Get Out of Jail Free: How to Identify Unconscious
Beliefs
By Edwin Harkness Spina
Know thyself.
These words were inscribed in the vestibule of the Temple of
Apollo at Delphi.
For centuries, petitioners seeking advice from the oracle at
Delphi would view the inscription. Philosophers throughout
the ages offered this same advice to their students. These
words are as valuable today as they were almost three
thousand years earlier.
Part of "knowing yourself" is understanding your beliefs.
The difficulty is that most beliefs are subconscious. They
have been accepted without ever having been critically
examined.
As was described in Manifesting
Your Ideal Life,
the Law of Attraction states that you will attract to yourself
those
experiences that match your beliefs. These beliefs create
your experience of reality. What if these beliefs are in
opposition to what you're actually trying to accomplish?
What if they no longer serve you? Wouldn't it be useful to
eliminate these limiting beliefs?
There are a number of techniques to identify unconscious
beliefs: taking a battery of psychological tests or tapping
into your inner wisdom via meditation are two of them. There
is a shortcut that can predict with 99% accuracy what your
beliefs are. It is so simple that people usually overlook
it. Even when it is clearly stated, they frequently ignore
it.
After all, most people have accepted these beliefs as true
and don't want to hear anything that might contradict what
they believe is true. Remember, you are not your beliefs.
You are a divine spiritual being, so why hold onto anything
that is preventing you from realizing this truth?
So here's the secret.
Look around. Whenever you have a repeating problem in some
area of your life, then that is where you have a false or
limiting belief. This doesn't mean that just because you're
in between relationships or jobs, you necessarily have a
false belief. But if the problem constantly reappears, then
you can be 99% certain a false belief is involved.
Avoid the temptation to blame someone for inserting this
false belief into your belief system. After all, you could
easily point fingers at your parents, teachers, friends, TV,
etc., as well as yourself. It's not important where it came
from, you just want to be rid of it, so you can experience
your ideal life.
You have two choices here. You can 1) identify your
unconscious beliefs and release them, or 2) learn to
recognize the symptoms of accepting this limiting belief and
change your thoughts. You can also do a combination of the
two.
=> Choice 1) Your attitudes will help you
to identify your false beliefs. Let's say you want more money.
What is your
impression of wealthy people? Are you happy for them or
resentful? If you're resentful, then what signal do you
think you're sending out to the universe? You don't want
anything to do with those "rich people!" Consequently,
the
Law of Attraction states that you won't attract wealth into
your life.
One way to free yourself of a negative belief is to write it
on a piece of paper and burn it while telling yourself it is
forever banished from your being. Write a positive
affirmation on another piece of paper such as "Good people
can have money." You can add other affirmations, such as "I
am worthy of prosperity" and "Money flows easily to me." Repeat
these affirmations aloud 9 times a day for 21 days. This is the
length of time it takes to reprogram your
instinctive mind, where these beliefs are stored.
=> Choice 2) Recognize that your goal is make sure that you
are always sending out the proper vibration so that you
attract to yourself the experience you desire. The best
barometer of whether you are sending out the proper signals
is to MONITOR YOUR EMOTIONS. If you're not feeling good,
then you need to change your thoughts, because the emotions
that are being felt, indicate your thoughts are sending the
wrong message.
Replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. The book, "Ask
and It is Given" identifies and ranks 22 emotions.
Understanding that most people can't go from despair to joy
in one step, they advise you to simply keep moving up the
ladder. Eventually, you'll get to feel joy more and more
frequently and for longer periods of time.
In both cases, you have substituted positive thoughts and
feelings for negative ones. You may recognize this involves
a degree of self-observation. As was inscribed on the Temple
at Delphi, "Know Thyself."
Incidentally, this process of substituting thoughts will
work for any thought, including a memory. If you have any
unpleasant memories, you can substitute positive experiences
for them. Mystics call this Mental Alchemy, after the old
alchemists that transformed lead into gold. We'll cover this
subject in our next newsletter.
