Beliefs dictate our reality

Identifying the beliefs that shape your life

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”

- Henry Ford

In the following article, we will seek to understand the role of beliefs in determining our reality and how we can utilize this truth to expedite our personal growth.

We create our reality by the beliefs we hold.

To explore this, let's start with a story. Imagine planning your dream vacation to a stunning destination, filled with excitement and nerves. You're hoping for perfection. Yet, a familiar inner voice of fear creeps in, reminding you of past trips gone awry – bad weather, crowded places, and missed opportunities. Believing these thoughts, worry sets in. You're concerned about possible setbacks and doubting your planning skills, but you press on.

Fast forward to the trip. You're thrilled yet vigilant, wary of any potential mishaps. As expected, your flight is delayed, and bad weather greets you. Your fears seem to be coming true. The next day, you finally reach a highly anticipated spot, hoping to escape your streak of bad luck.

But your inner critic emerges, diverting your focus from the beauty around you to minor flaws like crowdedness. Amid this mental turmoil, you inadvertently bump into another tourist, and their unfavorable reaction further dampens your experience. The critical voice's judgments become your truth, turning joy into disappointment. Your dream trip falls short of your expectations, just as you had feared.

In this tale, we notice a common thread – a belief rooted in the fear that the dream vacation would go awry and bad luck would prevail. Reflecting further, we realize that by consistently feeding fearful thoughts, we unwittingly adopted the false belief that misfortune follows us everywhere.

This is the power of any belief. It molds our perspective and, consequently, how we experience reality. Over time, as we habitually reinforce a particular idea or conclusion in our minds, it gains control over our perception in various situations. This, in turn, leads to actions that attract corresponding reactions from the world.

In contrast, had we recognized the falsehood of that negative narrative when it first arose, acknowledging its lack of basis, we could have planned the trip with ease and a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to experience something beautiful.

This is just one example of how beliefs can profoundly govern our reality. Most of us can recall similar instances where certain assumptions drove our perception and, subsequently, our experiences.

What are Beliefs and what sustains them?

Beliefs are streams of thoughts that outline a certain conclusion from the past in our minds, inevitably becoming a part of our ego-identity and altering our current layer of perception.

Beliefs often start as thoughts, which, when dwelled upon, become ingrained in our minds. Constant interest through repeated attention stimulates each belief. This prolonged attention creates more such habitual thought patterns and in turn, determines our actions and responses to the world around us in the present moment.

Every time we act in line with a conclusive thought, it reinforces the related belief by solidifying the underlying neural pathways associated with it.

All beliefs seem to have a snowballing effect, starting small but gaining momentum, eventually shaping the landscape of our reality and how we experience life.

This is why adopting practices such as positive affirmations can work in our favor and a positive outlook helps introduce a balance to some degree when we have been accustomed to a negative mindset.

Empowering and Limiting Beliefs

Some beliefs have a negative bend to them while others are more uplifting or positive in nature.

Empowering beliefs inspire confidence, growth, and positive outcomes. They act as catalysts for personal development and success. On the other hand, limiting beliefs create self-doubt, hinder progress, and lead to negative outcomes. They become obstacles in our path, preventing us from reaching our full potential.

A limiting belief causes a contracted view of the situation while an empowering belief can allow for a more expanded view of the possibilities available to us.

Consider someone who doubts their sporting abilities. When offered the chance to play, this belief causes hesitation. Even if they give it a shot, any failed attempts further solidify this self-perception, especially if they don't understand the role of a growth mindset and consistent practice behind success yet. Their ego clings to this belief, strengthening it each time they think their current self-image is unalterable.

As these beliefs tint our perception, we narrow our view of the world, looking at it with blinkers on. In extreme cases, this may also lead to conflicts with other people and social avoidance to escape any ego-bruising scenarios, driven by the fear of judgment.

On the flip side, positive beliefs work similarly but boost our confidence. Athletes who believe in themselves tend to train better and perform well. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, much like how lottery winners often believe in their luck. In life, believing in our abilities often leads to success.

What comes first? The belief or the experience?

Both seem to influence each other. An experience, as we saw above, can lead to a belief through a conclusive thought and in the long run impact the outcome of future situations. On the other hand, a belief can also attract a reality that is aligned with that perception.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

– William Shakespeare

In all cases, Life is just presenting different situations to us. It is entirely up to us to label it negatively or positively. For some minds, it feels customary to lean into the cons more heavily. For others, positivity is a natural narrative.

However, a third approach involves operating from a detached perspective. In this state, you can either let go of the situation if necessary or, when an action is required, you can assess the potential consequences and act based on your intuitive sense of what is right.

This elevated state is possible when you have an innate faith from a knowing deep within yourself that ultimately all situations lead to either happiness or growth. In this state, you recognize the need to let go of all judgments from the mind. When you view the situation from this higher perspective, you rearrange your interpretation of reality into something more beneficial for you.

Consider a scenario where two people, John and Megan, were both affected by a scam. John dwelled on the negatives and regretted being scammed, while Megan, although saddened, chose to see the personal growth facilitated through this situation and how life protected her from worse outcomes. Who do you think recovered more quickly in this situation?

How do we get to a balanced interpretation of reality?

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

– William Blake

As quoted above by the 17th-century English poet William Blake, if we truly cleaned our glasses of perception and attempted to witness everything as it is, we would notice an abundance of possibilities in the current moment. Yet, the mind is prone to adopt beliefs that limit this infinite view to a restrictive one.

To live our best lives, we must explore all avenues of personal growth. This begins with examining our conditioning, identifying and questioning limiting beliefs that constrict our potential and influence our daily thoughts and actions.

Awareness is the first major step to any lasting change. The contemplation exercise listed at the bottom of our previous post on Shadow Work is one of the main practices we recommend to consciously look at areas where we feel stunted due to limiting beliefs.

Consistent effort to consciously identify and release unhelpful beliefs or simply be aware of thoughts stemming from them is key.

Once we have taken time to recognize, note down and release any limiting beliefs that are holding us back, the next hallmark of progress is realizing in direct experience that our current suffering is primarily due to our mind's attachment to these specific beliefs.

While it can seem scary to realize our responsibility in creating our day-to-day experience, the goal is to become aware of unproductive beliefs without instilling additional fear and eliminating them by recognizing our inherent power over our mental framework.

For deeply entrenched beliefs, awareness is the initial step in realizing they aren't absolute truths.

Other than that, some auxiliary practices and strategies that can additionally help in shifting beliefs for personal transformation are detailed below:

1. Adopt Opposite Beliefs: Challenge and change limiting beliefs by consciously adopting their opposite empowering beliefs. Find evidence that supports these new positive beliefs by recording things you consider lucky or positive in your own life. Become aware of areas where you are fortunate. Whether it's your family, physical health, mental well-being, or simply being alive, we all have aspects of luck. Remind yourself to shift the narratives your mind is used to.

   1. Gratitude Journaling: Start a gratitude journal where you jot down things you are grateful for. This practice can shift our focus toward positive aspects of our life.

   2. On days when these suggestions seem difficult to follow, we can remind ourselves of the basic provisions that existence itself gives such as clean air, water, and perhaps even access to the required knowledge at the right time. As we get used to this practice of remembering all of our lucky areas. We'll notice the abundance we already possess.

2. Practice Positive Affirmations: Practice positive affirmations regularly. Create statements that reflect the positive beliefs you want to adopt and repeat them to yourself daily.

3. Detachment from Perceived Flaws: Work on detaching from identifying with perceived flaws. Understand that these flaws do not define your real identity.

   1. Mindful Vocabulary: Pay attention to the words you habitually use. Avoid reinforcing negative beliefs in your subconscious mind by constantly talking about them. For example, refraining from repeatedly saying statements such as "how unlucky" or "clumsy" we are.

4. Consistency: Be consistent with these practices. Try journaling about your luck or blessings every night for a few weeks. Over time, you'll notice a shift in your mindset and increased awareness of the abundance in your life.

5. Openness: This is the most essential trait that we develop in our journey of self-discovery and personal growth. While affirmations and positive beliefs can be beneficial, it's important to be mindful of becoming overly attached to them. As William Shakespeare wisely stated, "Expectation is the root of all heartache." We must recognize the tendency of our minds to form expectations or strong attachments to positive intentions. Understanding that there's often a gap between our perception of reality and the complete truth is critical. True wisdom lies in embracing whatever life brings our way. By remaining completely open to the present moment, we can gain a glimpse of objective reality as it is.

Knowing this helps us understand our biases and what we need to let go of to experience a balanced interpretation of reality.

Remember that these practices are only guidelines to help you reshape your beliefs and improve your overall well-being. There's no pressure to do them a certain way or a certain number of times; the key is to cultivate a positive and grateful mindset.

In conclusion, beliefs are powerful. They shape our perception and influence our reality.

The good news is that we have the power to change our beliefs. By the core practice of becoming aware of our thought patterns, questioning our beliefs, and intentionally cultivating empowering ones, we can transform our lives.

If we focus on this, we see our reality shifting, making way for an inner openness that allows us to navigate life's ups and downs with grace and equanimity.