We've all done it. We changed a belief.
Maybe our life experiences have left us unprepared in some way to handle a situation. We believe we can't handle it. But then, maybe we have to, or we screw up our courage and we jump in anyway; and with ease or with some effort, we do manage to achieve our goal. And we learn eventually to not listen to that voice, that fear, that feeling of we "can't." You've changed a belief. And in doing so you have actually rewired your brain.
Cool, huh?
On the Personal Level
As we go through childhood we have experiences: some are easy for us, and some are challenging. Through these experiences we develop a sense of self. Of what we can and cannot do. What we like and don't. And, how we view others as well. Where we fit in the world. And we discover that others have beliefs about us! Some true, others filtered through their own prejudices. When those external cues line up with our internal cues, the world makes some sense. And as long as everything stays in this balance, we feel in control. The brain likes this.
Then We Bump Into the World
Moving out into the world we are confronted with many more challenges. Even the best of upbringings leave us with areas of childhood trauma. Children, especially young ones, are traumatized
fairly easily. A swat on the bum turns a trusted mom into a frightening stranger. A lost toy can turn the world into a place of random sorrow. Getting lost, even for a short time, can turn the world into an unfamiliar place of danger. Seemingly minor events can turn the world of a child from a safe, secure place of love and support to a frightening and unfamiliar landscape. The parameters of safety for little ones are pretty narrow, and adults can kick those fences down pretty easily without even meaning to, or realizing that they have. These events, small as they may seem to an adult, can have life long repercussions. Am I safe? Can I trust? Am I who I think I am, and are you?
How Beliefs are Formed
All through our young life, especially up to around age 6 or 7, our brains take in enormous amounts of information, but with hardly any filters. Everything goes in as truth. If we hear things like, 'what's the matter with you,' or 'stop that' or 'you can't have that_____, because you've been bad,' often enough they become the ground matrix for our self esteem. They lay a bumpy foundation for our sense of self. And we absorb the beliefs of our caregivers. It's how children survive. Make the Big Ones happy.
Then there are the beliefs we form for ourselves. There are experiences that challenge or overwhelm us so much that we vow to never put ourselves in that position again. As adults, the #1 fear is speaking in public, yet we ask this of children all the time! Standing up in front of their classmates for reports and performance tasks like doing math is almost everyone's least favorite part of classroom activities. This could lay the ground for a fear of public speaking that prevents someone from even speaking up in meetings at work.
Families can have cultural beliefs that are handed down to us. I had a tapping client who was told by
her father that if she went to college not to bother coming home again. He had a belief that educated people were something awful, apparently. We unfortunately have many such cultural beliefs that have shaped our society - to the benefit of some and the great detriment to others. We can objectively see that African-American people have through the centuries contributed greatly to science, art, music, and business. Yet some people continue to see them as less than human beings. Every ethnicity and gender, every stripe of humanity has contributed, against great odds, to the society we enjoy now. This is incontrovertible. But yet some people still believe in the myth of the "lesser' human. How can this be true?
It Takes Courage to Change a Belief
We have beliefs that help and support us, as well as beliefs that hold us back. We are at once bold, and fearful. We may blaze business trails with ease, but believe our health is doomed to deteriorate. Or we have loving relationships but can't imagine finishing that college degree. We may believe so strongly in our "can't" that we never even try to try! And we may not even know when these beliefs were formed, or that they are even there. They have just become the background of "who we are."
If we change a belief about ourselves, we may lose status or station in our community. Like my client
who couldn't go home again, or the person who stops being the 'go-to' person in the family. The person who starts speaking up for themselves, instead of just going along to keep the peace. These are people for whom the pain of staying as they are is greater than the fear of changing. That is their personal growth. But the people around them have not asked for this change! Yet, in these relationships, if one member changes the others have to change as well. They may have to do more, listen more, accommodate more. And if voluntary change is hard, imagine how difficult having change foisted on you is.
Big Cultural Beliefs George Washington Carver For One
As I said earlier, the contribution of thousands and thousands of, known and unknown, black and brown people to culture and civilization and science been enormous. As well as Asians, Native Americans and all the other groups of people that have contributed to our society in so many ways. These beliefs in the inferiority of other ethnicities and races , this racism, can be a "family heirloom," passed from generation to generation. To go against your family, perhaps a beloved father, and the cultural ethic you were born into can be difficult. Many never question the beliefs that they were born into. To do so you face the loss of your family, or business, and many other losses. Or, so it would seem. The fearful mind only sees the potential for loss. It doesn't see the possibility of benefit. To contemplate this kind of change will feel physically awful. It will produce great anxiety and stress. And we've been taught that feeling awful is bad, so we avoid it scrupulously. And as awful, and obviously harmful, as racism and white supremacy is, it may be easier to not challenge the status quo. And ultimately institutions are supported and maintained, policed, by individuals.
Change is hard. And even if you don't want what you have, or to think as you do, to try to change requires great neurological and emotional restructuring. And the brain doesn't like to do that. To support this un-changing state, the brain selectively finds and allows you to see only what makes you most comfortable. And systemic, cultural racism is supported by the individual actions, conscious or unconscious, of most members of the society.
Hate is a high energy emotion. And our nervous systems can become addicted to high cortisol, high adrenaline states. To come down from that is like withdrawing from a drug. It doesn't feel good. And sometimes, our brain is all about making us feel safe, even if it kills us.
So, to avoid the pain of change we double down on our beliefs and refute any contradictory information, called evidence and facts, by "Others". We demonize these 'others' which makes it easy for us to ignore and disparage them. We literally can't see the facts right in front of us. It is too scary and hard and our brains protect us by keeping us blind to what is in fact true.
This leaves others so confounded because to support racism one has to engage in all sorts of rewriting of history and even religion, and willful blindness. How can it be easier to hold to these old racist beliefs rather than open into love and embrace a wider more beautiful world? How can it feel better to engage in this endless hatred and not open to love?
I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that we 're not going to 'think' ourselves out of it. But, I think, it's my belief, that more love is the only answer. Love feels good and counterbalances the fear of change, the pain of seeing what we have not perceived before. And I'm not talking romantic love, or wishful thinking about the goodness of everyone. I'm hoping more people will engage The Heart that just loves all. That sees from the perspective that all of humanity is one. That to harm another is intrinsically to harm one's self. That we were all formed perfectly. That superficial differences are delightful. It is expansive, allowing us to take our attention off of our own survival needs, and move into creativity. Guiding our actions and allowing us to change even more.
Change comes to some more easily than others, obviously. Those of us who are ready to embrace the pain and challenge of seeing our real history and making sure the future looks nothing like the worst parts we are learning about now, are able to and ready to feel uncomfortable for a greater good. So we can all get to the Beloved Community our hearts yearn towards.
