Expanding Our Beliefs
by Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S.
Duality is the nature of life on earth. This means that our lives and ourselves contain all possibilities. Healthy and sick, defensive and open, child-like and parental, compulsive and balanced, harmful and healing, strong and weak, loving and hating are some examples of this duality. It is through the contrast of opposites that we consciously identify preferences, develop motivation toward their achievement and gratitude in their experience.
The elements that influence our development and identity include genetics, environment, physiology, psychology, sociology, and spirituality.
The specific contents of these elements create a framework from which perceptions of ourselves and lives arise. The greater the impact a person or experience has on us, the higher the frequency of similar events, and the younger we are when they occur, the more deeply imprinted our views are.
Strong personal viewpoints can become core beliefs, which lead us to expect and assume their repetition, and act as if they are an accurate picture of reality. This affords us some measure of predictability and security, but does not allow for change. Because beliefs develop in relationship to a broad range of specific conditions of the elements mentioned above, when conditions change, ideally we expand our beliefs.
The mind works by associations however, so when new experiences are sufficiently similar to events that led to core beliefs, we remain unchanged. And the longer a core belief has existed, the less similarities are required to trigger the old response. This is how core beliefs are self-perpetuating and stifle learning and growth.
