Change Your Mind By Changing Your Beliefs

In the last post I shared how our brains actually resist change.

Why?

Because any type of change for the older brain is primarily a message of unsafe or unknown and if it’s unknown or unsafe I could get killed.

The brain gets stuck in telling the same old story.  The only way to get the change you desire is to tell a new story…

Our Stories Impact Our Future

Your stories can be good. They can be bad.

They’re just basically judgments, things based on your old experiences that you’re saying, “I’m going to make this part of my future now.” 

This all happens in the subconscious, we don’t consciously try and do this.

I’ll just give you an example from one of my clients...

I was just this sweet little country kid who talked real slow.  Then when I was 7, I moved to the suburbs, where all the kids were super smart and cool. They were all sons of doctors and lawyers and got cool clothes and they knew all this slang. I just tried to fit in and be a normal kid like them.

So I told myself the story that I was not enough just being myself. I couldn’t just be a simple country kid – I needed to be a hipper, more city-like kid. I needed to do things outside of myself to get approval, to stand out, to act out, to be exceptional in order to just have friends. 

It showed up throughout my adulthood where I was constantly trying to stand out whether it was through positive or negative attention.  And continually trying to be something different, so people would say, “Okay. You’re my friend now” or “You’re my boyfriend now” or “You’re my husband now.” 

So that’s an example of how these stories can literally shape our entire lives.

We Make Meaning Out Of Everything

Author Viktor Frankel said we are “meaning making machines.

Our brain essentially processes relationships like this…

Since this person is like my dad, he’s either good or bad.
Since this situation is like that time when I was scared, it is a scary situation.

None of us really operates objectively.

It’s not like we’re computers, where we can see that the infected route is this way, so I’m going to walk that way.

We are constantly making meaning from events or things people say and that basically becomes our reality.

That becomes the set of beliefs, that we are taking from the past and throwing into the future.

Most Beliefs Are Negative

Unfortunately, the lion share of these beliefs are negative.

It’s some version of “I can’t or I’m not good enough. I’m unworthy to try something new.”

This is actually your resistance.

Our Resistance 

Our resistance isn’t necessarily with the objective reality outside…

It isn’t that we don’t have enough money or that we’re not seven feet tall and we can’t dunk a basketball.

Our resistance is the meaning we are making about that.

“My parents didn’t have money, therefore I won’t have money.”

You make meaning. You create it.

You generate it out of your past experiences if you’re not aware.

You’re going to keep throwing the “I can’ts” or “I’m not good enoughs” into your future and that’s going to keep you small.

Become Aware Of Your Patterns

So just becoming aware of your patterns, the mechanisms of your brain and knowing that’s part of our human experience can be very helpful.  

If you would like help detaching from these negative stories beliefs, I have a simple process.  Contact me here so I can share it with you.