You would think that changing a belief would be easy. Except it is not easy to change a thought and then replacing it with a new belief without doing some work.
Sometimes a thought or belief does change quickly. Maybe some beliefs are easy to change and some others are harder. Why is that? What if there are certain techniques that work for some beliefs but don’t work for others? Could it be some beliefs are like nuts and bolts that are reverse threaded? Most come apart with a turn to the left, but certain beliefs need to be turned in a different direction to loosen? I’ve been intensely focused on changing beliefs for over 20 years.
I first started with my own and then began to coach other people in changing their false beliefs. Here is an answer to these questions and summary of how to change a belief.
Please have a look at – How To Change Beliefs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxditxbHsWg
How can you change a belief in a way that will work?
The first step to changing a belief is to understand their construct and what makes us so attached to them.
Here are some typical beliefs that you might be motivated to change?
- They are so stupid. – A judgment that tends to create conflict.
- I’m not lovable. – A self judgment that creates feelings of unworthiness.
- He is such an idiot. – Can create anger, resentment, disappointment.
- I hate/dislike/am unhappy with my body. – Unhappiness and shame.
- I shouldn’t have done that. – Guilt, Embarrassment
The first thing you notice is that I’ve identified emotions that are often connected with these types of beliefs. Usually the idea, or thought, by itself doesn’t FEEL bad. It is when we have that thought as a belief that we have strong emotions. It is the emotions part that cause us the misery. A thought by itself is just a concept in the form of a sentence or statement that we can manipulate with our intellect. We can pick up an idea or drop it in a moment without any problem.
For example, we can have a thought about what we, or someone else is wearing and whether it looks good or not without having much emotion. But what if we walk into a business social event wearing jeans and find everyone else in business suits? The “thoughts” about what we are wearing now comes with heavy emotions. It is no longer a conceptual idea that we can easily drop or change with our intellect.
We might think thoughts about what people think of us. But we are likely having strong emotions because our beliefs say they are judging us.
We are quickly into emotionally charged beliefs connected to thoughts like:
“I’m such an idiot (worthlessness feeling). I must have misread the invitation (feeling stupid). Everyone here is staring at me (feeling judged). I should go back home and change (self doubt and insecurity about a decision). This is going to look bad to my boss’s boss (feelings of inferiority). I’ll never get promoted again (fear of loss). This is a career ender (feelings of doom and hopelessness.)”
What is important to note about all these thoughts and emotional beliefs is what you were wearing didn’t change. When you got dressed you believed you were perfectly fine with what you were wearing. Your clothes didn’t change to something terrible. But suddenly you looked at the same clothes with a different set of beliefs and that activated many emotions.
The powerful component that we need to consider when changing a belief is that we will need to change the corresponding emotion. The “thought” in our mind is just a conceptual thing and our intellect might say that it should easily and quickly change. However, changing the emotions that are attached to the belief need a different approach. Emotions don’t move, dissipate, or change very well through our intellect. The strength of emotions connected to a belief are part of the difference between an “easy” belief to change and a “hard” belief to change.
Some beliefs are harder to change because they have much stronger emotional attachments.
Identity is Part of a Belief
Suppose that in your negative self talk there is a thought such as: “I feel like such a loser.” What our mind does with this kind of thought is to build a mental story. In a way it plays a very short mental movie. In that movie our mind projects an image of our self as a loser character. That character has one attribute, “Loser”. For that moment of the movie this is your whole identity. Since it is a version of you based on only one negative attribute it is a completely distorted self image. In that moment you have no other characteristics, no other history and no other qualities that would make this image accurate. It is a false image, but because the imagination fixates on one attribute and exaggerates it to a whole personality it is accepted as true in the moment. It also might seem true because it is congruent with emotions you feel in that moment.
This Self Image is a False Identity, but we don’t notice it as a lie.
The part we don’t see of the movie is that it is archived in our sub-conscious memory. Our mind doesn’t give proportional credit to all our other qualities and characteristics. Our mental process isn’t concerned in bring up all our previous experiences and accomplishments to create a truthful image of our self. Our mind is making a simple movie for the moment in an effort to explain the current emotions. Our mind does not fairly and proportionally balance the “loser” identity with all our other good and generous qualities. When our mind plays the “Loser” movie fixes that as our WHOLE identity. It also sees the “Loser” as what we have always been and what we will always be. Whenever we look to those “Loser” moments in our past our memory calls on the “Loser” character to show up in our memory and imagination. Another word for this false self image of an identity is “Ego.”
By taking something that is a slip up in one moment and exaggerating it we have turned it into a self rejecting self image and will generate lots of emotions every time we think about it. We can also generate feelings unconsciously nor realizing our mind still has it stored as our identity.
Your mind doesn’t care that it is believing a lie. It also doesn’t care that the lie is about something so fundamental as who you are.
This False Self Image of Identity is Part of the Belief.
In the process of changing a belief you have to include changing your identity, or at least your mind’s false version of identity. Since your false identity is part of memories, when you change a belief you will also change emotional memories. One of the ways you can make this go smoother is to have another sense of your identity that you can associate to in its place. If you don’t have an alternate identity perspective then the process will include developing a different sense of self.
If you have been unsuccessful in the past at changing beliefs sometimes it is because you have not successfully shifted your sense of identity at the unconsciously stored level.
Some people try to make this identity shift by affirmations like, “I am smart and brilliant person.” There are a number of problems with this approach. One of which is that the current belief structure already has an identity for you. The “I’m so stupid,” part of the mind dismisses these positive affirmations before the can be integrated deeply. There is more on this aspect in my free podcast about how Affirmations Backfire. For now I’ll just say that changing our False Identity perspective is one of the steps that needs to be included in order to change a belief.
Sometimes the belief wills seem it is about another person, such as, “they are such an idiot.” Yet behind this statement is still implied a kind of projected Identity. There is a belief in our own persona that feels righteous, better than, and smarter than the other person. We are indirectly propping our ego up with this image.
Something to consider that makes this easier, is that you aren’t actually changing your identity. You were never the distorted image of a “stupid” person to begin with. This was a false identity narrative that you acquired. When you give up this identity you will be giving up something false. In a way you won’t be losing an identity, but rather moving closer to who you authentically are. I suggest listening to my free audio and doing the exercise on Becoming the Neutral Observer so that you will have an experiential understanding of this.
Faith – the Glue that Holds Beliefs Together
There is a detailed explanation about the role Faith has in beliefs in a book called MindWorks by Gary van Warmerdam so I will be brief here.
Faith (not the religious kind) is a kind of personal power that we invest in thoughts or ideas. It is the power of our conviction that turns an idea into a belief. When you are absolutely convinced or passionate about something there is a certain kind of energy that flows through you and keeps any contradictory or distracting thoughts out of your mind. When we are “convinced” that we or someone else has done something “stupid” or “wrong” it is that force of faith that makes it difficult to see it any other way. The opposite of this energy is skepticism. When we are skeptical we look at what we are telling our selves or what others tell us in a very different way. We look at it from all sorts of angles and consider alternatives.
If we have the belief that we are stupid, or another thought with congruent emotions, it is because we have invested some faith in this self image of “stupid”. The false self image of us as a stupid person is attached to us using this elastic gluing energy of faith. When we try to discount it, deny it, or push it away, we find it springing back due to this elastic glue. One of the keys to changing beliefs is that we have to break these bonds of faith that keep us attached to false ideas and false identities.
Beliefs that are held in your mind with a small amount of faith (glue) are easier to break than beliefs you have invested a lot of faith in. Your ability to change a belief will depend on your skill at skepticism as well as your ability to direct your personal power of faith. Your skepticism over what you believe and your personal power are two factors that affect how long it takes you to change a belief.
Steps to Change a Belief
- Become aware of your false belief.
- Shift your perspective.
- Identify your feelings connected to the false belief.
- Accept your feelings.
- Where in your body do you feel it?
- Release the emotions held in those beliefs.
- Break the bonds of faith that make an idea or thought powerful.
- Replace your false-self or old truths with new ones.
- Back them up with reasoning, and trust that this is the true-self / real truth.
- Repeat the new “truth” – true-self back to yourself.
- Go out and do something constructive with these good thoughts that comes from the true-self.
It’s not a complicated or long list, but it needs to be done for each belief. Since we might have many beliefs, as indicated by numerous negative thoughts, the process will have to be repeated. In the beginning these mental and mindfulness practices might seem slow and clumsy. That is to be expected because you are doing things like shifting perspective and releasing emotions for the first time. It is normal to feel somewhat incompetent when you are learning new skills. However, the more you practice, these things will become natural and you will do them with ease. The important thing is to put in the work developing these skills so changing beliefs become easy.
I mention that these practices are skills, and I mean that. Much like doing math, or reading, we fumbled through and practiced our multiplication tables and long division. We spent hours upon hours listening to conversations in order to learn a language and then were taught through repetition how to pronounce syllables and read words.
Releasing emotions, changing perspective on our identity, and changing the ideas we have faith in is a mental skill.
When and if you believe you are unlovable, you may sabotage relationships, hold on when you shouldn’t, or avoid getting into relationships. But logic may provide you will explanations on why you are doing this when at the core it’s fueled by your false belief that you are unlovable.
Our behavior stems from our beliefs. And what our life looks like is a result of our collective behavior. So if we change or dissolve our beliefs, especially our false beliefs, we can change our behavior and ultimately change our life.
Once you discover their false beliefs, you can start to help them rewire themselves. And changing their wiring will change their life. There are many different ways and theories on how to rewire yourself. Hypnotherapy with NLP focused on subconscious work has had very good results.
Here’s a simple technique I use:
It’s three easy steps.
1. Listen for the false beliefs.
As your talk, a false belief will leak. For example, you guys may be talking about the trouble in her relationship and she mumbles under her breath “I don’t deserve him.” Maybe you explore that statement deeper and find out that statement came from the false belief “I’m not worthy.” And surely this belief is preventing her from loving fully. Become aware of of the false belief. Then you can start following this string down.
- Where did this belief come from?
- Did something happen?
- How long have you had this belief?
- The next question to ask is how does this belief manifest in behavior in your life?
- because of this belief, you compromises your true-self?
- What is the behavior that stems from this belief?
It’s important for you to see it, to know how her false belief affects your life.
As you processing this, you may have other revelations. It came from your dad. Or the emotional abuse from your first relationship. Just knowing where it stems from can be helpful in releasing the belief. As a hypnotherapist you talking about the childhood stuff or the past but that is what therapists do. We cab do so by using regression therapy. Go wherever your heart or your spirit wants you to go.
2. Dissolving / redefining
What do you need to do to start dissolving and changing this false belief? Ask yourself. You and your therapist are in this journey together. You are not behind a podium or on a soap box. You are with, not at.
Once you discover what the false belief is, explore the emotion behind it. It will be a de-powering emotion, something that makes you feel weak, invisible, less than. Take note of the feeling. Now put a book mark there.
Now play detective and ask yourself to prove that the false belief is true. You want facts not feelings.
Remind just because you feels something doesn’t mean it’s a fact.
Your will now start challenging your false belief. One way to do this is to redefine. For example, if someone’s false belief is “I don’t think I’m good enough.” What does “good” mean to you? Challenge yourself by exploring your definitions. As you do this, you may end up coming up with a brand new definition.
Every time this happens, there’s a shift in thinking. We start questioning ourselves, in a good way.
Now go back to the feeling part. Go back and think of a time when she felt “good”, according to your new definition. Let’s soak in that feeling. Don’t just remember it, feel it. We need to use both mind and body. As people we are whole. But many think they can just think their way out do something and get no traction.
Feelings are always more powerful than logic.
Finally, say it out loud – the new belief. “I am good enough.” “I am lovable.” “I am an athlete.” It’s important for them to say it out loud. There is tremendous power in saying something out, announcing it, especially with a witness. It’s much more convincing than just thinking it. Think about the difference between thinking I love you about someone and actually saying the words to their face. Huge difference.
3. Set up a new experience.
This is the homework piece.T here’s nothing more convincing than experience. So the goal would be to set up a new experience(s) for the client that will disproves their false belief.
I’ll use my story as an example. My false belief I was trying to dissolve was “I am not an athlete.” This came from my high school days. I was the kid with the whitest uniform. I play well with others. So because of this experience, I developed a false belief that I wasn’t an athlete. Twenty years later, this false belief showed itself when I discovered CrossFit. CrossFit attracts a lot of athletes. So I would going against the kids who were first string in high school, the athletes. Because of my false belief, I would self sabotage, not go as hard as I could, etc. I wasn’t even aware of this. It’s something I discovered when I started asking myself a lot of whys. I started to dissolve the false belief when I gave myself a new experience. That new experience was beating an “athlete.” That shifted my thinking. It disproved my false belief.
Of course, it took many many more experiences but the new experience was the most important because it was the first domino.