Who would you be without your story? Who would you be without your current limiting beliefs? What is a belief anyway? When we believe something, we think it is true. That makes it a belief. All beliefs distort our perception of reality, since they are the filter through which we see the world. We are emotionally attached to our beliefs. Being emotionally attached to something prevents us from seeing it objectively. When we examine a belief and diffuse the emotional power of it, we eliminate the distortion and that in itself automatically dispels the illusory belief.
There are a lot of practitioners in the personal development field who will charge you hundreds and thousands of dollars to attend a workshop or private sessions designed to help you reframe your past experiences with the advertised goal to eliminate your negative beliefs. I’m sure many of them are effective. But you can do the work with a little self inquiry on your own, as well.
I personally have never heard anyone say it as well as Abraham-Hicks when they teach law of attraction. They have a lot of free information at their website, and on Youtube you can find many videos, and simply perusing their material will begin changing some core beliefs you may not have been aware of. It’s good work, it’s revelatory work and it’s fun work.
Nice segue into Byron Katie’s method called The Work. It’s a simple process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question thoughts that cause suffering. It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you. She has the entire process online for free, which is why I give it to you here now. The method has you begin with a worksheet called Judge Your Neighbor as a starting point for self-realization. You write about someone you haven’t yet forgiven 100%.
1. Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you, and why? What is it about them that you don’t like? I am ___________ at ______________ because ________.
Example: I am angry at Paul because he doesn’t listen to me, he doesn’t appreciate me, he argues with everything I say.
2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
I want ___________ to ________________.
Example: I want Paul to see that he is wrong.
I want him to apologize.
3. What is it that they should or shouldn’t do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?
__________ should/shouldn’t _________.
Example: Paul should take better care of himself. He shouldn’t argue with me.
4. What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
I need__________ to ____________.
Example: I need Paul to hear me and respect me.
5. What do you think of them? Make a list.
________________ is ___________________.
Example: Paul is unfair, arrogant, loud, dishonest, way out of line, and unconscious
6. What is it that you don’t want to experience with that person again?
I don’t ever want to ______________________.
Example: I don’t ever want to feel unappreciated by Paul again. I don’t ever want to see him smoking and ruining his health again.
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In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions and a turnaround. For example, the first thought that you might question on the Worksheet is “Paul doesn’t listen to me.” Find someone in your life about whom you have had that thought, and let’s do The Work. “[Name] doesn’t listen to me”:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
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After you’ve investigated your statement with the four questions, you’re ready to turn it around. Each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you and the person you’ve judged have in common. A statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other, and to the self. For example, “Paul doesn’t understand me” can be turned around to “Paul does understand me.” Another turnaround is “I don’t understand Paul.” A third is “I don’t understand myself.”
Byron Katie says, “As I began living my turnarounds, I noticed that I was everything I called you. You were merely my projection. Now, instead of trying to change the world around me, I can put the thoughts on paper, investigate them, turn them around, and find that I am the very thing I thought you were. In the moment I see you as selfish, I am selfish (deciding how you should be). In the moment I see you as unkind, I am unkind. If I believe you should stop waging war, I am waging war on you in my mind.” Here are a few more examples of turnarounds:
“He should understand me” turns around to:
– He shouldn’t understand me. (This is reality.)
– I should understand him.
– I should understand myself.
This is just an example of one free resource available to you online, for a technique that others will dilute and sell to you for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and wrap it all up with a bunch of fluff to market it. If you want to deepen The Work, Byron Katie offers that as well.
I’ve through the years on many occasions gotten together in a group of friends for a day or a weekend and we all do self inquiry work, answering questions for ourselves, writing in our little notebooks. We spend our time in silence and use the writing to draw from within.
I even created a website called Sisters of the Circle, where we have several different Virtual Retreats for Self Discovery and Spiritual Exploration in self inquiry format.
I’ve spent many a weekend camping alone, sitting with these questions to discover more about myself, and uncover one limiting belief after another.
I enjoy doing it while camping, so I can have a campfire and turn it into a burning bowl session: writing down what I’m ready to be free of, tossing it into the fire with a prayer of release.
I like uncovering new layers of the onion that is Me.
And yes, I realize that the layers ARE the onion.
🙂
Related site: Virtual Retreats for Self Discovery and Spiritual Exploration