Jan 16

Intent and Freeing Beliefs

The intent is a one-pointedness in our beliefs. Intent clarifies and energizes beliefs, giving them power and direction. The clear intent is one of the most powerful forces available to us.

         When you choose a new belief, be forceful; fill that belief with energy. By fully accepting that our beliefs create our reality, we place into motion our committed intent. Barriers that have been blocking our movements begin to fall away as we gain confidence in our natural power to materialize our beliefs into reality.

         This has always been happening. It’s just that we have not recognized or taken responsibility for this naturally unavoidable condition of existence. Taking responsibility for this with conscious awareness brings new freedom into our lives. Solutions become evident.  Daily experience reveals answers to old problems that were always present but seldom seen. Suddenly, new directions, disguised as unnoticed choices, an opportunity where previously none was detected.

         Your focus will direct your energy. Be aggressive. Birth is aggressive, life is aggressive, the unfolding of a flower is aggressive, and a thunderstorm is aggressive. These are all powerful expressions of intent. We have that same power available to us at all times – use it!  If you don’t choose your beliefs, they will choose you. It is easier to choose your beliefs than to be thrown from one state of mind to another by unexamined and unknown ideas.

Jan 16

The Freedom of Beliefs

Remember, beliefs are changeable just like sweaters or pants;  what you have for dinner, words you place on paper, paint in a picture, notes in a melody, or whom you spend the day with.

         Beliefs are choices. We choose them, or, if we are unaware of them, they often choose us. Either way, they are creating our everyday reality. Whether you believe this or not, it is still true.

         In order to be responsible and have freedom and choice in our lives, it is necessary to take responsibility for our beliefs. To have responsibility for our beliefs, we must be “able to respond.”  Respond to limiting beliefs by changing them and to life-promoting beliefs by encouraging them.  To do this, we must first believe that beliefs are changeable.

Core Beliefs

Core beliefs or core concepts about our everyday reality are very powerful indeed.  Their particular and unique power derives from their obvious nature. They are so a part of our daily perception that we mistake them for REALITY.  We don’t see them as beliefs, which renders them immutable and unchangeable. This causes us to lose our sense of individual power and free will, leading to hopelessness and helplessness. We believe we are “victims” of “reality” and cease to recognize our power to change our beliefs.

         Look around you. All that you see is not reality.  It is your “reality” through the focus of your personal and culturally accepted beliefs.  Change those beliefs and you will change your “reality.”  The more thoroughly you accept these new ideas, the greater the change in your experience.  You are the creator of your experience. The artist of your own life. Pick your colors well and plan the picture most pleasing to you. It’s your picture and the quality of every painting is in the eye of the beholder. Don’t trade your free will for the likes and dislikes of another. It is the very diversity of opinion that gives life variety and interest.  If we all lived according to the views of others, there would be no excitement, only the sameness of these opinions and ideas.  The purpose of life would be lost in the beliefs of others.

Jan 12

What is Belief Therapy?

To understand Belief Therapy, it is necessary to understand that the primary, most revolutionary, and perhaps remarkable tenet of Belief Therapy is also its most simple. It is that: there is nothing wrong with us.

We are already OK. There is nothing to fix and there never was. Oddly enough, our attempts to fix ourselves often lead to our dis-ease.

The “problem” is our belief in our brokenness. This belief causes compulsive, self, and/or other destructive behavior, which then creates “evidence” of our brokenness, continuing the self-fulfilling prophecy of desperation and limitation.

Once the belief in our brokenness takes hold, our options become limited. We either attempt to fix what was never broken, which creates distress, dis-ease, and obsessive/compulsive behavior; or, we give up trying to fix ourselves, accept the belief in our brokenness or “badness” and subsequently act in limiting and destructive ways. Either direction leads to a path that lacks the quality and joy that is our birthright. By adopting the tenets of Belief Therapy and recognizing our inherent and pre-existing “goodness,” we lose these limiting and compulsive behaviors and recognize our freedom to choose a life of quality.

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Jan 12

The Sinful Self

Freeing ourselves from obsessive introspection allows for participatory relationships with others. We are now free to explore the moment. Free to explore the boundless, aware, energy around us. This may sound mystical or esoteric, but it is the most practical, concrete, and pragmatic of all understandings. Through this awareness, we fully participate in the reality of our lives.

        What is impractical is continuing to obsessively examine our ideas of others’ perceptions about us. At these times we are only in touch with our own imagination. In essence, with nothing, nothing, no reality. Just our autistic thoughts about what we think they think about us. We then imagine what they imagine this must mean. I’ll tell you what it means. It means nothing! Nothing. No reality. We create knot after knot in our daily lives, all based upon a mirage.

        Ironically, oftentimes we create the opposite of the impression we want. The attempt to control others’ impressions and perceptions of us, often makes us so uptight, anxious, and insecure that this is what they see. We have squeezed ourselves out of the natural flowing shape others often find desirable, and once again, our solution has become our problem. One self-fulfilling prophecy after another, like snowballs rolling the wrong way down the hill.

        Learning to accept and believe in ourselves allows for the natural expression of our being, which we find pleasing, and oddly enough so do others. Opening our hearts to ourselves, once again we come full circle back to the excitement, pleasure, and challenges of everyday life. How important are things when we have ourselves? How important are images when we have reality? By believing in our wholeness, we cease our obsessive strivings, lose our attachment to image and allow ourselves to see. What we see, once again, is that most precious event, our day-to-day life.

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Jan 12

Feeling Trapped

When you are feeling trapped, take time to look within yourself. Observe the situations and circumstances of your everyday life. Discover the choices you have been making leading to these circumstances. Imagine the beliefs that are guiding those types of choices. Look backward into the past and take responsibility for your choices that have created your present. Recognize that you have full freedom at this moment to begin to make different choices and to create different present moments; ones more to your liking, filled with quality and freedom.

         See what choices are available to you right now. Look carefully, because choices, when you are not used to looking for them, can seem to be invisible. They appear not to exist, but in fact, they are there. Start with very simple and obvious choices. “What can I choose; what are my options? Could I choose this instead of that? What might happen if I chose that instead of this?” Then take responsibility for both your past and present choices. Visualize the future you desire, imagine the choices necessary to create that future, and take responsibility for beginning that process now. Stop being a victim.

         The simple truth is, you were born free; you have free will and choices available to you now. You are responsible for those choices and the circumstances arising from them. You choose your life. Look closely into your past, present, and future. Examine your beliefs, discover your choices, and create your reality.

Jan 12

Feeling Free

Life is a series of choices. The key to feeling free is in recognizing these daily choices as truly choices, and not obligations or demands. We create our daily reality as we consciously and unconsciously make both small and large choices.

         We can choose to get up at daybreak or sleep until noon. We can choose to go to work or stay home; choose to get married or get a divorce, choose to have children or not. These choices, moment to moment, day by day, week by week, and year by year, create the very fabric of our daily lives. Another choice we often don’t recognize is the choice to see that we have choices.

         When we become aware that every day is filled with choices, then we cease to be victims. Instead, we recognize that we are living in a world filled with freedom. The perception of choice is essential to the self-experience of freedom. When we refuse to see our choices as choices, we experience them as commitments, obligations, restrictions, responsibilities, or demands. We then perceive ourselves as victims and others as our victimizers. We lose our sense of freedom and feel imprisoned. However, feeling imprisoned is not the same as being imprisoned.

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Jan 12

Freedom is a Choice

Inherent within freedom is a choice.  Without choice, there is no freedom.  Without any felt freedom, we are victims of our own choosing.

         When you are feeling trapped, take time to look within yourself.  Observe the situations and circumstances of your everyday life.  Discover the choices you have been making leading to these circumstances.  Imagine the beliefs that are guiding those types of choices.  Look backward into the past and take responsibility for your choices that have created your present.  Recognize that you have full freedom at this moment to begin to make different choices and to create different present moments; ones more to your liking, filled with quality and freedom.

         See what choices are available to you right now.  Look carefully, because choices, when you are not used to looking for them, can seem to be invisible.  They appear not to exist, but in fact, they are there.  Start with very simple and obvious choices.  “What can I choose; what are my options?  Could I choose this instead of that?  What might happen if I chose that instead of this?”  Then take responsibility for both your past and present choices.  Visualize the future you desire, imagine the choices necessary to create that future, and take responsibility for beginning that process now.  Stop being a victim.

If you would like to learn more….

Jan 12

Codependency and Dependency

Breaking the codependent/dependent spiral is an opportunity and a challenge for both. It is absolutely essential that one or the other break the spiral to stop the dysfunctional relationship.

This spiral is based on core beliefs.

The core beliefs of the codependent are: “I need to do more than my share in order to be good enough,” “If I’m not good enough, people won’t want me, they will leave me,” and, “I will be utterly alone and abandoned. I would rather die than be utterly alone and abandoned.”

And for the dependent, the core belief is: “Others have to take care of me because I am not able to take care of myself,” “I am too weak,” “too inadequate,” or “too sick.”

These core beliefs function at an unconscious level within the code-pendent/dependent spiral and tie together the dysfunctional and destructive relationship.

 Codependency and dependency are addictions. Powerful addictions!

Jan 12

Changes

Dependents don’t see codependency as an addiction because they genuinely believe that they are dependent on the codependent. They believe that they are not capable like other people, and they require and deserve a codependent to take care of them. Both parties fail to see clearly the dysfunctional and addictive spiral. This makes treatment difficult.

The first step in healing the codependent/dependent relationship is to acknowledge that it is truly a codependent/dependent relationship. One way for a codependent to know that a particular behavior is codependent, rather than genuine caring, is how they feel when they set appropriate limits with the dependent. Can they sleep at night? Or do they continue to feel guilty and responsible for that other person?

The expression, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” is analogous to leading dependents to water, if they don’t drink, are you going to recognize that this is the choice of the dependents or are you going to continue to try and make them drink?

Do you feel that you have failed if you can’t?

If so, that’s codependency. If you buy people books and they tear out the pages, are you going to say, “Oh well, I did my share? If they don’t want to read the book that’s their choice.” Or are you going to try and put the pieces of the book back together and read it to them? If you do, you’re codependent.

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