Power of Beliefs- Musts, Shoulds & Have To's

“All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in our beliefs.”  Tony Robbins, “Stop Your Limiting Beliefs:  10 Empowering Beliefs That Will Change Your Life.

I must.  I should.  I have to.  I need to.  It seemed when I started “witnessing” my thoughts, most of them were bossing me around telling me to “do” stuff.  I “must” chaperone my son’s field trip and lose 30 pounds.  I “have to” do the laundry today and “should” give up my daily diet coke. Each morning I woke up with a ridiculously long “must-should-have to list” and then spent the entire day rushing around trying to check off each item.  At the end of the day, if I accomplished everything listed, I would fall into bed exhausted but feeling successful; however, if any of the items remained unchecked, I would spend the evening feeling guilty and promising myself to “do better/more” tomorrow.  Eventually my list became impossible to finish and my days became consumed with running myself ragged and trying to numb the constant guilt.  Every day I would try to “do” my way out of the constant feelings of guilt; and every day I would fail miserably.   

When I started this process, I thought I needed to learn how to say “no” more and tolerate the guilt that would inevitably follow.  I thought or ask for help more or tell people to simply stop asking me to do things.  I thought I needed to lower my standards or consistently ignore items on my list.  I thought I needed to force myself to make my life smaller by quitting my job or putting my son up for adoption.  What I learned was totally surprising.  I learned that it was my own beliefs that were at the root of this problem.  By looking inward and working on my own beliefs, all of changes I wanted and needed in my life (happier, more balanced, less stressed) happened naturally and flowed more easily than I imagined.

Doing a Belief Audit

“The birth of excellence begins with our awareness that our beliefs are a choice.”  Tony Robbins in Unlimited Power.

A belief is a feeling of absolute certainty about something; it’s a concrete knowing of something’s meaning.  Our beliefs drive our behavior and emotions providing us with a foundation for making decisions and navigating the world.  

Most of us unconsciously act out, and react to, millions of beliefs each day; yet most of us cannot succinctly identify the triggering belief.  When we engage in a Belief Audit we bring awareness to our beliefs and link behavior and/or emotions to the instigating belief.  We can then challenge the validity of each belief letting go of the ones that are false or harmful while affirming the beliefs that are true, positive and that propel us into a better life.  

"The challenge is, most of us do not consciously decide what we’re going to believe.  Instead, often our beliefs are misinterpretations of past events."   Tony Robbins

A Belief Audit is a 2 step process:  1) Identify your beliefs:  this step requires tracing behavior and feelings back to the triggering belief; and 2) Challenge the belief’s validity:  this step requires looking at the belief with a critical eye and actively choosing to accept or discard.  

This process was one of the most transformative and powerful things I have ever done.  However, at first I pushed back on this process since I struggled to accept that my beliefs were not ultimate truths and/or were flexible.  As a person who thinks in black and white and craves certainty, I was very much attached to the definiteness of my beliefs.  I had depended on and relied upon my beliefs for 40 years as “ultimate truths” and accepting that every one of my beliefs was “up for debate” was a large, anxiety-filled challenge.   However, once I got over the anxiety and continued the Audit, the process became easier and the changes in my life occurred quite quickly.  I was completely stunned to realize how many false and harmful (and to be honest bat crap crazy) beliefs were running (and ruining) my life.  I had a lot of inaccurate beliefs from my parents that I didn’t even know I had.  I had beliefs arising out of untrue assumptions and misperceptions.  I had beliefs from childhood that I had outgrown and beliefs I had accepted from people I don’t admire or trust.  I had conflicting beliefs and beliefs establishing impossible standards.  I realized soon after starting my Belief Audit that one of the biggest reasons my life had run amuck was because I was trying to live up to all of these unconscious beliefs that were false, unreasonable and/or not even mine.  

Although the Belief Audit seems simple, the process can be tricky.  Over the next few blogs I will share my personal experiences, challenges and strategies which I have found helpful. 

Who Am I?

But, if I am not my thoughts, then who the hell am I?  

Did you ever have a moment where you just knew?  Where the decision you made just felt right?  You didn’t spend days looking at the problem from every angle or asking every family member, friend, neighbor and dog what they thought?  You just knew.  What I realized was that it is in these gut-feeling moments that YOU are showing up. 

Having such a strong belief in my thoughts, I more often than not disregarded my gut; I disregarded those moments when I felt like I had to do something since the facts didn’t support making that decision.  Logically, my gut feeling didn’t make sense so I shoved the feeling down and made the factually rational decision.  I simply couldn’t accept that there was “more” or something deeper and/or bigger than my thoughts.  But looking back on those moments, I realize the I (big I) was yelling, screaming and throwing the biggest temper tantrum trying to be heard over my very very very strong thinking mind. 

For me, I (big I) showed up most often in my romantic relationships.  In ending several long-term romantic relationships, I would tell friends it had “gotten so bad” that it was impossible for me to stay.  I would label some tangible event as having occurred that made me “have to” terminate the relationship.  However, looking back at those moments more closely, no big event actually occurred; instead my gut feeling that I could not stay one more minute had gotten so strong that I couldn’t shove it down anymore.  I would inform friends, “I didn’t have any other choice but to leave the scumbag;” but the truth was that something more powerful than my thinking brain was telling me it was time to end the relationship. 

On most occasions I dismissed this deeper knowing as total hooey.  My thinking brain was in full control and was easily powerful enough to “think” myself out of anything I felt in my gut.  If my gut told me something that could not be analytically, factually or tangibly supported, then it wasn’t real.  However, I now know that both my analytical skills (i.e. thoughts) and my gut (i.e. ME) should be equally valued.   Over identifying with my thoughts, and wholeheartedly believing them to be true, cut off an entire side of self. 

The most glaring example of my “thinking over” my intuition happened approximately 15 years ago.  I was on a Thanksgiving week vacation visiting with my family in Winter Park Colorado.  The day after Thanksgiving I went with my brother, sister-in-law, fiancé (at the time) and 6 year old niece sledding on a small hill on the outskirts of town. 

Standing at the top of this small hill with my fiancé, we both watched as my young niece impatiently jumped in a toboggan and slid down the hill.  Her laughter lingered at the top of the hill as my brother smiled up at me and yelled, “Your turn.”  I sat down and stretched my legs out in front on me on the blue, plastic toboggan.  As I grabbed the sides tightly, steadying the flimsy plastic around me, I felt intense fear well up inside of me.  In an instant, the fear had escalated to pure panic and I grabbed my fiancé’s arm to stop him from launching me off my flat perch.  Still holding his arm to delay my send off, I looked down the hill dotted with young children laughing as they enjoyed the short ride to bottom.  I scanned the hundreds of sled tracks that covered the snowy hill and my eyes fell on my 6 year old niece, who was still smiling after her short solo ride.  I called myself a “wussy” (i.e. my thoughts called me a wussy) and let go of the grip on my fiancé. 

The last orthopedic doctor I saw several years ago said I was “lucky to be walking.” I had hit a rock and had broken my pelvis in 4 places and had cracked my tail bone so significantly that the crack almost reached my spinal column.  The intense fear I felt at the top of the hill (i.e. some deeper knowing) couldn’t be rationally explained and therefore I ignored it completely.  My thoughts (rational mind) once again trumped my gut and the damage was tangible and long lasting.    

When I met my husband, I just knew.  Upon first meeting several of my friends, I immediately felt like I had known them my whole life.  I knew I was pregnant way before I took a test.  You hear about people knowing that they have a health problem or that they are in some sort of danger.  These are the times when YOU are heard. 

Total Anarchy

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”  Neale Donald Walsch

Once the concept of “you are not your thoughts” sunk in, and the excitement faded, pure terror set in.  I had been living in a world that wasn’t real; a world entirely created in my head.  Wait, what?  I realized why I had struggled so much with this concept; because accepting it as true is fricking hard.  Terrifying, anxiety fueled, fear.  In a split second, the core of what I believed had vanished.  For 45 years I “knew” who I was.  I “knew” how to act and what I “thought” I believed in. Now, in one moment, my entire “world” was turned upside down… it was overwhelming… terrifying…. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Accepting that the “rules” I was living by weren’t true was one of the scariest things I have ever done.   The rules I had created had provided me safety and certainty when engaging in the world.  I knew what was right and what was wrong.  I knew what a good mother did and acted accordingly.  I knew what a good spouse did, a good daughter did and how a good employee acted.  In accepting the concept that I (big I) was not my thoughts (and therefore eliminated the high value I had placed on my thoughts), I wiped out every rule I lived in.  Again, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!  

During the weeks that followed my Aha, I continually struggled to fully accept the “I am not my thoughts” concept.  The unsettled feelings were so great that I had many moments where I wished I could un-know the concept and go back to following my made up rules.  I remember standing in the grocery store looking at yogurt.  I thought to myself, “I want a blueberry yogurt” and immediately felt extreme panic.  Did I really like blueberry yogurt or was this some false belief I had?  I felt like every thought I had was “up for debate” and that I had no solid ground to stand on. 

I felt like ME (big ME) had been kidnapped and held hostage by my thoughts.  The big ME had been shoved into a windowless room behind a locked door…hidden behind couches, chairs, large kitchen appliances….. .  I didn’t think I had ever even been introduced to this person and now I was being told that this person is ME.  I felt like what a kidnap victim must feel like when they are reunited with their family (with their real lives) after 25 years in captivity.  Wait, this is my real life? 

Looking back on those few weeks, I clearly remember the fear and anxiety.  But, now two years later, I now know I had to walk through the intense fear so that I could start to create a life based upon ME and not the made up beliefs and rules that I had been living by.   

World of Make-Believe

My thoughts had created an entire world inside my head that was just an illusion.  It wasn’t REAL.  I had let my thoughts envelop my life and I was living within them.  My thoughts had become an engrossing movie that I never stopped watching; a compelling drama that had whisked me away from the here and now.  How many times had my obsessing about the size of my thighs or some new wrinkle been so consuming that I had missed my highway exit?  How often had I driven to the store and had no memory of the actual drive? 

Thoughts create a movie in your head that sucks you in.  Just like in a movie, you can lose track of time and everything tangible is forgotten.  In an entertaining movie you forget that you are sitting in a movie theatre or what time it is.  Identically, when consumed by your own thoughts, you arrive at the store with no memory of the drive or you read the same page of a book over and over with no memory of what you read.  In a movie, you react to the story on the screen; you scream when someone jumps out of a closet or you feel sad when a character dies.  You do the same thing when you are engrossed in your own thoughts.  You think about your spouse forgetting to record Jimmy Fallon last week and you immediately feel irritated; you think about your mother criticizing the length of your bangs 5 years ago and you immediately feel irked.  The events on a movie screen aren’t happening; neither are most of the events your thoughts create.

I obsessed for months worried about whether it would rain on my wedding day; not only was that not happening nor did happen but I had absolutely no control over whether it would rain or not.  I ruminated over a client paying me late and created a bleak picture of me not being able to pay my phone bill; the client was delayed in paying me but the late payment had no impact on my ability to pay my phone bill (or any other bill).   I would become totally preoccupied with things I had said in a business meeting that I perceived as stupid; the meeting was well over and seemed to impact no one…. but me.

Instead of living an actual life, I was living in a world created by my thoughts.  Where gaining 10 pounds meant I was a failure.  Where my boss being short with me meant he didn’t think I was doing a good job and was going to fire me.  Where when a friend doesn’t call me back it means she is mad at me.  My thoughts created a world that wasn’t real; and consumed by them, I was missing out on…my life. 

Driver Not The Car

"Thinking happens to you."  Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth:  Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.

YOU are not your thoughts.  YOU are the one who hears, notices and/or observes the thoughts. 

Over the years I read about this concept in numerous books, written in different ways.  However, I never fully “got it.”  This is one of those whoo-hooey concepts that I really struggled to fully understand.  Since I know how this concept has the ability to change everything, I will attempt to explain this concept in a different, more concrete way…. by using a “SAT question” type analysis.  YOU are to your thoughts as a driver is to a car…..…

YOU (the big YOU) is the driver of a car and your thoughts are the car.  As a driver of a car, you have total control over the car; you can turn left, speed up or slow down.  However, you are not the car.  YOU and your thoughts do and should have an identical relationship.  YOU are not your thoughts and as such, you have control of your thoughts.  

If you are like I was, and still often am, no such relationship exists.  My thoughts and my “self” had become so intertwined that I had forgotten that I was in control (i.e. the driver) of my thoughts.  My thoughts and SELF had become so enmeshed that I had lost sight of the fact that I could get out of my head (i.e. the car).  I had forgotten that I (big I) was separate from my thoughts…. Just like if a driver forgot that he was not the actual car.  

In Michael’s Singer’s book, the “untethered Soul,” he explains that YOU are the subject while your thoughts are just another object you can be aware of.  You are driving down the street and see a tree and think “tree.”  Are YOU the tree?  Of course not; you are the one who thought “tree.”  You are the “subject” and the thought of the tree is the “object.”

An exercise hopefully helps provide a bit more clarification.  First think of a red truck… then picture a green tree… and then think of a white cloud.  YOU are the one thinks/pictures the red truck, green tree and white cloud.  YOU are not the truck, the tree or the cloud.  Those thoughts are the object and YOU are subject, i.e. the one who is thinking.  Just like the car analysis, YOU “drive” your thoughts and should always be aware of the separation between YOU and your thoughts (i.e. the car).

Thoughts were like breathing to me; constant.  However, identical to breath, we can easily obtain perspective (i.e. get out of the car) of the separateness of thoughts and SELF by focusing on your thoughts.  I found writing down my thoughts immediately provided understanding of the subject/object roles.  For example, yesterday I tried on some jeans.  Because I have put on some weight, the jeans were tighter than the last time I had tried them on.  As soon as I started jumping from one foot to the other wiggling to get them over my “larger than before” thighs, the thoughts immediately ramped up.   I knew I need to “get out of” the rushing flow of negative commentary so I grabbed a pen and began writing down the stream of thoughts.  “You can’t wear those; you have totally let yourself go, you are a failure; you are fat, you are loser; you lack discipline.  (And this is just in the first 10 seconds….).  When I paused and read the words back, I understood I had a choice… a choice whether to get sucked into the drama or not; whether to believe the thoughts and let them make me feel like crap…or not.  In the past, I would have simply believed my critical thoughts to be me and true and would have reacted accordingly (i.e. I would have felt like crap all day and ruminated on the size of my thighs.)  Instead, with the understanding that my thoughts are separate, I was able to look at them less emotionally… and then was able to either accept them or disregard them.  In this case, I agreed with the fact that I had gained weight… however, I disregarded the rest… and with that clarity I was able to make a better decision about what to do.

Michael Singer labels thought as arising from your “inner roommate.”  When I started this journey, I labeled the voice in my head as “Mr. Whackadoo” because of the absolute looney toon nature of a lot of things the voice said.   For 40 years I had allowed Mr. Whackadoo to guide my life and a lot of times make me feel absolutely crappy.  Mr. Whackadoo always had a problem and could obsess about things that happened years ago.  Mr. Whackadoo was never happy and since I believed he and I were the same, I (the big I) was never happy. 

“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice in the mind – you are the one who hears it.”  Michael Singer from The Untethered Soul. 

First Breakthrough

"For thousands of years, humanity has been increasingly mind-possessed, failing to recognize the possessing entity as "not self."  Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth:  Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.

The BIG AHA!  In a split second, I “got it” so fully that absolutely everything changed. My entire perspective shifted… the concept:  YOU (the big YOU) are bigger, broader and deeper than your thoughts…..YOU are not your thoughts.   

Before this moment, I always believed my thoughts were me and made me… well, me.  My thoughts were one of my strengths; they were the reason I graduated from college and law school and was good at my job.  My thoughts guided my decisions and directed my life; I wholeheartedly believed the voice in my head.  However, in a split second, BLAM!!!… all gone. 

I was in my car listening to the audio version of Eckhert Tolle’s book, the Power of Now.  I was at the very beginning of the book listening to Tolle tell the story of his awakening.  He described waking up early one morning feeling absolute dread.  Miserable and questioning why he should continue living, he began repeating the words, “I cannot live with myself any longer” to himself.  Suddenly, he was struck by how “peculiar” the thought was.  If “I” cannot live with “myself” then there must be a separate “I” and a separate “self.”   

With those words, I GOT IT.  The full breadth of this realization took my breath away.  I spent the next hour of my commute in the car with my mind racing.  I ran through life events like a flip-book on crack.  Every event looked different, felt different, seemed different…. In that one second, my entire perspective had shifted.…….

YOU and your thoughts are not the same.  YOU are the one listening to your thoughts.   Your thoughts are talking and YOU hear them. YOU are the observer, the observer of your thoughts.  YOU and your thoughts are separate and independent and because of that, YOU have the ability to believe their ranting’s … or not.    

For 40 years I had believed that the voice in my head WAS ME.  For over 40 years I listened to the voice, believed the voice and acted accordingly.  Understanding that this was not true changed everything and changed the trajectory of my “pulling myself out of the dark hole” self-work from action focused (i.e. tell me what to DO, what to SAY, how to ACT) to one that was deeper, bigger… well, spiritual.  

Thoughts aren’t YOU.