What You Believe Is Based On Your Past
What you currently believe about yourself is based on thoughts from and about your past. Beliefs are thoughts that you’ve thought over and over again until they become beliefs. Just like a fish is unaware of the water in which it swims, we are often unaware of the thoughts we’re thinking.
How to Discover Existing Beliefs
The goal is to learn to identify your beliefs and question them. It’s important to understand which beliefs are serving you and which are not. Then you can take ownership of your beliefs and choose which you want to get rid of and which you’d like to keep.
A strong indicator of a negative thought is a negative feeling.
Practice: When you notice yourself feeling a negative emotion, stop and ask yourself: What am I thinking that’s causing me to feel this way? The first step is practicing noticing your thoughts and what you’re telling yourself.
A few prompts to discover some of your existing beliefs:
- I don’t like…
- I don’t want…
- That won’t work because…
- I’ve never done it before so…
- It’s his/her/their fault because…
