Beliefs and Who You Are

I'm spending a lot of time on beliefs because beliefs are fundamental to any kind of healing. It's well known to doctors that people who won't cooperate, are depressed or have a bad attitude, recover more slowly than people with a positive outlook. The people who believe in the treatments or the doctor do better than those who don't. And what's true for doctors in hospitals is also true for alternative healers, more so, in fact, because of all the negative messages we are constantly bombarded with. If you want to be a healer, you must believe in what you're doing, and, if you want to be healed, you have to accept that a healing can, in fact, take place.

The evolution of my understanding of beliefs was also critical to my personal journey as well. It took many slow, halting, steps to get me from where I was forty years ago to where I am now. And each one required that I step outside my comfort zone and confront ideas that were just a little further from my dogmatic, "hard science," stance. The funny thing is, I was a bit of a sell-out anyway. Steeped in science fiction and fantasy from about the sixth grade, I always wanted there to be more to life than strict materialism allowed.

The real irony here is that science, (small 's', i.e. the scientific method, the systematic process of discovery) has no problem with spirituality, life after death or psychic phenomena. The data is either there or it's not, and where there is no data, the answer is "don't know."  It's the institution of Science,  (big 'S') and a small, vocal, cadre of "scientists" that have a very strong opinions about what does and does not exist, evidence be dammed. These people truly have as much to do with true scientific debate as Rush Limbaugh has to do with rational political and social discourse, but they command the public discourse on the subject.

For me, things changed one day when I simply realized that the scientific, evidence-baised, debate on the reality of some psychic phenomena was long over, and what was actually going on was a political/philosophical power struggle, with facts on one side and ego, religion and research dollars on the other. I'm sure that in the long run the facts will win out, it's just a matter of how long it takes. Evolution is over 150 years old and is still not accepted by a huge number of people, so I'm not holding my breath on this.

What I just said may seem completely off the subject, but I think that it's an import example of how beliefs not only shape what you know, they also put strict limits on what you can know. For instance, if you know, in your heart of hearts, that energy healing goes against the Bible, no amount of instruction or encouragement will ever teach you that skill, assuming you'd even consent to try. So, if you want to change your life because you're not happy, or you're board, or things just aren't working out the way you thought, or they are, and you have found you really couldn't care less, you have to start thinking about what it is that put you where you are. Your value and beliefs put you where you are. Your values and beliefs determine what risks you take and what opportunities you accept. If want a transformed life, not just more-of-the-same, you must uncover and change the values and beliefs that are the basis of every decision you make, every day of your life.

Here is where things get difficult, because people commonly confuse who they are with what they have. Yes, it's real common to confuse houses, cars, money, honor, prestige or power with self, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I want to take this to a different level. Are you a Jew, Christian or Muslim, or are you someone who has Jewish, Christian or Muslim beliefs? Are you a doctor, engineer or cashier, or are you someone who has a certain education and occupation as a doctor, engineer or cashier? Are you short-tempered, impatient, loving, or generous, or someone who has these habits and behaviors? Are you truly worthless, useless, a loser, bad at math, or no good with money, or do you have those judgments and belief and act, each day, as though they are true?

Step number one to a transformed life: You are not your beliefs. You are not what you think you are. Your religion, your occupation, your educations, even your thoughts and opinions, are not you. They are what that you have, not what you are. This is the greatest stumbling block that keeps people from being happy and living a fulfilled life, and once you really get it, you are truly on your way. You can start small and accept that some of the stuff running through your head is neither true or essential to who you are, and then you are free to start removing it. All too many people are convinced they have to give up who they are to be happy, when the truth is, being happy requires giving up pretending to be what their not, in order to be who they are.