When I was growing up, as a child, I was exposed to many ideas,
actions, behaviors and experiences. The most important of those were ones that I heard over and over and saw
over and over in peoples' behavior around me. I started believing things such
as "Men are not emotional", "Women must behave a certain
way", "I must be a good student", "I must respect
authority", "I must be loyal to my family, culture and religion, no
matter what", "I must be nice to people", "I must be
loving", "I must be a great host", so on and so forth. Over time, I accumulated a
whole lot of beliefs, some that were good, many that were not so good and some
that were downright damaging and dangerous. These beliefs became a big part of
how I thought, behaved and lived my life as a whole.
However, there came a point in my life, when many of my beliefs
were challenged. This happened when I moved to Canada from Pakistan in my late
teens, a country very far and different from the one I was about to step into.
I started noticing that many of the beliefs that I held to be true were
completely the opposite in this part of the world. For example, I was taught
since childhood to respect my teachers by not challenging what they say in any
way. When I started attending school in Canada, I started to notice students constantly challenging the
teachers, some in positive ways (which I learned was positive later) and others
in very negative ways.
To make things even more challenging, living in Toronto, Canada, I
was exposed to people from other cultural backgrounds that came with their own
set of beliefs and behaviors even more different; neither Western nor what I grew up with. One
belief after another, I was forced to see that not everything that I was taught
was valid and on top of that, I had no idea how to differentiate what was true
from what was false. After many years of suffering, at the thought of not
understanding my own reality, I finally made a decision to understand where my
beliefs came from, what they meant, and whether they were true and/or beneficial in my life.
So then, what did I learn? I learned that
beliefs are at the core of how we see ourselves and our environment. Beliefs are thoughts, ideas and
ways of living that we have accepted to be true in our minds for a prolonged period of
time, and the longer we hold
onto a belief as true and the more emotional energy we attach to those beliefs,
the more powerful they become
in directing the course of our lives. For example, if we have been taught over and over that the
world is a dangerous place, by protective parents and our
environment or we have had one or two experiences with dangerous
situations (reinforced by our lack
of knowledge or experience) or a combination of the two, then it becomes
part of our belief system. So what does this mean? This means that by accepting
an arbitrary idea to be true we make it a very important
aspect of our life which then holds a strong emotional energy within us.
Slowly but surely an
idea or thought over time moves into our subconscious mind. As we have learned from neuroscience, psychology and
from observing peoples' behavior in terms of their habits, most of our thoughts
and behaviors are processed subconsciously. For instance, when we are learning
to drive, we have to be very aware of everything from the way the car moves, to
the way we are sitting, to our surroundings. Eventually, this awareness goes into our
subconscious mind, which can not only process it faster, but is able to do all
of the learned actions
without our complete conscious awareness. In the same manner, if we believe an
idea to be true, for an extended period of time, the idea moves into our subconscious.
So the subconscious mind is able to process the idea that "The world is a
dangerous place", which
initially took time to learn, a lot faster and without our complete
conscious awareness. So, just
as we stop becoming completely aware of the way we are driving, we stop being
completely aware of our actions in relation to the belief “The world is a dangerous place”.
This means that
the belief "The world is a dangerous place” keeps showing up in our
thoughts and in our actions without our conscious awareness.
You might have heard or read the quote attributed to
Gandhi or Lao Tzu “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your
words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your
habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny”. This
quote is probably one of the most important and true statements in summarizing how our mind works in terms
of habit because our habits are based on subconscious processes which have a great
deal to do with our beliefs that operate in our lives through our subconscious
mind.
So then, what do we do with beliefs? When I exhausted every kind
of escape mechanism I had inside of me, to avoid the pain of facing my beliefs
that were being challenged, I made a decision to face my beliefs. I made this
decision because in order to see what was true and more importantly what was
true for me, I had to question my beliefs and where they came from without a
need to reject or accept them. It was a sort of rediscovery or relearning of
what I already knew from a different vantage point. When I made the decision to
question my beliefs, the pain started to subside and what came about was a
child-like curiosity to learn more! This became my Aha moment. When I started
to become open to learning, to different perspectives, to new experiences, over
time, I started to see clearly what kind of beliefs were holding me back and
what kind of beliefs were benefiting me and what kind of beliefs held true for
me. So I went on a journey to question everything that I knew to be true, and I
can tell you that I am still on that journey of self-discovery, adventure and
learning; as we all are naturally, if we allow our natural Self to do what it
does best which is to learn and experience or experience and learn.
So here is my challenge to you. I want you
to do these 3 things from now on:
1) Learn to become aware of your thoughts
and actions; specifically thoughts and actions that are part of your habits.
Habitual thoughts from "I am a Man, and I must be a certain way or I am a
woman, I must behave a certain way" to "Rich people are crooks" to
"I must go to the doctor to get better" to having habits that make
you want to be really nice to everyone for no apparent reason to getting angry
at things that might seem irrational to you or to others to any other habitual
thoughts and actions that are part of your personality. I will also be
exploring different strategies on how to become more aware of your thoughts and
actions in future articles.
2) When you become aware of your thoughts
and actions, start asking yourself “where does this thought or action come from?”
and “why is it true and important for me?
When you start to question your thoughts
and actions in relation to your habits, you will start to move towards finding
out why they are important to you and whether or not the beliefs you hold are
true or beneficial to your life.
3) Become open to learning. Before
learning something new, either from another person, a book, a documentary or an
experience, put aside your beliefs (when you become aware of your thoughts and
actions, it will be easy to place a pause button on your beliefs) and really
listen to and understand new perspectives without the biased input from your
beliefs that might or might not be true.
When you do these three things, you will become
open to learning and to a bigger perspective than you had before. Your mind will
have more to work with. You will become conscious of your thoughts and actions
and you will start to take responsibility for your life. When you take full
responsibility for your thoughts, actions and habits, you will start to see the
power that you have within yourself - The power of knowledge, action and
choice. The power to direct your life based on your conscious awareness.
It is my promise to you that when you apply
these concepts in your life, on a consistent basis, you will start to see
yourself and your world change for the better.
These exercises and concepts come with a
warning label. When facing your beliefs – you might be facing some of the most
painful aspects of yourself. They might make you completely uncomfortable,
unsure, unclear and hopeless in life but only in the beginning. Over time, if
you are open to learning and possibilities, you will start to make sense of
yourself and your life, but this time, it will be something that you came up
with yourself and not something that you were conditioned to believe without
your complete understanding or awareness.
To learn more about how your beliefs affect you and your life, click on the following link to watch a powerful training video that I did with Adam Dare (Entrepreneur, Fitness expert, Life coach) Own Your Fitness
In this training video with Adam dare, you will learn:
- How you developed the beliefs that you have.
- How do your beliefs affect your life
- How can you deal with limiting beliefs
- How to raise your awareness to see past your limiting beliefs.
from the perspective of health/fitness and life.
Here is the link again:
