Safe Haven Sober Living

“The world we believe in, becomes the world we live in. If I see the world as a hostile place where only winners thrive, I may well become aggressive, selfish, and grandiose to survive in such a milieu. Later in life I will gravitate to competitive environments and endeavors that can only confirm that view and reinforce its validity. Our beliefs are not only self fulfilling, they are world-building.”

Gabor Mate The Myth of Normal

Gabor Mate, world renowned psychologist, goes on to state in his new book, The Myth of Normal, that before the mind can create the world, the world creates our mind. This is where the dilemma lies. If there is trauma present in the world or the environments around us when we’re young, then before we get the chance to think for ourselves, our beliefs are already askew. We have pain, fear and suspicion in our mind and bodies before we can even come up with our own beliefs about ourselves and the world because that is what was engrained in most of us from the start.

What beliefs are you holding now that are holding you back?

Any beliefs about ourselves or the world can put serious limitations on how we show up in the world. Becoming aware of these limiting beliefs is the first step to changing our life. We can usually find these beliefs by looking where we have the most resistance in our lives. What are you resisting in your life right now? Why? Is your resistance holding you back or pushing you forward. How can you reframe that belief to overcome that resistance?

For example, someone may believe that they are not smart or good enough for a certain job, or maybe that they are not good enough to be a parent. This belief could have been engrained by our parents, teachers or anyone else who had talked down to us in the past. The issue is as stated above: this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If that is the belief that this person holds, then that is what will be confirmed by the rest of the world and the people in their life.

If this person can reframe this belief and instead say to themselves, I can be a good father, I am good enough for that job, it opens up a world of possibilities, instead of a world of limitations. We can do this with any of our beliefs, allowing us to truly overcome any problem in our lives.

But don’t forget the work

This doesn’t mean changing our beliefs will be easy. It will be difficult to change a belief that’s been engrained in us since kids, but it is totally possible. It also means there will be new actions you must take after that belief is changed, new learning experiences, new things to do. This could be scary, because it is new and unknown, but new experiences can be positive (if we believe them to be) compared to the negative patterns caused by our old beliefs. Once a belief is changed, our world opens up and more opportunities are available, but the next step would be to act on the new opportunities. This means in order to get that job, we must learn new skills, or in order to become a parent, we must become more responsible and less selfish, but since our core belief about what we can do and how we perceive the world has changed, it becomes much easier to move forward with curiosity instead of fear and resistance.

Summary:

• Trauma in the external world forms our beliefs on how to we view the world when we are young
• This self fulfilling prophecy leads to the patterns that we experience in our lives, whether positive or negative.
• Reframing our belief system about the world and ourselves can remove resistance from our lives and open up more opportunities
• Changing our beliefs also changes our perspective from fear to curiosity
• Work will follow a change in beliefs, we are not done once we change our beliefs, it is only step 1
• Becoming more curious about the things in our lives brings a new energy, full of more passion and excitement