In a really great book, “Finding Your North Star“, Martha Beck talks about believing lies. In other words we often believe things about ourselves that aren’t true. It’s often some variation of “I am (something bad)…” or “I am not (something good).”

Maxwell Maltz in “The New Pyscho-Cybernetics” talks about your mind as a sort of great homing device, that will accept any instructions you give without judgment, and then goes to work getting you to the destination of what it is you put in. Kind of like your own personal GPS navigation system for getting whatever it is you say about yourself or your life.

I prefer Maltz’s view. Thinking of disempowering beliefs as believing lies is not helpful because it makes you think there is something that is true that you should believe. I think it’s more helpful to get that whatever you believe becomes true for you. That’s the power of your mind, and why it’s important that every human being devote him/herself to the study of how the mind works. An essential part of the practice of your life.

Your mind is like a computer, and your beliefs are like the programs that run a computer. In the same way that computer programs determine what is possible for the computer to do, your beliefs determine not only what you can do, but even your very experience of life. Your beliefs determine what you notice, and what you experience.

Most of our experiences of life comes from programming that was put in a very long time ago, and we’ve spent years “improving” on this original programming with newer and stronger releases in much the same way that Microsoft brings out a new release every few years on it’s operating system. Only difference is that for you it’s a very unconscious process.

So why not break this cycle?

As you go through your day, try noticing what are your fundamental beliefs. The big clues will be your feelings about situations that develop during your day , especially about other people and yourself. Just learn to notice your feelings and ask “Why do I feel this way.” Following this line of questioning may reveal some fundamental belief that you hold. Once you see it, the choice is yours to “un-install” the program. 😉

Note to self: Provide an example in a subsequent post as to how this works.