Beliefs

Beliefs. Goodness do we have a lot of those. The ones about ourselves seem most believable. Surely I must know myself. I must know who I am. Know what I am capable of. Those beliefs impact every aspect of our lives don't they?

But what if they are not true?

You start life without any beliefs. And as you grow up you learn things about yourself.

But none of those things are true.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

Beliefs.

That's the exploration today.

We have a lot of them,

Don't we?

An awful lot of them.

We have a lot about the outside world and how it's supposed to be.

But I think where I would like to explore today is our beliefs about ourselves.

They look to be true,

Don't they?

They look to be solid facts about who we are.

But here's a little bit of information about how those beliefs came into play in your life to start with.

You were not born with any beliefs about yourself.

You were born without any of that.

Every single one of your beliefs are things that you have learnt as you have gone through life,

That you have picked up.

Learn is perhaps not quite the right word because that's perhaps suggesting some factual truth to these beliefs.

And there isn't any.

Generally they came from other people who may have said things about us or to us or just from being around life and noticing how it was working out.

Noticing other people's relationships,

Noticing how people were about certain subjects,

Listening to conversations that adults were having,

Etc.

And so as we come into adulthood,

Perhaps as you're listening to this today,

You've got a whole load of things that you believe to be true about you.

And they can be reinforced because if we start to notice something that we think is true about us,

And we notice that we don't like it,

We don't feel so good about it and we'd like it to change,

Then we seek some help outside of us often,

Don't we?

And then that set of beliefs we have about us and how we are can be quite innocently reinforced with a label.

So then we've got a collection of things we see in ourselves,

Beliefs and behaviours come off the back of those.

And then we've got a label that quite innocently,

As I say,

Reinforces those beliefs about who we are.

And there's a couple of different ways to see this and I quite like the analogy of you being born this clear,

Clean diamond with nothing.

There are no beliefs,

There's nothing,

You're just light.

You're just innocence,

You're just peace and calm and innate wisdom.

You're that wide-eyed baby.

And then over the top of that are the layers of stuff,

Layer upon layer upon layer of beliefs and ideas about us.

And it starts to look like we're that stuff.

You know,

Somebody,

I think it's Michael Neil calls it horse dung.

He uses another word for dung actually,

But I'm not going to use that word today.

Layers of that go over the top and then in our attempts to address those layers,

We go looking outside of us further.

And it is like we put some polish over the top of that.

So then there's this great big clump of stuff that's hiding everything about who you really are.

And it's all made of thought.

And that's why,

You know,

You hear stories,

Don't you,

Of people having an enlightenment experience,

Because all that stuff that looks really solid,

All those beliefs,

All that horse dung that's surrounding your beautiful diamond.

Although it looks really solid,

It can literally disappear overnight.

And that is what happens to some people.

They have some kind of enlightenment experience and that is what happens.

It all just falls away because it's thought and it isn't actually something you can get hold of.

It's thought.

It can pass.

And maybe you've noticed that yourself.

Maybe you've noticed that you've had some beliefs about yourself that have changed over time.

You didn't think you could do certain things and now you can.

Or vice versa.

You know,

Things that you now feel more limited by.

They're changing all the time,

Aren't they?

Just like your beliefs about the outside world can change in a heartbeat.

Your beliefs about yourself can do that,

Too.

And I think what is really helpful is to see what they are.

To see the nature of them.

To see the nature of those labels and beliefs that they are thought.

That's all they are.

But that can be quite tricky because once we have created this narrow version of the self.

Once we have said,

I am this kind of person,

I believe this about me,

I have this label and we get it all lined up.

This is who I am.

This is the me.

Then as we look into the world,

As we experience ourselves.

That that creates a narrow viewpoint.

It stops us from seeing who we really are because all we can see is that narrowing,

That narrow viewpoint.

Because the belief system,

All that thinking about us,

Kind of acts like a filter.

And it takes away,

It stops us from seeing any evidence that we're not.

And I saw this yesterday,

I went on a walk and I saw this,

I was describing this to my other half.

If you imagine that everything that fits your belief is a blue dot around you.

And everything that doesn't fit your belief is a red dot.

It kind of wouldn't really matter if there were a,

You know,

If it was 25% blue dots and 75% red dots.

And the red dots are saying,

No,

That's not who you are.

That's not real.

That's,

You know,

Look at all the ways in which you are not like that.

And the blue dots are saying,

Yes,

You are like that.

Look at the evidence.

Your belief system,

That thinking that's in there,

Kind of narrows your filter.

So you will still see,

Even if there's only 25% of information saying you are like that,

You will see that more.

Because you can't take on all the information in the world.

You can't take on all the experience you're having inside yourself and how you are looking at your behaviour.

So your internal system sort of has to find a way to filter out the stuff it can't cope with.

Too much noise of red things that are telling me I'm not this belief.

It's easier and smoother and feels less against our beliefs to see the blue dots and the ones that are saying,

This is how you really are.

And the thing to know about this is that all there is is a thing to know.

There's nothing to do.

This is curiosity and awareness and noticing,

Noticing where you can see this playing out in your life.

How many things do you have where you can say I am this and that and the other?

Have you noticed the weight of them?

Maybe you've got tired of carrying that weight around.

I know I did.

I know that's why I sought help in in many ways to start with.

But in the end,

Where the enlightenment came was from looking in this direction over and over again and only looking in this direction.

Your beliefs are thought.

That's all they are.

And there is in any moment a chance to see through them.

And that's all it is.

You don't have to remove them or change them or swap them for better beliefs.

Just see what they are.

Their thought.

They can pass in a heartbeat when you start to see that.

And really,

All there is to do is to start looking in that direction.

To start a bit of questioning.

A bit of reflection,

A bit of awareness.

That's all.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now,

But bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

Love how you explore beliefs Clare. It’s felt so simple and clear. A perfect reminder