How Beliefs Shape Your Reality: Uncover, Heal, and Transform Your Inner & Outer World
Picture showing post-its with examples of core beliefs people might have in their subconscious mind
The information contained in this article is educational in nature and is provided only as general information and is not medical or psychological advice. Please refer to the website Disclaimer before proceeding to read this article.
Intro :
“Money doesn’t grow on trees”, I am paraphrasing while translating from my native tongue, but this is a version of a statement I heard often when I was little and would ask my parents to buy me something expensive. They were responding not out of cruelty but out of their mindset about money where frugality meant a chance for a better future. They believed that as that was their conditioning (their belief around money), passed from generation to generation and I didn’t realize I had inherited it until I started doing the inner work around beliefs during my time at energy healing school. It’s been a minute but I am continuing to do work on it since this has been active in my life in a major way as I am making a major career transition.
Definition & Types :
There are so many ways of defining a belief. First of all I’d like to divide beliefs into 2 categories. a very common categorization that spiritual circles know of : Limiting beliefs and Empowering beliefs. But before we do that I want to take a step back and divide them into : Surface level beliefs and Core beliefs.
Now the very literal definition of belief is a feeling of being certain that something is true or exists. It is something or anything that you believe. Surface level beliefs are usually easily observable, those are the statements that someone might say over and over. Like “I cant do this” or “I can do this”. Its basically thoughts that we have about anyone or anything. On the other hand, beliefs that are deeply ingrained convictions about what we perceive to be true about ourselves, others and the world are called Core Beliefs. Those are deeply rooted in the subconscious mind and are usually harder to change just by surface level talking or conscious thinking. In my experience, core beliefs are usually formed during and because of the experiences we have when we are really young, the younger we are (especially pre-operational and pre-verbal developmental stages) the stronger the core beliefs from that time period. This occurs because the rational capacities are not fully online at those stages of development, instead of understanding why an experience occurs, we tend to form a core belief instead which becomes like a subconscious rule about the nature of reality (that includes our self image, image of others and the image of the universe). They can also be formed by an individual thinking the same thought over and over, so a surface level belief thought as a thought, over and over for many years keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Usually surface level and core beliefs are connected. Think of it as a spiral of thoughts. Someone might have limiting beliefs about getting something accomplished, like lets say starting a business. The surface level thoughts (beliefs) that they might be ruminating on could be something like “this is too hard”, “I cant do this”, “I need to quit”, “This will not work”, “I need to focus on something else that I know and actually works” but if an individual keeps tracking this line of thought and puts in the effort of going deeper and deeper, by themselves using a journal or with the help of a trusted therapist or a friend, they might discover that at the core of all of this there might be a belief around fear of failure, something like “If I fail, it is my fault, that means I am bad”. A belief like this can create obstacles in the endeavors that an individual is consciously planning by unconscious choices made by them because of this belief. What drives those actions is usually shame and fear around failure stemming from such a core beliefs which people usually suppress unconsciously but act because of them from time to time, hence that plays a role in shaping their reality.
How does a core belief form:
Image showing a child and father bonding over fun play time. Photo Credit : Steph Meade from Lummi
Lets say when that individual was 3 years of age, they were playing with crayons and a coloring book and going to town with coloring everywhere and not a care in the world about what the end product is. A parent who has perfectionism in them and wants their child to be perfect in everything that they do, starts to criticize their art and then shows them how to color within the lines. The parent then asks the child to do it like that, but because the child doesn’t understand why he needs to follow this direction (as he doesn’t want to color within the lines but everywhere he feels like) and also his motor and cognitive functions aren’t at the level that will allow him to color perfectly within the lines, he is not going to do so. The parent in this situation does not understand why the child isn’t able to reproduce those results, so they keep on showing the child over and over and keep asking the child to try it over and over, while the parent is getting frustrated with the child.
Ultimately everyone has given up, the parent is feeling disappointed, and the child senses this disappointment acutely. At this young age, disappointing a parent feels like a threat to connection—and connection is essential for survival in a child’s mind. To cope with this perceived threat, the child internalizes the situation as their fault. They don’t yet have the capacity to think, “Maybe my parent’s expectations were unrealistic.” Instead, they form a subconscious belief: “I am bad.”
This core belief becomes an unconscious strategy to maintain connection with the parent and stay safe. By believing that they are the problem (rather than the parent or circumstance), the child preserves their attachment to their caregiver—a survival mechanism deeply wired into us as humans. Over time, this belief solidifies in the subconscious mind and begins influencing how the individual sees themselves and interacts with the world.
This is just one example of an early event leading to a core belief formation, now imagine events like this happening over and over and this core belief getting stronger and stronger. Or other types of events occur and other types of core beliefs form. They can be both positive and negative, empowering and limiting. The example above illustrates a limiting belief. which might prevent someone from always taking the blame when things go wrong in their professional or personal life and feel shame. It might cause their relationships to not work out. We even know now that there is a link between negative beliefs and health conditions through elevated levels of stress hormones and epigenetic signaling to disease producing and aging accelerating genes (by way of hypomethylation, more on that in another post)
Lets counter the above example with one of a positive core belief formation. Lets say a child at 3 years of age is coloring in the coloring book and a parent comes by and looks at the result and tells the child what a wonderful job they did (which they did based on their developmental capability). No criticism, no effort in changing their art or them. They are feeling joy and pride and thats what the child senses. The child was already having fun with the coloring and then the positive feelings magnified even more after this blessing received from the parent. The connection between them remains maintained. In this case the child will internalize that whatever they create is wonderful (since mommy says it, must be true). The core belief might become “I am good and my creativity is good”.
Beliefs aren’t only formed because of experiences with authority figures in childhood but also by other experiences. Like if a family lives in poverty and there are children in that family, they will most likely have some limiting core beliefs about money and abundance. If a child is growing up during war time or a famine or an economic recession, all of those surrounding circumstances will play a significant role in shaping beliefs. By both experiencing them directly as well as by picking up signals from parents and authority figures also living through those times (by their behaviors, stress levels, pheromones, energetic transfer etc)
Its not to say that there cant be opposing beliefs in the subconscious mind. We usually have contrasting experiences in our childhood based on different circumstances so very often we have contrasting and opposing beliefs. This is also paralleled by splits in our identity, splits in our intentions, splits in our desires etc. Its the same process that leads to a split in our consciousness and formation of what Carl Jung called “the Shadow”. more on that in another post.
How to work on Beliefs :
Image showing a woman in a meditative pose gazing at a sunset sitting on a paddle board in the ocean. Photo Credit : Cayetano Gros from Lummi
Disclaimer
This Self-Help Guide is solely intended for the reader’s own self-improvement. You agree to assume and accept full responsibility for any and all risks associated with using any of the suggestions or instructions described in this Self-Help Guide. If you experience any emotional distress or physical discomfort using this Self-Help Guide, you are advised to stop and to seek professional care, if appropriate. By continuing to use this Self-Help Guide you agree to fully release and hold harmless, the author from any claim or liability of whatsoever kind or nature which you may incur arising at any time out of or in relation to your use of this Self-Help Guide.
Whenever people try to change something about themselves as well as their lives, whenever they work on developing new habits, most of the time it either doesn’t work or it takes a long time (several years) to bring about meaningful change without doing inner work. In my opinion it is because of their deep rooted core beliefs in the subconscious that are in opposition to those intentions. So in order to change your life in a more positive direction, it can be very helpful to work on healing limiting beliefs.
When I say working on healing limiting beliefs I don’t mean not doing anything more than talking about your beliefs or talking to a therapist or mentally ruminating on them while you are busy doing something else. That sort of work may modify the surface level thoughts in the moment but usually has no impact whatsoever on the deeper structures in the psyche, unless, this way of working on them becomes a daily consistent practice. eg when you learn to play a musical instrument or compete as an athlete, it is regular consistent rehearsals (mental as well as physical) that helps build new neural pathways in the brain and in a way install new beliefs. This is important to understand because it has been shown by neuroscience that we have a neural pathway for very belief and thought that we have in our brains and because of neuroplasticity, these pathways can be modified or new pathways can be grown. So one way of building new neural pathways of an empowering belief installation is repetition.
Another (more effective) strategy for belief work is actually getting access to the subconscious mind and rewiring an old limiting belief that is no longer serving you. There are plenty of methods that can help with that process. It is important to understand that in our day to day lives as adults, when we are awake, our brains predominantly operate in the beta brainwave state. In this state, we are very analytically and rigid when it comes to changing anything significant in the psyche, but this is not our state when we are very young. From ages 0-7 years, the brain operates in a slower wave state called theta, in this state there is plenty of access to the subconscious mind so much so that whatever information that a child is exposed to is taken in without any analysis and taken in as the truth and that then becomes a belief (most often a core belief, and then through repeated similar experiences those core beliefs get strengthened). Its a perpetual hypnotic state. In order to work on beliefs in adulthood by accessing the subconscious, we need to either use techniques or modalities that help us slow down our brainwaves to alpha or even theta, so that we can become hypnotically suggestible once again.
In our everyday life our brains drop down to alpha and theta brainwave states twice in a 24 hour period, when we are waking up in the morning and when we are falling asleep. A simple way to install an empowering belief is to make a recording of that belief as an affirmation and playing it on repeat during waking up or while falling asleep. Bruce Lipton popularized this method. One can also access these brainwave states on demand by learning self hypnosis, meditation, visualization, yoga nidra, breathwork, gentle & peaceful rhythmic physical activities like walking or biking in nature, sensory deprivation tanks, creativity, drumming, binaural beats, energy work etc. While doing these practices, it can be helpful to either listen to a repeated recording of the affirmation of the empowering belief you are trying to install or you could keep repeating it to yourself in your mind or even out loud verbally. You might prefer it one way over others so I suggest try them all and see which one you like.
Now so far what we have talked about focuses on installing empowering beliefs but none of these methods address the roots of the limiting beliefs we might have. In order to do that it is important to get in touch with the parts of us that have the limiting beliefs in our subconscious, the younger parts (child consciousness), during hypnotic or meditative states enumerated above. By observing and experiencing the memories (of events during which we formed limiting beliefs when we were children) again but at the same time bringing in our rational capacities along with unconditional love and support for the child consciousness so that a different understanding of the event may be developed and healing to the wounded inner child parts can be brought about. These aspects of our subconscious are living breathing beings and should be treated as such. In those states we need to show these parts that we are showing up for them now with love and they can trust us. Over time these inner child parts can start letting go of the limiting beliefs and start developing new empowering beliefs which then start to form sturdier structures in the psyche that can be unshakeable. By doing this consistently, a rewiring of the old neural pathways begins to occur and new pathways begin to grow. This can also be done using modalities like Energy Healing, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) or Hypnotherapy while working with a skilled therapist. In fact, if you have not done this kind of work in the past, I recommend to start initially by having the support of a therapist or a practitioner, especially when it comes to addressing the roots of traumatic experiences.
Another often under appreciated way of doing this work is journaling. Neuroscience tells us that while Journaling and putting our thoughts out on paper and engaging with them is a process that also slows brainwaves and gets us access to our subconscious mind. Research shows that during journaling our thinking is forced to slow to down as we can’t write as fast as we can think so it makes us get more meditative and reflective, it helps us be more in the present moment. Different areas of the brain have been shown to be activated while journaling and new connections tend to form easier while doing that instead of just thinking alone. Everything that is suggested as a method to address the root causes of limiting beliefs can be done during journaling, just keep writing whatever is going on when you access the subconscious instead of visualizing and also introduce how you are showing up for your younger parts, like writing a letter to yourself. Even better, combine journaling with those other methods for an even more profound shift.
Image showing a woman running through a sunflower field. Photo credit : Ma Fer Nuñez from Lummi
Important loving reminders when becoming aware of limiting beliefs and being on the path of healing them :
We all have limiting core beliefs and that doesn’t mean its our fault or that we are doomed.
A limiting belief does not have to be fully healed in order for you to bring a palpable shift in your life and reality and for things to be good.
There is nothing wrong with you for having limiting beliefs. it helps a ton having the attitude and mindset of being gentle with yourself, being patient, being a good parent to yourself and handling yourself with tenderness.
The best method of working on beliefs is the one that you like, will stick to and will do it consistently.
Working on healing limiting beliefs is an act of Self Love.
Happy Healing!
Image showing a happy dog. Photo credit : Ananncee Media from Lummi