I believe therefore I am

Recently I had an experience I call life-changing. Something that I had been desiring for a very long time finally came into my life. That in and of itself would have been enough, but for me it was extra so because some time before I had made a decision that I would stop waiting for this thing to occur. 


I would stop feeling like a ‘victim’ of circumstance. I would bring this energy into my life for myself. And more than that, that it would be better than what I could imagine. That it would exceed my expectations and surprise me in ways I hadn’t even conceived of.

This prompted me to begin a process of self-examination. I looked at every belief and assumption I held about this thing. Every paradigm and framework I had built around it. And I started dismantling them. Because my reality was based strongly on beliefs that I had never questioned, but that were at the heart of my unhappiness about this thing - I questioned even the most foundational ideas I held and began exchanging them for beliefs that felt more true and life affirming to me. Then, I started acting in accordance with these new beliefs (as if they were already true) to cement them further and start bringing in for myself the things I had been looking for. I want to repeat this because it’s the most important part of it – to bring in for myself (rather than waiting for someone else to give me) the things I had been looking for.

I ignored the pundits. I ignored the ‘rules’. I ignored the magazines. I ignored what people told me ‘was’ and ‘wasn’t’ possible. I ignored the statistics. I ignored the critics. I created my own truth. And it worked. Beyond my imagining of it.

What it made me realise is that part of the reason we communally get so many things wrong is because we have constructed our world around beliefs we’ve rarely questioned… about the nature of things, about ourselves, our identity, our place in the universe, what we have to put up with, what we can expect… and we act in accordance with that. Which of course means we create it – like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We focus almost exclusively on everything we hate and dislike. Our complaint habit is quicker than our gratitude habit.

As a society it is hard to question the underlying paradigms around which we travel. So we keep creating the same stuff – poverty, war, environmental mismanagement, culture wars - even though it makes very few people really happy.

We believe things like: “it’s just the way the world is” and “I can’t make a difference anyway” and “people are inherently selfish and greedy, so I have to look out for myself first” and “money makes the world go around” and “that’s the way the world’s always been” and “all conservatives are like this” and “all liberals are like that”.

And we act from those beliefs.

Then we pretend that some unknown third force is the one that’s doing all of this to us, causing all of this to happen, creating all the misery. We throw responsibility at anyone and everything else except ourselves.

But we’re the ones making the choices. We’re the ones taking the risks or choosing not to take the risks. We’re the ones that choose to demonstrate courage or not to demonstrate courage. We’re the ones creating this. At first I found this an unhappy and terrifying thought. Is it really all up to me? Can’t I blame anyone else? Then, when I began to embrace it, I found it an incredibly liberating thought.

Here’s a question I heard not long ago, that sums it up nicely for me. How is it possible that 7 billion people can all essentially say they want the same thing – good health, security, love, peace, enough food to eat – and be so manifestly incapable of creating it?

I think it’s the underlying beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world. If you thought differently, you’d act differently. If you acted differently, your life would be different.

For example, you enter a room of friends and acquaintances. You believe those friends and acquaintances don’t really care about you being there. As a result, you act distance and aloof. Or maybe hurt. Or maybe needy. That creates a tension between you and your friends. They react to what they sense from you. That confirms your original belief about them. And so it goes.

Alternatively, if you entered a room where you believed you were loved – where you were grateful for everyone in that room - you would act entirely differently. Your reality would be completely different. Your friendships – different.

I really think it’s that simple. But first we have to look at ourselves for the answers. Place the responsibility more largely on ourselves. Examine our feelings. Is what I’m feeling really what is happening here?

Question: How would you behave if you chose to believe differently about the thing you’re most anxious about or fear in your life right now?

What is that thing? What do you currently believe about it? What do you think that means about you? What might your deeper truth be?

Most people would call me an idealist. And yet – it is utterly practical. Bad things can and do still happen. But even in those moments we can choose how we respond to them. We can choose what we believe about them. We can choose what we believe they mean.

Belief creates Thought. Thought creates Action. Action creates our Reality. 

To change our world we need to change what we do. To change what we do we need to change how we think and feel. And to change what we think and feel we need to question our beliefs. Our most fundamental beliefs about everything. Hang them out. Examine them. Tear them down. Throw them at the wall and watch if they bounce.

Just a thought.