totally different one.

That particular child may grow up “believing” that his mother doesn’t really care about him and cares more about his other siblings.

This same child may also believe that nobody will come to help him when he is crying.

So, he has to learn how to soothe himself making him grow up into a very independent person.

You may already see where this is heading. Everybody can translate situations differently.

However, this is not a “thinking mind” in the child analysing the situation, but rather an image or an emotion which creates an effect.

That effect stays in our subconscious mind as the “default way of reacting and being” until we realise and do something about it.

While studying Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) I learnt that the subconscious mind affects 92% of our mind or “state of being”.

We are only conscious with eight percent of our mind, thinking and creating in the moment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the child’s interpretation of the situation, except it may affect his life later on.

A belief system is a way we “think and react” and both of these are energies.

Energy gets projected into the world around us and attracts the same. So, if I grow up believing that nobody will come to my rescue, I may turn out to be a very independent person.

I would conclude and reason that “I cannot ask for help as nobody will help me, any way, so that’s why I do it all on my own.”

Projections

We also project the belief that we can do it all on our own.

So, people feel we do not need them.

This becomes a cycle! The belief was created by  interpreting a situation in our own innocent minds, which had no analytical capacity at the time, and therefore took in everything as black or white.

Now, how do we find out what lies in our belief system and how can we change it? If we are happy and content with no complaints about our life or relationships, then why dig and change anything?

But if we come to a time and place where people around us are getting on our nerves, when we are feeling more down than happy and we feel nothing is working out for us because things (our relationships) always turn out the same ... this may be an invitation to change.

I know it was with me! It was during a period when everything seemed to be going against me that I realised I needed help.

My counselor was instrumental in this process; she understood what I was going through by validating my emotions—especially sadness and anger—and explained that none of us are victims of our circumstances.

I learned how I was contributing to my own situation, which led me to explore my belief system. I discovered that my beliefs about men, women, relationships, career, money and life were making me unhappy.

My counselor helped me trace these beliefs back to their origins—typically formed during the first seven years of my life—and guided me in gradually changing them. Yes, changing them!

The default route

Here is an analogy that helped me better understand the inner programming and how easy it is to change it: imagine two houses at opposite ends of a field.

You wish to get to your friend’s house so you notice that the route you have used since childhood is now full of insects and rodents.

What can you do? You create a new route! And this is how a new belief is created: You need to work on it daily until it becomes your new “default route” of thinking, being and doing.

And let me tell you, positive self-thoughts and talk help a lot with this.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine