• The takeaway from this episode is … start questioning what you believe, so you can update your belief system.
• Here’s what this will do for you … your updated belief system will make your life easier.
• Here’s what I want you to do with it … you must keep track of your belief system so you’re the first one to notice when it needs an update. You won’t see it if you don’t write it down.

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Did you ever hear someone say something and your response was to say, how can that be true? I find that hard to believe.

The fact that you doubted what you heard, in your attempt to defend your beliefs, has everything to do with deep-rooted belief systems. Along the way you heard something that was easy to believe, making you feel superior or comfortable. You turned what you heard and felt comfortable believing into your belief. It’s the collection of these beliefs that made up your belief system.

When you heard someone say something or something you read or heard on the news, you run them through the filters of your beliefs to be sure it aligns with your existing belief system before you accept it. If it matches your beliefs you say, it must be true because that’s the way my friends, family and I think about it.

While beliefs make you feel comfortable, riding on beliefs won’t have any value when it’s the truth you need.

When someone says something that conflicts with your beliefs, you automatically discount it. Accepting what you just heard as the truth would require that you change one or more of your current beliefs, beliefs you’ve held for decades. That’s what makes what you heard so hard to digest. The most common response you tell yourself is, how can that be true? … or I don’t believe that. Well, at one point you didn’t believe what has become your belief system either.

As a child, you grew up adopting the belief systems of your family, friends, teachers, your religion, your political party, and many other influences. The Internet brought even more possibilities to challenge your beliefs, making you even more defensive of those beliefs.

How could it be that what this other person said is right? How do I know if it was right or not when I have never experienced it, or even experienced it before? It’s like a kid who says, I don’t like asparagus, but they never tried it. When questioned, they have the same response, I just know I don’t like it. They say I don’t have to experience it; I know I wouldn’t like it.

This puts the kid so far outside the comfort zone of their beliefs that they automatically think they won’t like it. What is really happening is that the kid didn’t see asparagus being promoted in their cartoons or commercials. Asparagus doesn’t look like fun or the kind of food kids eat. It’s in direct conflict with their belief systems and lifestyle.

You become so programmed at an early age about what you should and should not believe that it becomes difficult to ever change your beliefs.

It takes a shocking moment or revelation to get you to consider changing your beliefs. Another reason it’s hard to change is admitting you’ve been wrong for years.

People feel shame when they are exposed to new thinking, new thoughts that force them to question their past. The shame that made them realize they felt superior to others is a big one.

Faced with so many new changes and more coming, you can bet that the changes in your beliefs won’t all be comfortable. The changes will require that you reexamine your beliefs and form new criteria for what you believe now. It will all start to shift quickly when you see your friends doing things differently. You will catch yourself saying that you feel differently about what you used to believe. That takes a lot of courage, even when you know it’s the right thing to do.

CALL TO ACTION:

• Observe how people are stuck in old belief systems. Write down what you observed so that doesn’t happen to you.
• Don’t cop out by convincing yourself that your beliefs got you this far, so why change now.
• Examine the decisions you made from outdated beliefs. Write them down so you can see it for what it is. Now, you will have a choice to make better decisions.

HOW IT WORKS: Here’s something that may be hard to believe that affects anyone with a bank account. Did you know when you open a checking or savings account you are not a depositor, in fact, you become an investor in that bank. Your investment will be their solution the next time they need to be bailed out, referred to as a “bail in“: https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-dodd-frank-made-it-legal-for-banks-to-confiscate-funds-during-a-banking-crisis_3097779.html

Seeing through people’s beliefs was a source of constant disappointment for me as a kid. For instance, every time I observed the way my parents acted because of what they believed I felt ashamed of them. They were so sure that what they believed was the right way, the only way, by comparing themselves to everyone else. Instead of helping when they saw a person struggling, they criticized them. It made them feel superior. Their world was a small isolated self-created jail that stifled any chance of them growing as a person. The truth wasn’t only hard for them to believe, it was completely rejected. The times … they are finally changing. ~ Linda Deir