How exactly do you examine your beliefs, what does examining beliefs entail?

You explained that exceptionally well Rachel, thanks a heap for your help!! I got so much out of your post just now that will help me apply this to my life.

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Thank you, Sam :relaxed: Bless you for caring enough about yourself to give it a shot. beliefs are just that - creative geniuses, which govern every moment of our days and nights…

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May I suggest reading the post about F1 /F2 that I posted in both Fans of Seth and SNA. The idea that one belief is as good as another is touched on there, and that frame of mind is also a great help when working with beliefs.

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here’s my two pennies, introspection opens into such a broad spectrum of memories, that looking for the root of beliefs can be a challenging task. Beliefs are an amalgamation of “quantum data”, ranging from first hand experiences to genetic memories, beliefs are further shaped by your culture. so pinpointing the exact source of a belief is near impossible from our (3D+linear time) perspective. there are way and means to dig into portion of ourselves than we usually are not aware, and find some information/memories there that might give some clues on the subject, keeping in mind that everything is open to interpretation. and informations from other realms have to be translated to our means of communication and understanding, sometimes missing elements of the original…
The way i see it is to start small, using a couple of simple and effective methods. I’d like, at this stage to clarify something: the statement “You create your own reality”, it’s not something you need to learn to do, it’s simply a fact. so by observing your immediate environment, you are simply observing your beliefs. some beliefs are wide spread, therefor more or less accepted as fact, such as, “the sun will rise tomorrow morning”,“my eyes see”,“dogs bark” ect…, those can at this stage, pushed to the side. then there’s more personal beliefs; that’s where the fun starts. to figure out your personal beliefs, listen to yourself think or talk, and catch yourself when you use the words “always” and “never”, you will quickly realize what you believe, like “men are always like that”, “Pasta never tastes good”, “he’s always angry”. etc… now if there is a belief you question, then ask yourself “Why am I making this assumption” , sometimes it will be blatant or immediate, sometimes you might have to dig a little. it’s a simple method but the words we choose spontaneously, speak our mind more than those we consider. listen to your own statements or expression, and the words you choose, they will tell you a lot about your beliefs :slight_smile:

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Hey Rachel, is there a link to these posts? I can’t find them.
Thank you :smile:

I just tagged you in the one on Fans of Seth, Sam . enjoy, :-)))

Frequently.

That’s actually a different Chris, not me. :smiley:

This may or may not be true, Seth may have said “many” at some point but I do not believe he ever said “most”. However (for the others in this thread) it isn’t of importance either way, as the beliefs exist in the present and are easily changed in the present, the date of their formation is really quite irrelevant. It could be helpful to know why you adopted the belief at that time, but what truly matters is why you hold the belief now. In many cases the answer may be, “well, I believed it at one time when it made sense, and I frankly never questioned it since”, and now, having re-discovered it, you realize there is no good reason to hold it, i.e. it no longer makes sense, and so it is discarded.

In a certain context of study these statements are true, and the system and belief may indeed be quite helpful. Beliefs will quite often have both emotion and imagination (i.e. particular mental pictures) attached with them. However, back to Seth’s teaching: belief generates emotion, belief generates thought, and belief activates imagination. Belief is primary, not emotion. We have emotion, we have thoughts, and we have belief, but we are none of the above. Not identifying with our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions is of utmost importance. Realizing that emotion and thought are the effects and not the causes of belief is highly important. We can use both emotion and imagination in a deliberate conscious manner to alter belief, and that is often how it is done. Without this deliberate conscious action on our part however, they are driven by our belief. Which is why it’s quite helpful to look toward our emotions and thoughts on various subjects to somewhat easily identify our beliefs, and then work at changing them.

Yes exactly.

Yes!

It’s true that precisely when the belief was adopted may be long forgotten (or it could have come from a complex of pre-existing beliefs). I just want to reiterate for readers that this is not important, as the belief exists and is freely examinable in the present. Do not go looking for the source of a problem in the past, this is not helpful, and is instead quite disadvantageous. What matters, the only thing that ever matters, is why you believe it in the present. :wink: And this is available!

This is good advice.

Cheers all.

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@Christopher I thought it started with thoughts, then beliefs then emotion? Of course it becomes like a feedback loop once you get into it, with the beliefs and emotions generating thoughts that generates emotions which causes you to think thoughts etc.

Someone posted in FANS one of Seth’s quotes where he goes further and says that expectation is key to any manifestation and that without it nothing gets done. I think the 5 minute exercise in NOPR is designed to help you generate expectation.

Nope, beliefs. The way I conceptualize it, is that “by default” everything is belief → thought/emotion/imagination. You can deliberately, willfully think thoughts and generate emotion and imagine things to create something that you have conflicting beliefs about, but it will be really difficult, and seem like a chore all the time. You’ll be fighting it. An upstream battle. But if you change the belief the thoughts and emotions will flow naturally. Yes thought and emotion and imagination creates reality, but belief creates those… basically.

I could quote many passages from the beginning of NoPR but it’s about bed time for me!

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I agree with Chris, this is also how I interpret the material.

So do you mean don’t sit there and focus your attention on the past, looking for events that took place, that may or may not have been where you first developed the beliefs? But is it okay to in the moment have the spontaneous insight that ‘wow okay so I believed that in the past because of…but this belief is disadvantageous and I will now change it otherwise it will keep creating this particular reality’ (I realise I’m half repeating what you already said but I’m just trying to clarify it now in my own words).

So going on from what I said above… I had a kind of spontaneous realisation yesterday while arguing with my partner over some fears I have which I realised was coming from certain beliefs that I used to exercise in my past in relation to an ex partner. I still have not quite worked out how the beliefs caused the event that took place yesterday but I can see how they cause me fear in the present. This kind of past ‘working out’ is quite different from sitting there and grilling into your past purposely looking for beliefs, right? (I hope this make sense)

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So (in my own words) what your saying is that constantly thinking positive thoughts and trying to be happy and positive all the time in general is exhausting (and I have attenpted this and it does feel like a chore after a while but I thought I must have been doing it wrong so I stopped)…but just simply
Noticing the thoughts/beliefs in the moment and changing them is easier, or less of a chore. Am I right?

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It is not exhausting with the proper beliefs, but effortless, because the beliefs generate the thoughts and emotions. Forcing them with detrimental beliefs in place is exhausting.

Yes I heartily recommend changing the belief instead. Many times I’ve tried to force the positive attitude about something, even for weeks on end, and in one short 15 minute or so really deliberate introspective session realized I believed a silly thing, and completely transformed how I felt from then on. Yes it is definitely worth it.

You have to remember the core steps: do not identify with your beliefs/thoughts/emotions, you have them but you are not them, you can change them to your liking. Your beliefs are available, in the present, in the conscious mind - that is, the waking part of your mind you use every day, even though you may have formulated the belief (think about it like a judgement if that helps) minutes ago and are no longer thinking about it, it’s still there and accessible. Some may be invisible to you because you are thinking of them as facts of reality. Be on guard. Anything you think of as a fact is a belief. Simply be on guard to this and you will be able to see what you often see through. Seth calls these invisible beliefs, accessible but not noticed. You only have to be on guard, and they will become visible. And of course, finally, you can change these beliefs.

Incidentally, you change those beliefs by applying the deliberately / willfully forced imagination, thought and emotion mentioned earlier, except now you are aware of the belief and you are telling yourself, “this is not necessarily true even though I believe it”. You move thought in this way, you propel ideas. Change beliefs.

This repeats what I just said above, but you may find this post I wrote with exact steps for changing a belief helpful: Child stuck on fearful, anxious thoughts

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The trick in my experience is to remember to do this. I often get so caught up in physical events when I’m feeling blue that I forget all positive reinforcement. This frustrates me because I wish more than anything to be able to remember no matter what the mantras and exercises that would help free me every time! Thank you Chris, I have gotten a lot out of your words and will apply them as best I can. Also, sorry for confusing you with another earlier, at the time I did feel like something was not right in assuming that Chris was yourself :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Well,

“Our external relationships mirror the relationship with our inner self”.
that is inetersting.

I used to be very communicative person and usually got well with others. Now due to some circumstances I am not. The question is then do I have problems with my inner self then? I ask because I find myself deep in trouble right now.

I guess I will write a separate message to discribe and ask for an advise.

Any thoughts?

Warm regards to everyone,

Nickolai

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using your own thinking, imagine what you would advise a friend in your situation. This is solution oriented and why we can quite often see a clearer path for others.
be objective.

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Chris, This the clearest explanation I have ever read! I was actually able to access one of my long held beliefs (basically that if you go to the wrong kindergarten, grammar school, on up, you will not be able to get into the "“old boy network”, no matter how hard you work.) Just now examples of why this is not always true came into my mind. I had always qualified the exceptions before, but after reading your step by step method, I can see this belief melting. BIG thank you!

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Just quoting myself from that other topic.

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Late to this discussion but…for me, it is just an opportunity to get a clearer picture of “why” I am doing what I am doing. Seems just about everything is “belief” driven, and if everything is an illusion, then the engine to it all is ones “beliefs.”