Mind Changing
If I believed what you believe, I'd probably be acting exactly the same way you are right now ...Once we realize that it's not a matter of judgment, but a matter of belief, everything changes. ~Seth Godin
Seth was talking marketing, but the idea applies generally.
The flip side is that beliefs are not necessarily rational, some are simply “insane” by any measure we care to use. We are able to believe anything we choose to, and we are encouraged (even coerced) to support certain beliefs when it’s a group or societal belief. The world was once believed to be flat, the sun was believed to revolve around the earth, illness was caused by evil spirits witches and “vapours”.
We draw our beliefs from a wide range of sources, some get discarded with life experience , others are added. One thing we can be sure of is that foundation beliefs, and beliefs that support our personal agendas, are held sacred and are defended even when it literally kills us. Think of habits that we have been unable to drop, each one is attached to a belief system.
A favourite healing quote comes from Rachel Naomi Remen: "Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you --- all of the expectations, all of the beliefs --- and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a realer you."
Letting go of outdated beliefs about what we think we are is a process. In my experience of the practice called Reiki, the practice brings awareness that creates this possibility. I say possibility because we may cling to our beliefs about who we are out of fear of letting go, fear that we may lose ourselves somehow.
The fear is normal, to be expected. The fear is called change, and the fear of change can be bigger than whatever other fears we might be holding. The curious fact we tend to overlook is that change is inevitable, everything is changing, every moment of our lives.
When we do get to overcoming our fear and letting go, then we suddenly get how simple it all really was, that the healing we needed in our lives was about changing our mind.
Seth was talking marketing, but the idea applies generally.
The flip side is that beliefs are not necessarily rational, some are simply “insane” by any measure we care to use. We are able to believe anything we choose to, and we are encouraged (even coerced) to support certain beliefs when it’s a group or societal belief. The world was once believed to be flat, the sun was believed to revolve around the earth, illness was caused by evil spirits witches and “vapours”.
We draw our beliefs from a wide range of sources, some get discarded with life experience , others are added. One thing we can be sure of is that foundation beliefs, and beliefs that support our personal agendas, are held sacred and are defended even when it literally kills us. Think of habits that we have been unable to drop, each one is attached to a belief system.
A favourite healing quote comes from Rachel Naomi Remen: "Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you --- all of the expectations, all of the beliefs --- and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a realer you."
Letting go of outdated beliefs about what we think we are is a process. In my experience of the practice called Reiki, the practice brings awareness that creates this possibility. I say possibility because we may cling to our beliefs about who we are out of fear of letting go, fear that we may lose ourselves somehow.
The fear is normal, to be expected. The fear is called change, and the fear of change can be bigger than whatever other fears we might be holding. The curious fact we tend to overlook is that change is inevitable, everything is changing, every moment of our lives.
When we do get to overcoming our fear and letting go, then we suddenly get how simple it all really was, that the healing we needed in our lives was about changing our mind.