The Limitation Of Beliefs

Susie Heath

We tend to think that our beliefs are set in stone and unchanging, whereas in fact your belief is only a thought that you keep thinking, which leads to an unconscious reactive way of behaving. When we re-act (act the same way over and over again) it becomes a thought habit, yet some of these habits are buried so deeply that we are not aware of their existence. It is almost impossible to act contrary to your beliefs, because your unconscious (or subconscious) will not allow you to.

Some of our thought habits serve us really well. When you choose to follow a belief that serves you well and allows your life-force and your energy to flow, you feel invigorated, joyful and enthusiastic; you feel passion, you feel love, you feel appreciation; you feel … well, just great.

Some beliefs really hinder us. When we activate any belief that does not serve us well, we feel anger, frustration, fear, defensiveness, jealousy, guilt, insecurity, desperation … and urgency. And then this leads us to take desperate measures, like drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and plastic surgery!

The degree to which you allow your life-force and energy toflow depends on how much you associate with your feelings, and whether they are uplifting or depressing. It is also the degree to which you are connected to your true essence … or not!

We just picked our beliefs up as we grew, and now we cart them everywhere we go like an overstuffed handbag. Everything that happened to you or in your environment was recorded into your unconscious mind with no editing whatsoever. However, as we got older we tended to store the good things as small, insignificant and colourless, and the bad things super-size and in glorious Technicolor. In fact as adults, we store events not as they actually are, but according to our mood and how we are feeling at the actual time.

Our parents pass down to us their limiting beliefs which were passed down from their parents’ limiting beliefs, passed down from their parents’ limiting beliefs, but all with the intention of keeping us safe.

Most behaviour gets absorbed into our unconscious minds very surreptitiously from when we are a tiny foetus in our mother’s womb to the age of 7 or so. We copy or model the behaviour of everyone around us and because our survival instinct kicks in, accept that this is the way to get through life. This ‘conditioning’ then creates our ‘rules for living,’ a blueprint learned from other people, which in turn becomes our own belief system, even if it’s untrue or doesn’t make sense.

Those very same beliefs have become our limitations; they govern our every move, our every decision. Once our head (our way of thinking) and our heart (our feelings) come together, they create a belief which is far stronger than anyone else’s disbelief; and we always act from our belief system. Each belief gets filed into our unconscious mind and we live through that, just like a computer program.

We haven’t deliberately chosen our limiting beliefs to keep us small and unfulfilled; to cart them around with us and then pass them onto our own children in turn. It‘s always been about safety and survival, because that’s how it was 150 years ago and even back in the cave. The main focus was always, "What can I do to keep my children safer? Will it keep them alive?" And we continue to live with the same fears.

Our beliefs drive us in an unconscious way, because we don’t realise the power of our emotions. No-one ever taught us that feeling great and happy deep down inside means that it might actually be good for us!