Negative to positive beliefs…

Negative beliefs are those that we hold about ourselves that  mean we see various aspects of the world around us, and perhaps more importantly, our ability to operate within it, in a negative way. These beliefs tend to be absolute in their nature, things like ‘no one can be trusted’, ‘I’m not worthy…’, ‘I don’t deserve…’, or ‘I can’t’ and we end up feeling we have done something wrong or there is something wrong with us. I say ‘end up’ because I think of it like the central element of a process that we go through; the Polarising Prism of Thought that exists between the event that caused the process to begin and the subsequent behaviour or emotion that we (and others) see as our consequent reaction.

Underlying negative beliefs can be core beliefs we formed at a very early age. They are the way we made ‘sense’ of the world around us and tried to fit in and be what others wanted. Over time they have become embedded and built on and tweaked and honed to be absolute. You may not even be aware you are in the grips of them; they’ve crept on on you slowly but surely and with the sneakiest of stealth. These beliefs are now involuntary responses and have been rarely, if ever, questioned and certainly not challenged BUT the foundation of these beliefs is more than likely untrue and quite definitely not a balanced view. Time for a review…

We all have examples where we tried something and failed, or enjoyed doing something that another told us we were no good at (drawing is a classic example) and the perceived failure remained (and polarised) into a belief.  These ‘limiting’ self-beliefs, this framework of negativity, about our ability means we never get to have the life we deserve and dream about. I believe it’s never too late to ‘reprogram’ yourself and it’s most certainly never to late to have a damn good try!

There are many different ways that negative beliefs can materisalise in your everyday reactions to the life around you. You may find yourself over-reacting, blaming yourself for things that you are not responsible for, making assumptions as if the future was yours to predict, allowing a single incident to become generalised into the way you think you will be from that point onwards..and so on. Ideally, during these times we need to stop for an instant and ask ourselves what is actually going through our minds? How do we really feel? Cross question and interogate ourselves to explore why we are reacting this way to that situation. Open up the circumstances and reveal the Polarising Prism of Thought…

In order to change the way you feel you have to change the way you think. A belief is either sustained or changed by choice. A certain amount of free will is available to us to create our beliefs the way we actually want them rather than the versions that we are coping with and that are blocking our full potential. Things that have happened to us in the past don’t come with a ‘feeling’ that they force on us, we chose a feeling and decide an attitude about them and the ‘feeling’ is born from those thoughts. It doesn’t mean they are not absolutely okay but it’s worth checking in to make sure.

It’s important to continually reiterate that if you feel you have larger more deep seated issues to come to terms with then you must seek the help and safety of a professional therapist.

I believe you will find that many of the ‘beliefs’ you have held on to are no longer useful and are simply holding you back. They were created at a time when you were young and making sense of things so they are now possibly out-dated and obsolete. Chuck ’em out!

I believe we should always question our thinking, be our own life long coaches so-to-speak. We want to adopt new ways of thinking that enhance our lives and help us attain the goals we desire. We need to check-in with ourselves constantly, assess why we might be emotionally reacting to something, which will then help us find out what we are thinking. Emotions can often shut down any facility (or even desire) to think a thing through…you’re too angry or upset to stop for a second and try to process why. Lord knows I can relate to that, but the path to change for the better is through that emotion and into the thinking behind it. If we treat our entire thought process as a fluid, malleable thing, that we are free to challenge and cross question, we may well end up finding out a few lovely things about ourselves and take further steps towards our dream life and the dream ‘us’…