“A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.”
— Franz Kafka
“The word “belief” is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. Either I know a thing, and then I know it— I don’t need to believe it.”
— Carl Jung
The other day I was sitting in the living room of my new home. I was admiring the clean lines of fresh paint where the walls met the ceiling as I sank into the pillows of the comfortable new couch. I looked out the bay window at the red, yellow, and purple tulips blooming in the front lawn (the previous owner was a landscaper). The sunshine reflected off the chrome on my truck as it rested in the driveway.
As I sat there soaking in the beauty that surrounded me, an uneasy feeling began to wash through me. At the time, I didn’t understand why something that should have been making me feel so happy was making me feel so anxious. It was unnerving.
This is the house that coaching built – every cent of my down payment came from money I earned from my coaching business. Initially, I felt a sense of pride while contemplating this fact, but soon after the feelings of pride turned to feelings closely resembling, um, guilt?
The voices in my head peppered me with questions. Do you really deserve this place, Drew? What, exactly, have you done to earn this place? You know, Drew, the people around you seem to work a lot harder than you do — what makes you so special, anyway?
To a large degree, my life revolves around ease. I coach people how to experience more ease in their lives, and I am naturally drawn to seek out ways to attract what I most want with the least effort. It’s a fun game for me that has evolved into a whole way of living. So here I was, experiencing such ease and abundance — and yet I wasn’t able to accept this ease into my life.
I know, I know — the irony…
So why was I choosing to create a struggle where there was no struggle? Because I was coming toe-to-toe with an old belief. I had thought I discarded this belief along the trail long ago, but here it was still hiding deep within one of the pockets of my backpack. And we were going to have it out.
The belief I still carried with me?
“You have to work hard to get ahead.”
A pervasive belief in this culture, yes? At the root of many of our beliefs are our experiences. I got my first two jobs when I was 11 years old. Every morning I’d get up at 5:45 and deliver 75 papers. Three days a week, I would scrub toilets and sweep up during the afternoons. It wasn’t exactly child labor or growing up on a farm, but my experiences were not always pleasant and these experiences molded my beliefs about what it took to be successful.
You have to work harder than everyone else. You have to sacrifice. You must suffer in some way.
But here’s the mistake we make: We equate our experiences and the beliefs born out of those experiences as being the TRUTH. We forget that our beliefs are just that – beliefs. They may have been the truth of what happened to us (or someone we know), but they’re not the TRUTH in how things necessarily work.
We often fail to recognize the power and influence those beliefs have in determining what we get in our lives. We usually don’t stop to question our beliefs – after all, our experiences confirm these beliefs to be what is TRUE.
And why would we waste our time questioning what we know to be “true?” Our past experiences, our family members, our friends, the daily newspaper with the doom and gloom headlines – is that what’s TRUE – or just what we believe to be true?
Now back to my old belief –
The truth is that I put a lot of energy into coaching career, and yet it very rarely feels like I have to force myself to do anything that I dislike, as I had previously in my life. The belief that I needed to suffer in order to get what I wanted was what made me feel so uneasy that day in my living room. Because there was no suffering for me to acquire this place and that did not fit my belief, I began to manufacture some anxiety so that I could keep my belief intact. I would earn the house through suffering. And I did. For about 24 hours.
Here’s how our beliefs work in determining what we attract in this life:
- What we believe determines how we feel.
- How we feel determines what we get.
- Thus, what we believe determines what we get out of life.
Consider these examples I’ve heard/seen from folks recently:
Belief: “You always have to settle when choosing a life partner.”
Feeling: Frustration.
Effect: An unhappy relationship.
Belief: “It’s nearly impossible to find a job in this area.”
Feeling: Scarcity.
Effect: Unemployment.
Belief: “There’s never enough time to get everything done.”
Feeling: Stress.
Effect: Attract problem on top of problems.
Here’s the best news of the day. You have a guide within you; a constant feedback machine stops running, never stops feeding you with all the information that you’ll ever need to attract more of what you really want into your life.
Your emotions.
Become more aware of your emotions. Whenever you are experiencing negative feelings toward anything, stop for a moment and trace that feeling back to the belief that you are operating under (there’s always a belief there). Recognize that belief is just a bald idea, a paper tiger, a lie
When you are aware of your limiting beliefs, you can now replace them. “I will find a partner who is everything I want.” “I will soon be working in a wonderful job.” “I have plenty of time and space in my life.” You get the idea.
And don’t just believe it. If that’s what you really want, KNOW it to be TRUE. Because if you really want something, the universe wants you to have it too.
I’m sitting in the evidence.