Answers to questions about beliefs, Part 2

Here are my answers to a bunch of new questions I’ve been asked repeatedly about beliefs.

1.  Once you understand that you can’t see beliefs in the world and that events have no inherent meaning, why do you have to go though the process time after time to eliminate additional beliefs?

Remember, a belief is a statement about reality you think is true.  And most people, because they are visual, think it is true because they think they saw it in the world.  Even though you know in principle that all meaning is in your mind and you can’t really see any of your beliefs in the world, all your reminding beliefs still exist because you still think you saw them earlier in life.

For example, even though it might now be real that you never saw I’m not good enough in the world, that all you saw were parents who were angry when you didn’t met their expectations, you can still think you saw I’m not important when your parents weren’t around.

Each belief exists independently for you as something you think you saw in the world (or, if you are emotionally kinesthetic, you think something in the world caused you to feel the belief).  You have to eliminate each belief separately.

2.  Why do you hold the belief that beliefs are difficult for a person to find?

They aren’t necessarily hard to find.  And for someone who has had a lot of training and experience looking for the beliefs that cause any given problem, they can be relatively easy to find.  It’s just that most people are not used to looking for the relevant beliefs for different problems, so most people do not know how to do it.

3.  Why do I have a difficult time eliminating beliefs even after I’ve identified them?

Eliminating beliefs is not difficult when you are trained in a process that is effective at eliminating beliefs.  Many of the techniques that claim to eliminate beliefs don’t really get rid of them, so the beliefs show up again later.  Although it isn’t difficult to use the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate beliefs, you do have to learn how to use it.  And if you don’t go through each step properly, the belief won’t go away.

4.  Why do we seem to have more negative beliefs about ourselves than positive ones?

I’m not sure that we do.  We generally are only aware of the negative ones that produce problems in our lives.  But we have thousands of others that are either neutral or that lead to positive results.

5.  How do you know the difference between a “belief” versus your intuition telling you something?

It can be difficult to know the difference.  Here’s one tip that might be useful: If the feeling (of danger or whatever) occurs continuously, then it is probably the result of a belief or conditioning. Beliefs and conditionings affect us all the time and we would probably have the same reaction in similar situations.

If the feeling rarely occurs in similar situations, then it likely is intuition.  Just remember, however, intuition isn’t accurate all the time.

6.  Even when there is physical evidence that a belief you picked up as an adult is valid, how can you let go of the powerful emotion?

The emotion probably is the result of the belief, so when the belief has been eliminated, the feeling will be gone.  Moreover, there is never physical evidence that a belief is true.  There are events and then there is the meaning we give the events.  The events are “valid”—in other words, they are out there in the world; the meaning (the belief) is always in our mind.

7.  I’ve done your program (the beliefs seem to be gone), but the beliefs come back and are still there. How can I get rid of them?

For visual people, who know reality because they see it, beliefs rarely if ever come back. For emotionally kinesthetic people, who operate more out of feelings, beliefs do come back from time to time, but with much less intensity.  Just use the Lefkoe Belief Process again and, for most people, that should be enough to get rid of them forever.  For some people some beliefs might some back again, but the third time is usually sufficient to eliminate them permanently.

I’m working on developing a new process that will be more effective with emotionally kinesthetic people so the beliefs will stay gone the first time.

8.  How do you identify the belief that is running our lives? Are certain survival strategies generated by certain beliefs?

First, there is no single “the belief” that is running our life.  There are many.  So we don’t look for the beliefs that “run our lives”; we look for the beliefs that cause specific problems in our lives, such as procrastination, anxiety, relationship difficulties, and worrying about what others think of us.

See my earlier blog post (August 8, 2009) that offers a few tips on how to find the beliefs that cause specific problems.

See my earlier blog post (May 26, 2009) that deals with survival strategy beliefs.

9.  How do you know if you have a belief that may be holding you back from something that you want?

If you are unable to change your behavior or your feelings despite repeated attempts, the odds are what you want to change is being caused by beliefs and conditionings.  If you are able to do what you want and change when you want to, you are unlikely to have limiting beliefs in that area of your life keeping you stuck.

10. Can you change your existing beliefs by reading articles about beliefs?

I’d hesitate to say that anything is impossible, but it is highly unlikely that reading articles about beliefs will eliminate them.  In fact, it is highly unlikely that thinking about the steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process will eliminate a belief.  You need to do the Process and make each step real for yourself.  You need to get you never saw a specific belief in the world and that the events you did see have no inherent meaning.

As I said in answer to an earlier question, merely understanding that all meaning is in our minds will not make all beliefs go away.  Understanding is nice, but it won’t eliminate beliefs.

11. Why do feelings of self-loathing reappear after I feel like I’ve dealt with and made peace with myself when I’m overwhelmed and frustrated?

Because “dealing with” and “making peace with myself” does not make beliefs go away.  So whenever you get in a stressful situation, the beliefs that are still there get reactivated and you feel self-loathing.  If you get rid of the beliefs that cause the self-loathing, the feeling will not come back again.

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