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Beliefs - How They Create Our Comfort Zone
Copyright (c) 2006-2010 Wouter Havinga
Beliefs are collected all through our lives due to our experiences. We live in a world of relationships. We relate to our environment, the culture we live in, religion, other people and our to body, mind and spirit, for example.
From childhood we are being conditioned by the messages we receive and give ourselves. The messages that keep coming back at us, the brain will take on as solid truths. It will not question these repetitive messages any more. But these truths will start to work as filters. You will start to respond according to the beliefs that you develop. The brain wants to maintain the integrity of your belief and sort of goes out and looks for evidence that it is true. Thereby, filtering out information that tells the opposite.
Thus we relate to our environment and ourselves out of certain conceptions, frameworks, in other words beliefs, which we form to make sense of our reality. And our behaviour is influenced by our beliefs. You will tend to act in a way so as to maintain the belief. You look for evidence to support the belief and any evidence to the contrary is rejected. This is how your beliefs act like a filter to accept or reject your perception of reality.
So, you believe what you perceive and perceive what you believe and this is what you ultimately receive. Or in other words, if you think you can or if you think you cannot, either way you are right!
Well-being, on a basic level, can be described as the presence of a positive experience and the absence of a negative experience. We all strive for a certain comfort zone.
We start to create comfort zones by avoiding pain and trying to get gratification. The young child starts to perceive what it finds agreeable and what not, due to the experiences in the relationships with the outside world and its internal response to these experiences. That person will start to recognize certain situations and will start to expect a certain outcome. This expectation can turn into a certainty; "I know this is true". It becomes a belief.
A belief is a feeling of certainty. It tells you when to feel pleasure and when pain. That is how our beliefs start to colour our perception of the world. Our beliefs create our comfort zone. In daily life we tend to move away from pain and towards pleasure.
Our comfort zone can be seen as a closed area in which we take action, predict a certain outcome we are comfortable with and thus maintain our status quo. This status quo we perceive as more beneficial to us, more pleasant. Other acts that could potentially challenge the balance of the comfort zone and bring about uncertainty of what to expect next and possible pain are avoided. So, in general we are not very keen on new experiences, or put more precisely, experiences in relationships with our environment where we can not predict the outcome with a great deal of certainty.
So, we have seen that beliefs are formed as we go along in life. They are due to an interpretation of our experiences and create our personal reality. They give certainty to our lives and create meaning. Beliefs give us an understanding of what is happening to us in relation to our internal and external world. They act like a filter, filtering out the opposite reality. A belief is a feeling of absolute certainty of what something means.
Together with our values, the beliefs you hold determine what you think about, what you feel, what you do, what you say to people, your dress, your pride and justice. These two, our values and the beliefs we hold, influence your behaviour.
All too often people take these beliefs as if they are in stone. As if they are a given that cannot be changed. Certainty is a valuable asset to mankind and this is what beliefs provide us with. However, beliefs only give us certainty for a certain given situation in the past.
Therefore if personal growth is involved, then this means that one has to be able to use beliefs as stepping stones in order to develop oneself further rather than to keep standing in one position (adjusted to one particular situation). This means letting go of certain beliefs and starting to see things from other points of view and act accordingly if that is perceived as more beneficial in terms of personal development.
Beliefs have two sides to them. There are empowering beliefs and limiting beliefs. The empowering beliefs help us to shape a better life for ourselves and others around us but the limiting beliefs can cause us to continue to suffer certain disadvantageous situations. At the same time it can be perceived as painful to let go of a limiting belief as it is like letting go of a part of your (old) self: it is as if a part of yourself is dying off. However, out of the ashes a new you can arise holding an enabling belief.
Therefore it is very important to realise what beliefs you hold and to consciously decide which beliefs you want to keep. In other words which beliefs serve you well on your journey through life and which ones are holding you back. One should stay vigilant of one's state of mind and eliminate limiting beliefs. This is a difficult task as one tends to belief what you perceive and vice versa.
This is where mindfulness comes into play. This means that you have to practice watching yourself as from an outside position. Keeping a reflective diary is helpful in this. The obvious barometer is your behaviour. A helpful reflective question here is; "What is stopping you?".
To summarize, our beliefs are formed throughout our lives due to the interaction we have with our environment and ourselves. Beliefs determine to a great extent how we behave. At the same time, after our childhood we are developing our free will and are responsible for developing a resourceful state. We can redeem limiting beliefs and build on empowering beliefs so that we can serve the environment and ourselves in the best possible way.
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"Life Is Wonderful Make IT Happen!" by Dr. Wouter Havinga, "The brilliance of Dr Havinga is in writing this book from experience and passion for life. I have read several "improve-yourself" books; many made no change in my life, though some gave me hope. This one differs in a colossal way from the rest." Dr. Havinga's book is available at http://www.lifeiswonderfulmakeithappen.com . Dr. Havinga has worked in the substance misuse service and worked with "Motivational Interviewing Techniques", "Solution Focused Brief Therapy" and building self esteem and is a life coach and NLP practitioner.
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