A lot of personal development material urges you to use their method or product to “change your life.” Today I’m going to let you in on a method I’ve gotten more use out of than any other, but I’m going to urge you not to use it unless you really want to generate genuine, rapid change. In my next several posts I’ll let you in on all the ways I’ve been able to use this method to effect rapid significant changes in my consciousness, and thus change my experience to reflect more of what I wanted.

Most people take it for granted that their beliefs are shaped by their experience. I’m here to say that while our beliefs may be reinforced by our experiences, the truth is that our experience is largely created by our beliefs.  Our beliefs influence our perceptions, the way we interact with others; they even reflect themselves outward and attract experiences to match.  As a general rule, when our beliefs about the world and especially ourselves are based in love, we’re confident, secure and we tend to attract better people and situations. When our beliefs are based in fear, and go unchallenged, they cause us to limit ourselves, and attract people and situations that reinforce those fears.

Once I figured this out, and started putting that knowledge to use, I began noticing some pretty dramatic changes. I used to have an extremely negative self-image, until I realized that what I was continually telling myself about myself was directly reflecting back at me in the form of negative experiences; a vicious cycle. At that point I made it my goal that I would not allow myself to think anything but the best of myself. For instance whereas before, in social situations I may have been plagued by thoughts like “why would this person want to talk to me, anyway?”, now I would deliberately think “why wouldn’t this person want to know me? I’m pretty damn awesome to have around!” It’s not that I developed an egotistical view of myself – as a wise sailor man once said, “I yam what I yam,” no more and no less. I simply realized beliefs are powerful creative tools, so I might as well hold the ones that reflect the reality I’d like to live in.

Without really changing anything else about myself, my appearance, outward approach, etc. – suddenly I was getting a lot more positive attention from other people, (including female people, I was pleased to note), and it was like they were going out of their way to know and spend time with me. Pretty nifty trick, that.

At this point you may be feeling some internal conflict just like I was when I first started wrestling with this concept. To be sure, beliefs are a touchy subject, and especially challenging core beliefs can be pretty scary for most people; I’m no exception. But consider this: a belief, by definition, is something either subjective or unproven. If you’re holding a belief in something unproven, AND it’s causing you to limit your potential… then what good is it to you, really? You may also be doubting that it’s possible to simply chose to change your beliefs, but it most certainly is. Here’s the method I’ve developed to change a false, outdated or limiting belief directly, at its root.

First you’ll want to do some initial preparation in order to identify the belief you’d like to change, and figure out what, if anything, to put in its place. Identify areas of your life that could use some work, and usually it’s not difficult to start making connections to surrounding beliefs about that issue. If it’s money, then what are your beliefs about money and your relationship with it? If it’s social, what beliefs about yourself are making it difficult to reach out to people, or pushing people away? If it’s relationships, what beliefs might be holding you back from attracting a relationship you want, or even from ending one that no longer benefits you?

Next, if you’ll be inputting a different belief, you’re going to want to figure out the belief and its wording before you start the exercise. Wording is important, because the subconscious takes everything very literally. I suggest making an affirmative statement, using “I am” if possible, since you’re redefining your identity here. Having gotten through the preliminaries, you’re now ready to begin the exercise.

–Get into a relaxed state. If you know how to meditate, all the better, but a few minutes of progressive relaxation and slow, deep breathing with eyes closed will be fine.

–Ask to speak to the aspect of yourself that holds the belief you’d like to change.

–Begin a dialogue with this aspect as if it was a separate person. Try to gain some insight on why it holds the belief in question.  This might feel awkward initially, like you’re just imagining two sides of a conversation (which you are) but it will start to feel more natural as you get absorbed in the exercise.

–Thank it for holding this belief for you; after all, at one time you took on this belief because you felt that it benefited you in some way, but now you’ve realized it doesn’t, and your goal is to get all aspects of yourself “on the same team.”

–Firmly state your intention for the aspect to let go of the former belief. At this point I usually feel a sensation of release; you may or may not. If not, no worries; it won’t be any less effective.

–Now, ask the aspect to open itself to the new belief that you want it to hold. State this belief, and then have the aspect repeat it.

–Thank it again for its service and say goodbye. If you’ve gotten really absorbed in the exercise you’re probably in some level of light trance by now, so gently bring yourself back to regular waking consciousness before you stand up.

After doing this exercise it’s normal to feel a bit disoriented and even “lost” for a few days afterward, especially if you’ve addressed a deeply held, core belief. Our beliefs are usually attached to lots of other beliefs, like a web, and this will cause quite a bit of internal rearranging.  Most likely, it will turn up further beliefs with which you’ll want to go through the process again.  The aftermath can be uncomfortable, sometimes even painful, but considering what is to be gained, in all my experience I’ve never regretted doing this work.  A bit of caution though — gradually changing your beliefs, as it usually happens, will produce gradual change in your experience. This method produces rapid change in your internal programming, and can bring about correspondingly rapid and unpredictable changes in your circumstances.  Sometimes explosively so. Change can be difficult, but in my experience, any change that comes from replacing fear-programming with love, is always for the best.  Then again, I hold nothing as being too sacred to go unchallenged, and I’ve always been one to take on a whole lot at once, and then deal with the fallout later. The wisdom of this approach could be debated, but well, one meaning of my online name “Palehorse Redivivus” is “eternal transition,” and there’s a reason for that.

In my next post I’ll go into some of my observations on how this all works and why, as well as more about what you can expect from it.

–Palehorse

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