We never act outside of our belief system. If we do, we generally experience dissonance or discomfort at some level. We then can either change the action or change the belief to improve our experience of dissonance or discomfort.
If you wonder what your beliefs are, just observe your behavior or conduct. There is a belief you have that allows you to act on it without any feelings of discomfort at any level. For example, if you get involved with activities that promote health, it is probably because you believe this is something to support and live out or perhaps you believe you should do what other individuals with greater knowledge offer.
We are invited to believe in many things that can be at odds in many ways and make our life a very complex list of do’s and don’ts and potential conflicts.
Some beliefs are myths… some unexamined and others more examined. We choose to believe the myths as true. But, just because a large majority believes something, does not mean the belief is true anymore than when a small minority believes something and we believe it is untrue. Our collective history evidences how some beliefs once held unshakeable, get abandoned. Remember the time when slavery was common practice?
Given the nature of how beliefs create the path we chose to walk, it is prudent to ask ourselves what we believe about any action we give time and energy to support and create.
If we are willing to loosen up our attachments to our beliefs long enough to examine them, we could learn about ourselves without getting so defensive or argumentative or aggressive when someone challenges a belief we hold. Each challenge can help us clarify or perhaps liberate us of what can bind us and keep us from growing, moving forward or becoming more than we can be at any given moment. We can choose to stay in conversations of possibilities or gridlock them. We can choose high roads or low roads. We can rise to an occasion of greatness or step into smallness. All greatness, now or in the past, comes from seeing possibilities and releasing some beliefs…
Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.
theevolvinghealer 