Important announcement: I’ve changed my blog parameters. All my blogs are now available for 12 months before going behind a pay wall.💝🎉🥳
A big thank you 🫵 😘 to those who are financially supporting my work, I really appreciate it so much! I will reward you occasionally with your very own members-only blog posts. Any suggestions of topics you’d like me to write about?
I’m transitioning my income stream to being more in line with my health, ethical values, and work-life balance. Prior to this June, I had spent about 2.5 out of the last 5 years in stressful, exhausting travel nurse contracts thousands of miles from home, and it was really draining my life force. So now I’m working on developing creative endeavors, including developing a small Airbnb retreat in the mountains of Puerto Rico (and here). Come see us!
Also of note, I plan to start blogging twice a week with the alternate posts being more from my personal growth and experiences. So I will be flip flopping between this series on spiritual reconstruction and glimpses into my life—kind of like my previous posts about my mother wound and before that, several posts on my relationship status changes and cool life synchronicities. If you have difficulty following two trains of thought, this might be a challenge. But if you like variety, then this will be your jam! I’ve always been a diverse writer human, difficult to peg down. It’s one of my favorite things about myself.😍
Beliefs. Everyone has them. But have you ever stopped to question why you have them, or what purpose they serve in your life? Are they beneficial or detrimental? Necessary or dispensable? Conscious or unconscious? Are they a cultural phenomenon or are they part of being human?
Beliefs are habituated, integrated mental programs or operating systems, which become deterministic constructs—usually unconsciously—throughout the human experience. Think of it this way, if you run a program on your computer, you get an expected result. Hence the saying, “thoughts become things.” Many of them develop primarily from our familial, social, cultural, religious, and educational influences during our formative years.
Our beliefs can be beneficial or detrimental, but since they are quite often subconscious, they are unrecognized for the magnitude of their influence on our behaviors and choices. They have been proposed by many as a sole determining factor of the quality of most life experiences. Accordingly, nearly every human-generated emotion, action, choice, behavior, subjective interpretation of an experience, and outcome is often predicated upon one’s beliefs.
It does not escape me that within the word belief is the word, belie. I stumbled upon an Instagram post recently where a guy was demonstrating from a 1760 Dictionary that an “s” was exchangeable for an “f” in old English, and how belies and belief are the same word (see Dictionary of the English Language on Internet Archive, by Samuel Johnson, 1760, refer to pp. 6, 116). According to this early dictionary definition:
· a belief is credit given to something which we know not of ourfelves (note the f/s exchange);
· confidence of the truths of religion;
· perfuafion (persuasion);
· opinion.
Beliefs, resulting from persuasions or opinions, seem to only carry the weight (and magic abilities) we grant to them, regardless of object reality. To believe something does not make it true, or beneficial, or authoritative. It is merely a reflection of one’s acceptance of information that is often not even based in experience.
Personal Belies
In my ongoing quest to find a liberated, happier version of myself, a light has been shined on the concept of beliefs as the first suspect behind many of my mental, relational, and spiritual limitations and obstacles.
A quote from the ancient Kybalion hermetic text says, “The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental.” It appears that our state of mind, our beliefs and what we dwell upon—and therefore feel—is how our entire reality is created. What an interesting generative universe we live in, though most people are completely oblivious to it! Beliefs can be our empowering friends, or they can be our confounding opponents. They are either paving the way in gold on our quest toward our goals and dreams, or they are the unmoving sentries blocking our path.
Over the last couple years, in the wake of a difficult inner season, I’ve been devoting a lot of time and attention to my thoughts and beliefs for creating a revised experiential reality. The logic from the Kybalion goes, “what you think about, you bring about.” I think this “law” requires significant attention to mental constructs, more than merely fleeting thoughts. It appears that the recurrent or persistent thoughts we dwell upon, fueled by our underlying beliefs, often birth many of our expectations, experiences, successes, failures, and maybe even personality traits.
As noted, we spend a lifetime developing beliefs about things. Many we choose for ourselves, while many are enforced upon our open, vulnerable minds during formative years—especially by parental, religious and educational influences. It makes me ponder:
· How have my beliefs shaped my life?
· How are they currently shaping my future?
· How have they limited my opportunities?
· How have they prevented my happiness, success, liberation, and transformation?
When our beliefs constrain or confine us in any way from revealing and empowering the unlimited divine spark within us, they are called “limiting beliefs.” Motivational speaker Tony Robbins says, “Limiting beliefs are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are that hold us back from becoming who we are meant to be. These beliefs limit us from reaching our full potential.”
Subconscious beliefs, if limiting or negative, can be very problematic. Cell biologist and author of The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton says that our subconscious programming, much of which is acquired between the ages of 0–7 when we are in a theta brainwave state (hypnotic or programming state), dictate about 95% of our adult daily functioning if we have not intentionally become aware of them. That means that your efforts at consciously directing yourself with any success on any given day is only about 5% of the time, and that is usually taking place when you are encountering something new — driving an unknown route to work, trying a new restaurant, creating something for work or pleasure, etc.
Isn’t it fascinating that we come into this earth plane in a hypnotic state where we are at the mercy of the scripted beliefs (belies) we are programmed with to “help” us navigate this complicated earth experience? In a sense, we are like pre-programmed robots if we are not being present and intentional throughout our days! It’s as if we came here to figure out how to escape the zombie apocalypse programming and learn how to design, rewrite, and execute our own operating system against the expected flow. Some people call this, “waking up.”
For me, limiting beliefs come into my awareness frequently. Perhaps if they weren’t so persistent, I could more easily realize my goals and dreams toward being more joyful, loving, capable, creative, competent, generous, empowered, liberated, fearless, vulnerable… The list goes on.
What are some examples of these limiting beliefs? Many were handed to me in childhood, and have directed the course of my life until I was able to identify them. The rest I gathered along the way through negative self-talk and painful experiences. A few of the more recognizable limiting beliefs for me:
*I am not safe; it’s not a safe universe.
*It is not safe for me to love or be completely vulnerable with another.
*I am not lovable.
*I am not enough.
*God (Divine Source) is not enough.
*I am not significant; who cares if I am alive or dead?
*I am not smart enough.
*I am too (fill in the blank — old, young, busy, tired, selfish, broken, etc.) to change or to work on myself.
*I can’t change.
*I don’t have enough time for (fill in the blank — creative goals, self care, working out, relaxation, relationships, personal expansion).
*I don’t deserve to be (fill in the blank — happy, healthy, wealthy, loved, etc.).
*I don’t have what it takes to be those same things.
Can you relate to any of these core limiting beliefs? If not, perhaps some of them are subversively acting upon your subconscious mind. Look at the obstacles you encounter when trying to make changes, or look at your day to day attitudes, or your current life circumstances. They don’t lie. When these types of mental roadblocks are subconsciously programmed into us, it’s like being incarcerated in a groove that causes us to think and make the same decisions and behaviors that result in disempowered, stuck, victim states!
I know. This sounds a bit fatalistic. But really, it’s not! Limiting beliefs can be overcome with awareness. There are short cut techniques whereby we can rewrite our subconscious programming (or here) so that our mind works for us even when we’re not consciously aware of it. Just think, if we could rewrite our underlying programs (beliefs), 95% of our unconscious decisions throughout the day could be working for us, not against us! The most simple approach is to rewrite the “tapes” is the same way you got them. When you languish yourself into a programmable, relaxed (theta) state, you can play pre-recorded affirmations to embed in your subconscious. Over the course of a few weeks, your subconscious brain rewrites the programs and your life begins to change!
If it sounds too easy, it’s not. Last year, I used this technique to successfully reverse a three-year dark, depressed, disempowered mindset. I regained a new outlook, which helped me to feel empowered, whole, and inspired again! I also used it to attract a new job opportunity. The most perfect one-year contract job for my skills and background literally fell into my lap!
Religious Belies
Looking back, I now find it rather suspicious how much energy, time, and resources religion puts into instilling hardcore beliefs and certainties into the minds of its members—especially children—most of them sourced in fear and disempowerment. Here's a few goodies that I remember:
· I was born into sin before I ever had a conscious thought or action.
· I am separate from God; in fact I am reprehensible to God until I repent and turn from my sin.
· I am completely unable to save myself; I need a savior (and apparently a sacrifice to appease God’s anger against me).
· This entire world is filled with wickedness and depravity and is going to be destroyed by fire (why take care of it?).
· My heart is exceedingly wicked and can never be trusted; thankfully there are pastors and elders who can advise me on God’s will, interpret scriptures, and determine the right path for me so I don’t get lost by my own wayward devices.
· I have never been to seminary (and I’m a woman) and therefore, I am unable to correctly interpret scriptures on my own.🙄
· The infallible, inerrant Bible is the only safe and true book for me to read and follow; all the other holy books are counterfeit lies. (Problem is, which Bible translation based on which translated sources should I read? The Septuagint Greek, Masoretic text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Aramaic, Nestle-Aland, or Textus Receptus? Should I read the Christian canon (66 books), the Catholic canon (73 books) or the Eastern Orthodox canon (76 books)? Many of them contradict each other. And what about all of the lost Scriptures in the Roman occupation…what if I’m missing something crucial from God’s dictation to humanity? What a terrible, paralyzing predicament!
· I am ever being followed around by a nefarious demi-god boogeyman and his minions who are all trying their best to trip me up. One moment of vulnerability and I’m doomed. Everyone else in the world is simultaneously being followed by same nefarious demi-god. He’s got more grit and gusto than Santa Claus!
· I only get one chance (one lifetime) to crack the code of salvation, which is highly dependent on the personality, hormones and brain chemicals, genes, family, country, religion, education, and culture that I was born into; and if I don’t get it right this one time, I get to spend eternity roasting in burning brimstone and sulphur.
· As a woman I am to be always quiet and submissive, accepting all leadership and authority from the men in my life, regardless of their character. And regardless of my innate personality, which happens to be the opposite of quiet and submissive (as if you couldn’t tell).😇
· My role in this world as a woman is to be a good homemaker, have children, and equip them with the great commission; my gifts and abilities may need to be sacrificed to fulfill this role.
· If I am not submissive or faithful to my husband, he should throw me out as an adulterer. If he is abusive, unloving, or unfaithful, it is my Christian wifely duty to stay with him and win him over to God through my submissive and loving spirit.
· If I question my church leaders too persistently about inconsistencies in the Bible or church doctrine (or about church leadership character issues), I will be shunned.
It’s easy to see why so many people are leaving their Christian faith. They are waking up to the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of their corrupt, disempowering belief systems!
Collective Belies
This is where things get dicey. On the collective scale, there are many opposing beliefs, often one side asserting certitude of their beliefs as “irrefutable facts” without verifiable or empirical evidence and/or asserting their postulates as “settled science” which allows for no further hypothesis or inquiry (which is antithetical to the real scientific process). Any subsequent scientific processes that show a different (often more honest) result are labeled “pseudoscience” and “quackery” by the “independent fact checkers.” I believe this model has been contrived in the past few centuries to keep us in a state of division, confusion, submission, and ill health. It’s also good for business when few at the top are contriving the narratives for humanity in mainstream media and educational systems across the board, from grade school through grad school (textbooks are tightly regulated to follow information parameters). If we can all be steered into a for-profit belief model controlled by the pharma-medical-military-industrial complex, then we will remain good, obedient slaves.
Yet, everyone who is thoughtful and capable can look back over recent history to see a plethora of reversals on “facts” and “settled science.” For example (I’m going to get nursey for a moment), multiple recent studies and Systematic Reviews have come out showing that the long-held stance on cholesterol causing heart disease and heart attacks, has been shown to be a false backwards interpretation of data. Even the AHA (American Heart Association) has admitted that there is no link between dietary cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. Despite three decades of collective belies, people with higher cholesterol actually enjoy greater health and longer life due to the fact that most of the cells in our bodies use cholesterol in their outer protective layer. Also, the cholesterol moving into vessels has been shown in recent long-term studies to be a protective mechanism for vessel damage from other sources (e.g. trans fats, oxidative stressors), not the cause of the damage. The brain is largely made up of cholesterol and relies heavily on it for neurotransmitter communication and protection of neurons.
Imagine with me for a moment why a government-sponsored agency, which is also a pharmaceutical-sponsored agency (AHA) would declare a few decades ago that we should stop eating the very nutrient we need for healthy bodies, brains, vascular systems, and hearts, and instead double down by taking a dangerous pharmaceutical to make sure we’re “safe” from that bad cholesterol. Ask almost anyone in the world now, and they will tell you cholesterol is bad for you. Was it an innocent mistake?
Consider statins, the number one government-approved solution to the problem of this make-believe association between cholesterol and heart disease. Despite the fact that 50% of men and 36% of women over 65 are taking a statin, heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the US. It’s important to note the great increase in heart disease occurred around the time that government-sponsored nutritional advice promoted higher carbohydrate intake (sugar and processed grains) and lower natural-sourced saturated fat and cholesterol intake.
Create the problem, then create the solution to the problem (whereby the government profits) is the government’s method. Statins are the number one prescribed pharmaceutical in the world. Because of how they’re designed to work in the body, statins are associated with numerous catastrophic health problems increasing in the past couple decades: dementia, muscle wasting, diabetes, cancer, and a host of other problems! All because we believed the government and our doctors’ when they belied us. I wound venture that statins, which research has proven do not statistically save enough lives to justify taking them or prove a positive risk to benefit, have been a catastrophic blight on humanity’s health.
Neither beliefs nor strongly held opinions have more propensity of being true and reliable just because they are psychologically accepted by multitudes or millions of people. As I have learned through my religious deconstruction journey, the masses are often able to be deceived on a grand scale. The perfect example is the widely accepted doctrine (religious opinion) of hell in at least two major world religions. In this case, perhaps as much as half of the world has been belied by a persuasion, or has given credit to something which they have no personal experience of or empirical data to support. The concept of hell as some destiny for unbelieving, sinful humanity has no historical, scriptural, or philosophical merit. It is easily disproven, yet it has been so proliferated to the masses through mental manipulation and fear. “If you don’t believe in hell, you’re going to go there forever and ever, so fall in line!”
There are many more collective beliefs that would benefit from open, unbiased investigation without shaming, censoring, or intimidation tactics:
The shape of the earth. For centuries, there has been ongoing flip-flopping of scientific community views as well as public debate over the shape of the earth. Supposedly as recent as 100 years ago, schools were still teaching flat earth theory as some elders among us remember it that way. When I first heard that there were actually people today questioning the shape of the earth, I thought it was ludicrous and that these people were just looking for a novel way to be contrary. However, in keeping with my philosophy of being open-minded, I decided to at least listen to what flat earthers have to say to defend their arguments, especially since the ancients recorded the earth as being flat and I often feel that they were more intuitive and intelligent than modern science on a plethora of topics. It made me at least question why both sides believe what they do.
The first observation I noticed is that the flat earth Youtubes I encountered were somewhat insulting to my intelligence. I was tempted to dismiss flat earth arguments as a waste of time and out of touch with reality. But then a couple years later, someone sent me some videos showing many intelligent, scientific people demonstrating some compelling, well-documented, testable holes in the mainstream globe earth belief system (not to mention the rife evidence that the publicly televised lunar lander was a complete hoax). Suddenly, I found access to many suppressed Youtube videos and websites with credible, thoughtful perspectives, interviews, and experiments by scientists, pilots, military personnel, physicists, and others.
Geesh. Am I a flat earther now? No, not exactly. I am sitting on the fence, in some middle ground of honest questions, waiting for someone in the globe camp to adequately answer the contrary evidences and experiments poking holes in their doctrines and theories. I have a top ten (or twenty) list of scientific and thoughtful reasons why the traditionally reinforced model of our globe earth cannot work the way “they” say it does (happy to share some of them with you if you ask). Trying to get solid, intelligent answers reminds me of my old church days. Nobody actually answers my specific questions. They use circular reasoning—the earth is a globe spinning through space at 66,000 mph (and rotating on its axis at 1,000 mph) and our solar system is hurling through the galaxy at 448,000 mph but you can’t feel any movement, and the stars and constellations above have never moved from their tight predictable course in recorded history because modern science says it’s so and your questions are not valid because it's settled science.
The fact is, everything we’ve been told about the shape of the earth and outer space is exactly that—second hand information. There is no way we can test or prove to ourselves what is objectively true about outer space or the exact shape of the earth (by the way, NASA—some have dubbed, “not a space agency”—has never produced actual earth photos from outer space to my knowledge, but has admitted that their renditions of the blue marble are all photoshopped). But we can test concepts and be honest with things that don’t add up.
Whenever I see information posted online about flat earth assertions and theories, it is always from the opposition and is full of misinformation and twists (lies). In fact, you can’t even find a web page from a credible pro-flat earth perspective on a Google search as they have all been suppressed. Whenever one whole side of a perspective with a lot of traction is suppressed, it makes me want to find out why. There are perhaps millions of people around the world now who are questioning the shape of the earth because the counter evidence is compelling (not because people are gullible or unintelligent). In a 2018 poll of 8,000 US adults, as many as 1 in 6 said that they have doubts about the shape of the earth being a globe. If that many people are questioning, why is information being controlled? And as mentioned, the information I do find is full of misinformation to discredit those who are questioning or finding a different perspective. It’s as if the powers that be are doing damage control to keep us from figuring out the valid holes in the globe earth narrative. It has been pointed out the irony that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations have flat earth logos. Are they mocking us?
For example, this piece by CNN, “The Flat Earth Conspiracy is Spreading Around the Globe. Does it Hide a Darker Core?” Just in that title we see two maneuvers to discredit a globe earth questioner. Questioning is to be labeled a conspiracy (a negative connotation coined by the FBI to publicly shame people who were decrying the truth about the nefarious government initiatives and experiments), and they threw in the word “globe” just to get a dig in. Incidentally, people say the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is about twenty years.🤯
One flat earth proponent who conducts many of his own on camera experiments as well as posting many interviews with intelligent people on the subject is Flat Earth Dave (David Weiss). He has a flat earth app with dozens of videos on a plethora of topics surrounding the flat earth conversation. Another book with a lot of scientific evidences and compelling questions is The Flat Earth Conspiracy, by Eric Dubay.
There are many other collective beliefs that are divisive, limiting, fear-inducing, or even just plain false that should be reexamined by all of us:
· Global warming: there IS a debate and both sides are worth listening to.
· Germ theory (bacteria and viruses are out to get us); check out Dr. William Trebing’s Goodbye Germ Theory: Ending a Century of Medical Fraud.
· Heart-as-a-pump theory; check out Dr. Thomas Cowans, Human Heart, Cosmic Heart: A Doctor’s Quest to Understand, Treat, and Prevent Cardiovascular Disease.
· Gravity theory (yes, gravity is only a theory based on observation; an alternative but compelling theory is density and buoyancy).
· The government is concerned for public safety and well being, and same government can be trusted.
· AIDS: many books have been written on this cover-up debacle. I’ll let you do your own exploration.
The necessary qualities required to uproot old disempowering or fear-inducing beliefs—personal, religious, and collective—have all been alluded to here in this post in some form: openness, courage, patience (getting to the truth about things can take years), willingness to live in questions and uncertainty, which is challenging for many, and being intentional about cultivating empowered and beneficial beliefs through mantras or subliminal reprogramming.
If You Believe in Anything, Make it This
The degree to which you are able to entertain beliefs opposed to your own with openness, curiosity, and honest evaluation is the degree to which you are able to grow, change, mature, and develop more thoughtful, wise, plausible views on the Story of Life. Over-identification with one’s ego or one’s belief systems and inability to question or evaluate one’s full worldview is a recipe for mental enslavement in a groupthink paradigm. In order to evolve and transform in our personal lives, we must be willing to examine and question everything that makes up our lived experience—our thoughts, beliefs, practices, and evidences of those from our outer realities.
The sad fact is that most of us revel in comfort, certainty, and complacency. We don’t want to confront our limiting beliefs because we might be forced to adjust or change too much, outgrow our old skin, and become an unrecognizable form from what we have come to know and rely upon — even if the vessel containing our disguised spark of the Divine is not all that pleasant to be trapped within. We like our routines, our comfort zones, and even our expected outcomes. Even though most of us would say we want better, more exciting lives and we want to be better than what we are, we don’t actually mean it when it comes to our over-reliance on the comfort provided by certainty and routine, or knowingly accepting our limiting belies.
Your beliefs either serve your happiness and empowerment, or they don’t. Are you willing to let go of the ones that don’t?
If you set your mind on nothing else, set it on this: Believe in yourself. Believe in the spark of Divine essence that is replicated within your foundation stones — in your very DNA. You are created in the image of the God; somewhere within you, you have a Divine Nature. This is the most important belief you could ever start with! Change this believe, and you change your world!
Let me know what you think! Did you resonate? Laugh hysterically? Throw rotten tomatoes? I’d like to hear from you!