How can we understand what drives us? How can we understand the side of us which brings us suffering?
By bringing our subconscious beliefs into our conscious space, and by QUESTIONING those.
It is like exposing our darkness to the light. It feels daunting at the start, but it is so rewarding.
By becoming aware of our invisible filters shaped by our past painful experiences, we get to explore and challenge our insecurities, our demons....
To expose our darkness, to unravel our misery, it takes willingness and COURAGE. And as if it wasn’t enough already, on top of that this process requires SOLITUDE. Yes, no one else can do this work for us. No one else can join us on this journey to get to know ourselves more intimately, to explore our thoughts and the beliefs behind them, and to be able to clear the ones which we FALSELY believe to be true. It is a road less traveled. But such is the journey to finding oneself - the journey within.
Our beliefs which were 'installed' in our subconscious at the time we were growing up are our CORE BELIEFS. They constitute a solid base on which the rest of our belief SYSTEM rests on.
Our core beliefs ( FALSE or TRUE ) are at the heart of our belief structure holding it all together. The earlier in life were our beliefs created, the deeper in our subconscious they are stored and the more difficult it is to track them. The installation of such beliefs was much easier when we were children because our subconscious mind was way more open to suggestions. We had no filter system back then, no knowledge to protect us from believing what other people told us about ourselves.
Do you know why are adverts on TV are placed right in the middle of a movie?
When you are busy thinking about what just happened in a scene preceeding the advert, your subconscious is open to suggestions. We believe what the advert suggests is true without our conscious mind interfering...
Our mind is meant to protect us by filtering what can hurt us - emotionally, mentally, physically. These filters are built on previous unpleasant experiences. When we were very small we didn’t start perceiving negativity and threats till a certain age. We were, at that time, fearless. NEGATIVE experiences led to us creating our first beliefs. As humans, we are hardwired to focus on negative - to avoid getting hurt. It's a matter of self-preservation. Our first negative beliefs were about ourselves simply because we didn't know much about the outside world. Most of them were very self-limiting like 'I am not wanted', 'I am not good’, 'I don’t deserve to be loved'. And these are our biggest demons, and our deepest wounds !
What negative beliefs do you hold about yourself ?
What are your first three painful experiences you can remember from your early childhood?
How do you think they shaped your belief system ?
Do you think they may be still influencing how you see yourself today ?
In better case, we are aware of some of these negative beliefs, but because we haven’t done anything about CHANGING them, they are still influencing us. Mostly we are not aware at all, and on the level of our conscious we believe that ‘Of course I deserve love!’ ‘Of course I am good enough!’, yet our core beliefs take us for a ride every time a completely new situation triggers our wounds. They are cut open and bleed on almost daily basis as we take any criticism on our behalf personally, or in worse case scenario we allow others to abuse and disrepect us. It is a lose-lose situation really, as we suffer and we make others suffer too, only because we, knowingly or unknowingly, avoid responsibility for taming our demons.Yes, we were children at the time, yes we didn't know any better at that age, but adults who contributed to this unfortunately didn't know any better either! How is blaming others going to help US ?
Do you think that the people who hurt you were aware of their own demons?
How do you think this would change if they took charge and responsibility for their own issues ?
Being a parent, do you imagine how your own limiting self-beliefs and resulting reactions/behaviours are impacting your child ? Do you catch yourself re-an acting your parent's reactions ?
How much awareness do your parents have about their belief system, their filters, and subconscious mind ? How much of their beliefs are really true....?
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2016 Michaela Patel